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As the social networking site gets the boot, there are lessons to be learned

The kids are ditching MySpace for Facebook. According to the latest numbers from comScore Media Metrix, U.S. MySpace visitors under 18 dropped 30 percent over the past year, while Facebook's nearly tripled.

Why the exodus?

Is it simply the fickle nature of teens? Is it because Facebook, with its ties to real-world school affiliations, seems safer? Or could it be that average American teenagers don’t want to be labeled like this:

Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. (sic)

That’s how UC Berkeley researcher danah boyd (lowercase is how she legally spells it) described teen MySpace users in her “blog essay” Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace, which exploded all over the Internet last month