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Facebook focuses on your network; Myspace focuses on the individual. Their respective domain names accurately reflect their underlying themes: Facebook is indeed nothing but a book of faces. You don't bother to read your new friend's profile. Your eyes are immediately drawn to Who They Know, the network. This is my deck of cards, deck of faces, does it hold more hit points than yours?

Facebook only scratches the surface of your personality; MySpace dives into a deeper level of disposition if the user chooses so. If a MySpace user pours some effort into personalizing their page, you can get a feel for their individual persona after thirty seconds of skimming their profile. The other side of the blade being some folks excessively customize to the point where the page is unreadable. Some of you people have the fugliest backgrounds. Anyways, MySpace encourages you to reveal your true self; go buck wild since you have the option of keeping your profile as intimate or anonymous as a user desires.

Facebook continues to pressure socializing by remaining a closed network. There's been scruff lately about Facebook not remaining closed to college communities. BUT, spectators remain locked out. You have to play the game; you must instigate requests to access your distant acquaintances' profiles. Note this level of privacy is also another customizable feature available on MySpace.

Is anyone else uncomfortable using our birth names on Facebook? Facebook breeds a hidden paranoia. My girlfriend warns me, you never know. You could cross paths with your own faculty, co-workers, or potential employees.' If that's the case, we are forced to project the most conservative identity to prevent scaring off our conservative colleagues. How else am I supposed to integrate social groups from high school, college, and the office without exposing bygone closeted skeletons?

As for the page layout, MySpace slams you with the basic facts upfront. From left to right, MySpace provides us your alias, profile picture, last logon date (Facebook lacks this useful factoid), geographic location, and the blogs. No scrolling required! You have to extrapolate a Facebooker's online activity based on the user's recent shenanigans.

Where are Facebook's blogs? Granted, Facebook has buttloads of photos, but I want a glimpse inside the minds of my peers. Pictures document the posterior, and blogs document the interior. What's going on behind those shaded eyes? The public blog is a literary weapon of mass destruction.

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