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Dan Rubin's SuperfluousBanter

Design, random musings, and the Web. Since 1977

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MySpace: Now not quite as ugly

Update: I was a little too quick hitting the “Publish” button, and forgot to include a link to my profile (duh). The text has now been updated, or you can go directly there »

If you’ve ever had a conversation with me about MySpace, you know how I despise it with a passion unequaled by possibly anyone else on the planet. OK, maybe not anyone else, but certainly anyone who has a MySpace account. Except Mike D., he hates it more than I do (but for the same reasons).

Most of that hatred comes from its piss-poor (technical term) user interface design, which doesn’t seem to be (and never has been) a priority for Tom and pals. It’s been described as “ghetto design” by some, and that’s just the crap you can see on the surface (web standards junkies, like me, cringe when looking at the source code, but enough about my level of über-geekness…).

I was really planning to dig into the bowels of the profile code myself, to see what could be done, but after wasting half a day on it earlier in the year, I put the project on the back burner. This week, I decided I’d had enough, and with the help of Mike D’s “Extreme Makeover: MySpace Edition” kit (my name), and a few minutes in Photoshop, my profile page is now sporting a new, exfoliated skin (mmm, smells like oranges…).

And if any of you know Rupert Murdoch, put him in touch with me, I have a plan to help him “fix” MySpace, and save some money, without alienating his precious users…

This item was posted by Dan Rubin on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

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17 comments on “MySpace: Now not quite as ugly”

  1. Posted by Joshua Bryant on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    How bout a link?

  2. Posted by Dan Rubin on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    Thanks for catching my stupidity Joshua, post updated :)

  3. Posted by Joshua Bryant on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    Sweet, looks nice. Way to match it to your blog, I did the same thing with mine.

    Nice work!

  4. Posted by Jeff Croft on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    Damn, nice job man. Love the MP3s, too. Great singing, and the player is even pretty sexy.

  5. Posted by Wade Winningham on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    I suppose you’ll be shutting down all your email accounts now and exclusively using MySpace now. I’d like to know when “Rubin Sings Sinatra” will be out?

  6. Posted by Dan Rubin on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    @ Joshua: Nice job, I can’t wait to see more designers on MySpace putting Mike’s template to good use…

    @ Jeff: Aww, you’re just saying that because we’re writing a book together ;)

    @ Wade: Well, of course, isn’t that the new hip thing to do? And I’ll have a CD out as soon as someone is ready to foot the bill ;)

  7. Posted by Will Norris on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    Oh come on Dan, music automatically playing when the page loads? I would expect that from the 12 year old script kiddies that make up 95% of the MySpace population, but not from you. Don’t get me wrong, it looks great and I actually like the music (didn’t know you were a musician, just read your blog for the design stuff), but I always get offended when websites push their music onto me without asking first. What, are they just assuming that I’m not already playing my own music and want to listen to their trash?

    Just my two cents… again, great design though.

  8. Posted by Dan Rubin on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    @ Will: But that’s part of the “MySpace User Experience Interface Experience™” — why would you want to miss out on that? :)

    And we all have to indulge the “12 year old script kid”inside us every once in a while, it’s actually quite liberating… that said, I’ll think about turning off the auto-play. Either that, or I’ll have to convince every designer on MySpace to put that MP3 player on their profile and play my songs :P

  9. Posted by Mike D. on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    Nice looking page! Good use of the Kit!

    On another note, whenever I hear that song, I think of the toilet bowl cleaner commercial with the spoof “I’ve Got You, Under My Rim.”

  10. Posted by Jina Bolton on Sunday, July 30th, 2006.

    Dan, gimme some mp3s and I’ll add your songs to my player!

    And Will…. I hear ya, I feel the same… but this is Myspace… and while I don’t like to hear someone’s trash, Dan’s myspace is about him, and his music is him… and gives you a more in-depth picture of who he is.

    So nah. ;)

  11. Posted by Kevin on Monday, July 31st, 2006.

    Nice.

  12. Posted by Steven Ametjan on Monday, July 31st, 2006.

    Most of that hatred comes from its piss-poor (technical term) user interface design, which doesn’t seem to be (and never has been) a priority for Tom and pals.

    I take offense to that statement as while I was there proper design, usability, and accessibility were my utmost priorities. But I will agree that the rest of the people there didn’t care, and had no clue about those issues. All they cared about was getting things done as quickly as possible, and making it feel as homegrown as possible.

  13. Posted by Matthew Anderson on Monday, July 31st, 2006.

    I love it, Dan. The irony of it is almost unbearable. I for one, love the Sinatra auto-load. Definitely keep that! Reminds me, next time we see each other, we’ve got to set aside some a cappella time. I know quite a few jazz standards.

  14. Posted by Chris Griffin on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006.

    OMFG DAN RUBIN YOU ARE SO AWESOME DESIGNER…..WILL YOU BE MY MYSPACE FREND?!?!?!?!

    I kid, no but really will you be my myspace friend?

  15. Posted by Colly on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006.

    Blimey. Its like finding a diamond in a big stinking pile of shit. Good work. Murdoch needs to get on the blower, and fast…

  16. Posted by Jonas on Saturday, August 26th, 2006.

    Nice…

    But what I really want to know is if you transcribed the “It had to be you” arrangement yourself, or if it’s available as midi file somewhere?

    Great singing!

  17. Posted by Almanca tercüman on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008.

    I suppose you’ll be shutting down all your email accounts now and exclusively using MySpace now..