Former MySpace CEO explains why Facebook was able to dominate social media despite coming second

Science

Mike Jones, the former head of MySpace and current CEO of LA tech incubator Science Inc., has been in the tech and social media scene since the beginning.

We asked the veteran tech guru to look back and answer a big historical question: Why was Facebook able to dominate social media despite coming after the wildly successful MySpace?

According to him, it was simple.

"The real problem was that the world had been trained by MySpace that social networking was interesting, but the actual product had been perfected by Facebook," Jones told Business Insider.

Facebook's killer feature was that it replicated the real world by forcing people to use their real names, whereas MySpace users used pseudonymous handles, says Jones.

When MySpace started, the concept of giving out your real name, your identity, or photos of yourself to a website were all considered "risky behaviors." MySpace began the process of convincing people to move past that fear. Facebook ended that discussion.

Silicon Alley InsiderThe crucial period when Facebook finally put the nail in MySpace's coffin.

Once people had become accustomed to that idea though, says Jones, people realized that the software needed to do social media correctly was Facebook, not MySpace.

"The training of the world to use social networking led to the growth of Facebook, which led to the demise of MySpace," says Jones.