Plot: I want to send a friend a message but don’t have their email address. I do know that they’re on MySpace. Should be pretty simple to ping them over there, right?

Scenario 1

This person is already my friend on MySpace.

1. Fire up myspace.com.
2. Search for the name.
3. Click on the profile link.
4. Click “Send Message” in contact options.
5. Take a minute to figure out that you’ve just been bounced back to the front page.

If you spot the “you must be logged in to do that” message, proceed to the next step. Otherwise, start over.

6. Log in.
7. Use the form to send a note to your friend.

6 page views, 37 ad impressions to send a note. Assuming, of course, that I remember my password and don’t wander.

Scenario 2

This person is not yet my friend on MySpace.

1. Fire up myspace.com.
2. Search for the name.
3. Click on the profile link.
4. Click add to friends.
5. Submit form.
6. Wait for friend to accept me. (This will take him 3 page views to do.)
7. Receive authorization from friend by via MySpace.
8. Log in
9. View automated acceptance message.
10. Click on profile link.
11. Click “Send Message” in contact options.
12. Use the form to send a note to your friend.

11 page views, something like 54 ad impressions to send a note.

Scenario 3

I don’t have a MySpace account.

1. Fire up myspace.com.
2. Click sign up.
3. Proceed through 5 – 7 pages of profile information.
4. Submit.
5. Check email for confirmation request.
6. Click confirmation link.
7. Search for the name.
8. Click on the profile link.
9. Click add to friends.
10. Submit form.
11. Wait for friend to accept me. (This will take him 3 page views to do.)
12. Receive authorization from friend by via MySpace.
13. Log in
14. View automated acceptance message.
15. Click on profile link.
16. Click “Send Message” in contact options.
17. Use the form to send a note to your friend.

18-21 page views if I know exactly what I’m doing, fill out all information immediately, and do not add any photos. I also have two trips to my email client and cause my friend to 6 page views to accept my request and then read my note. Ad impressions will vary slightly depending on the path, but I saw approximately 80.

Let’s not forget that these are 6 to 21 of the most cluttered pages you’ll find on the Internet. It takes serious dedication to not wander off.

Maybe it’s time for an outside review.

Bang in their name or not, it’s hard to get excited about Yahoo! Even after a year’s worth of commentary following Brad Garlinghouse’s peanut butter manifesto, I still don’t get their corporate strategy or see any forward progress. Maybe I don’t care enough about their brand to pay attention any more.

That said, I’m at Flickr every day. And upcoming. And del.icio.us. And MyBlogLog. And if Y! could pull off a Twitter acquisition, they’d have all the components for a fundamentally improved social experience (and the perfect mouse trap for my online attention).

Presence. Check.

That’s right, I included MyBlogLog in a short list of apps that I hit on a daily basis. I won’t try to change your mind on the service itself, but if ever there was an app that almost implemented the foundation for the perfect social network, it’s MBL.

MyBlogLog decentralizes presence. There is no log in wall, no data lockdown, no single destination. Just a networked profile and a footprint that surfaces on participating services. It’s a simple idea. But it’s fundamentally better than the opposite approach of old networks like facebook.

So, assuming MBL & Y! realized their full potential, you’d no longer have to play constant gardener to profiles scattered across the internets.

Content. Check.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t produce content inside closed networks. My blog posts, Flickr streams, Tweets, bookmarks, etc, are all available for re-syndication. So, hypothetically, I could roll all my content into a single-point stream of consciousness and call it my online me.

But I prefer the idea of leaving it in the field. My Tweets have more context with friends than without. My Flickr photos are organized in sets, collections, and groups. My bookmarks are tagged. My events list other attendees. My posts have comments. (Sometimes.)

In other words, content has more meaning in its native habitat. (Much of that habitat being Y! properties.) And as much as I dig Jaiku, I think a lifestream could be a lot more than a blended river of xml.

Connections. Check.

Far be it from me to criticize anything that Microsoft values at greater than $15B, but my issue with facebook is that I have to be a registered facebook user and facebook friend of another facebook user to interact with them inside facebook. What if we’re already Twitter pals? Facebook doesn’t care.

Yahoo! could care. With very little effort. It could see that I’ve friended / followed a member of one of its niche communities and extend that connection throughout its properties. It could show me streams from friends specific to events I’m attending. It could let me know when friends are in my vicinity. It could do more. And with MBL, they could extend this even further.

Yahoo! remains a player. I wonder if they’re aware.