I've used MySpace since the biggest attraction was Tom's one billion friends (way long ago), and Facebook just after they clamped down on Beacon's potential privacy abuses. There have been a lot of good elements that I've discovered on both sides, as well as a few quirks and glaring deficiencies. Here is how MySpace compares in my opinion to Facebook. The end tally surprised even me!

1. Locality. MySpace is awesomely the king here. I used to be able to network with local people in droves (see #8 and #9). Facebook made a major blunder with its "Networks" segregation; I tried for months to get a Portsmouth, New Hampshire network but the nearest networks were Manchester, NH and Portsmouth, England. Now there's a network called "City of Portsmouth". Portsmouth England? Portsmouth VA? Portsmouth NH? Ridiculous... scrap it like Beacon, FB, will ya? Edge: MySpace.

2. Customization. Facebook blew the social networking world away with its add-on applications, finally allowing people to make money directly on their pages, cross-promote with other networks, and illustrate things in-page instead of with clumsy links. WIth applications for eBay, Second Life, and Twitter, and the ability to post links, including affiliate links, with limited fear of retribution, Facebook is my choice in this area. MySpace is finding ways to catch up, but most apps there seem to be for anything but business, including the business apps ("Bar Maps"), and appear more focused toward the blingtard demographic. MySpace does allow more template customization, but really, how much of it do we really need? Edge: Facebook.

3. Focuses. MySpace has a glitzy, informal feeling to it; it's a great place for shooting the breeze and wasting time with your friends online until it's time to go hit a bar you've found with Bar Maps. Entertainment ads filter all through the pages, offering movie clips and cable TV, ringtones and music. The high school, college, and young adult segments seem to gladly bear the impact of this marketing effort. Bands, media companies, writers, and other creative types gravitate toward MySpace as users because young users are where the money is, and MySpace offers people easy access to advertising and promotion. MySpace has always had a secondary professional networking membership, but Facebook has addressed this group's needs efficiently, and I have seen serious marketing efforts graduate to FB. Edge: Facebook.

4. Privacy. MySpace has always had a more comfortable privacy policy. I never felt I had to carefully monitor every single comment, post, purchase, recommendation, or test. I joined Facebook after the Beacon debacle, but was still unsettled at how much information could radiate out; I had one creepy close call with someone claiming to know me. Mostly it's due to the fact your identity is your first and last name, not something like a flexible MySpace identity. Though you can hide your first and last name from people on Facebook, I am trying to make the most of networking and catching up with school friends. I guess it's a calculated risk. Edge: MySpace.

5. Fun. MySpace is like a visit from a black sheep uncle who never settled down. Facebook is like a stodgy great-uncle showing you his collection of card tricks in the trophy room. Again, it's the audiences these companies are trying to reach. True, both have gaming and entertainment apps and video, but Facebook is working toward business ads and MySpace is focused on discretionary income and how best to part with it. Edge: MySpace.

6. Advertising presentation and opportunities. I've clicked on maybe two ads on MySpace in several years of use. In about an eight-month period, I've clicked on eight ads on Facebook. Why? Because the ads were targeted to me. I've never seen Second Life, blogging, or programming ads on MySpace, just wave after wave of cable, movie, music, car, dating, and band ads. Everything is in Flash and the production values are intimidating to a Joe Average like me who's used to nothing more than an AdSense campaign.

Facebook's ad system looks very flexible, easy to design, and the prices seem reasonable. However, I've heard of people spending decent amounts on it and not getting much back. My guess would be to blog on MySpace for real income, and use affiliate apps and post links like crazy on Facebook. Edge: Neither.

7. Specialization.

MySpace's profile page still seems to do it for me. It's friendly-looking, accessible, easy to read, and the information types are appealing ice-breakers. With the heavy emphasis on music, there's a robust selection of songs to choose from. The only thing I'd like is to be able to post an affiliate link without getting the evil eye. If MySpace could just grab a cut from doing so I would be perfectly happy putting up affiliate links there.

Facebook's look is more business, and music apps need to be hunted for and nailed down on one's page. That's the very slight downside of FB customization: you start out with no apps, like a babe in the woods, but over time you are able to gravitate toward some excellent tools.

MySpace's groups are gargantuan and varied. I hope to have time someday to take advantage of them as I should. I can imagine posting a single blog link in a group of 5,000 and clicking my AdSense reports with glee. MS groups have had a few years to build, and I like them. Their downside is that they are hard to search for in-site; I haven't been able to understand why some groups show up when they're the total opposite of what I want, and sometimes search has been so lousy I've given up on smaller groups I know should be there.

Facebook has some massive groups, but they're pretty spammy, LCD networking groups I keep hoping will crush themselves off the top of the search results. Just below that, though, are solid, easy-to-find groups with dedicated members and organized purposes. Group information is slightly more detailed and varied here, with room for contact info and multiple websites, and I like that. I haven't seen as much participation in FB groups; maybe it's the nature of professionals to be a little more reserved than the typical tech-accustomed MySpacer. Edge: MySpace (for now).

8. Spam. I hate MySpace's spam whores. Take the super-hot cheerleaders who always used to tease me in high school, age them 10 years, give them their own MySpace pages and soulless, robotic male-targeting AI, and I'm ready to throw my monitor across the room by the time I check my MySpace non-friend requests (see #9). You would think that a company owned by Rupert Murdoch and making $100 per cable TV ad (I know how much affiliates make,,, take a look at how prevalent they are on MySpace sometime) would be better at weeding out these idiotic porn profiles. To MySpace's credit, I at least see that many spam profiles have been relegated to X-ed out ghosts by the time I see them, and I'm giving Captcha a try on several fronts. Now, to control the flood of junk in my FB inbox... I should get out of 100 groups, but at least I have never run into a single fly-by-night spam account while on FB. Edge: Facebook.

9. New friends rate. I used to get a friend request or two a week with my small MySpace profiles. Now no one even knows I exist on MySpace. I suspect Facebook and others have a lot to do with drawing away a lot of MySpace clients. Ah, the good old days... As for Facebook, I love being able to hear from lots of people I went to school with, find people from Second Life, and meet up with a flood of kindred entrepreneurs and the occasional worthwhile curveball. Edge: Facebook.

10. Maximum friends. If I could develop a social networking account with a tenth as many friends as Christine Dolce, MySpace's Forbidden, and a majority of these people were interested in my profile content, I would stand to make ungodly money if .5% of them took interest in what I was promoting. Maybe compounding 30 friends a month times a few years will pay off like bank interest. It's more of a pipe dream than anything, but if anyone will help me get mass exposure over time, I think it might be MySpace, with quantity over quality. Edge: MySpace.

Total score: MySpace 5, Facebook 4. I thought I was a shoo-in for writing up a pro-Facebook article, as I use it a lot more. But, since both of these applications do tremendous jobs on their own turf, maybe is time for me to start using them a little more equally.