TechCrunch has what appears to be a screenshot of AIM’s competitor to MySpace called AIM Pages. The interface looks a lot cleaner than MySpace and hopefully they will have the ability to have built in skins to change the look and feel. I think that’s one thing that MySpace lacks are a good ways to customize the page using skins. Sure there are other sites out there that help you but they are much more restricted compared to what the owner of the site could do. If the skins were efficient the user’s profile would be streamline and load without stalling.
Like most people have done with their MySpace is put pictures on the front of the page. As you can see in the screenshot, the user’s pictures are right on the front page. There eliminates unnecessary clicking that the viewer doesn’t need to do.
Another nice feature, since it is AOL is the integration of the AIM service into the profiles. They can take a huge user base and be able to interact from the web to their AIM service. Even though MySpace is looking into their own instant messaging client AIM holds control of that and has a solid user base in its hands.
Social networking is a tough market to tackle, especially when MySpace has such a stronghold on the market. So what will dethrone MySpace? The answer is a product that is better and more efficient MySpace. Is AIM Pages that product? We’ll have to wait and see.
