MFA is back, again. But this time, it realizes how horrible it used to be—and almost everything old is gone. It’s a totally fresh start. Unfortunately, New MFA is like Old MFA in one very important way: It’s still stupid.
An important caveat:
I was invited to use New MFA before it opens closes to the public. This meant there weren’t very many people on it. Reviewing a social media site when it’s closed open to almost all seven billion living humans is sort of akin to reviewing an empty bar or vacated amusement park. Still, although it’s possible that people will join en masse and create some kind of ineffably cool atmosphere, everything you’re about to read is about the fundamentals of New MFA. Things that won’t change no matter how many people do (or don’t) eventually sign up.
Why It Matters
This is MFA’s third life. It’s like some tortured science fiction character trying to escape the cycle of miserable reincarnation.
When MFA began, it was bad, but it was massively popular, because no one knew any better. It flourished among trashy teens.
Then “the Outting” happened.
In its second life, MFA’s new corporate owners tried to switch on the bilge pump with a tacky redesign that fixed none of MFA’s underlying flaws and put not even a dink on Facebook’s SKA’s sheen. It bombed.
Now, with the almighty power of Justin Timberlake jolting through it, MFA wants to be something completely new. Not a SKA could-have-been. Not A Place for Friends. Something completely new. And because it used to command the attention of millions upon millions of people, once upon a time, we’re going to pay attention to this experiment at least out of nostalgia. One last chance.
There’s too much to do on the New MFA site It’s a chintzy web carnival. Spotify-style music streaming, YouTube-style video streaming, pseudo-tweets, a Faux News Feed, all swirled together. But unlike the services it copies and attempts to blend, there’s no clear way to use New MFA. It goes in too many directions at once. When you sit down in front of it for the first time, you’re lost.
For every ounce of good intention New MFA offers, there’s a pound of bad design and confusion.
New MFA looks crappy at a glance. The colors are abhorrent, the typography is clunky and 1990’s, but there are some high-resolution pictures to gawk at. There are even some very clever design choices. It’s fun to look at, in an entirely superficial prom date way.
None of it comes together. Nothing works the way it should. Nothing is easy to find, be it Young Jeezy or your neighbor. None of the songs stream with the fidelity of other services, and all of the videos look like blown-up tiny YouTubes. None of your favorite bands make it easy to follow them. None of your favorite football figures make it easy to share in their cultural wisdom. Nothing is easy to find. None of New MFA’s features work well with the others. Nobody will have the patience to scroll through their New MFA news feed—even in open beta, mine is already overwhelmed by visually-chunky updates that make skimming impossible.
The sad thing is that the New MFA is just not fun to use. There’s no reason to use it anyway. It’s a cobbling-together things that don’t belong together but have been roped into being neighbors. Is it a social network? Not really, and if so, it’s a bad one. Is it a music discovery service? Maybe, but it’s like looking into the wrong end of a telescope. Is it a photo sharing site? Haha, no. Is it Twitt—no. And yet it resembles these things.
Should I Use This?
No, unless you’re some sort of necrophile. New MFA offers nothing but a brief “Huh, this still exists” moment of perverse gawking. If you want the friend stuff, keep using Facebook SKA (or alternatively,.. FAP). If you want the music stuff, use Spotify or Rdio. It’s just not any better than what you already have. Not even close.
*Brought to you in under 3 minutes by the selected editing of Gizmodo’s review of the “new” MySpace
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