ABBA On The Web - March 2008

The internet and the world-wide web continue to evolve. Originally we had mailing lists and newsgroups (discussed in issue #84, September 2005) and static websites (featured in most of these columns). Then things became more interactive with bulletin boards and forums (also discussed in issue #84), wiki (issue #87, June 2006), and blogs (issue #89, December 2006) and the so-called “web 2.0”.

The two most popular websites for this new level of interaction are the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. No doubt you have heard of them – it seems that hardly a day goes by when one or the other is not in the news for some reason.

And, of course, there is quite a lot to interest the ABBA fan on both these sites, which is why we are talking about them in this column.

With both MySpace and Facebook, users create a profile and gather friends. On MySpace, users can add photos, audio and videos, post blog entries, add comments to their friends’ profiles or send private messages to each other. On Facebook, users can add photo albums, personal information, can post comments, pictures, videos and more on friends’ profiles, send private messages, and also have a range of games and other features that can be shared online. It is easy to sign up for both, though it is not necessarily so easy to work out how to customise your profile.

On MySpace, there are a number of ABBA groups that fans can join to share in their love of ABBA, including ABBA Thank You For The Music, ABBA Mania!, ABBA Fans, and ABBA GOLD, though there is not a lot of activity in some of these groups. Search for “ABBA” and you will find these groups and more, but also hundreds of identified ABBA fans.

Musicians also use MySpace as a promotional tool, with music and video samples, and often to try out new recordings or to release their latest singles. Though there is no official ABBA presence, Ludvig Andersson’s band Ella Rouge and Nanne Grönvall both have MySpace profiles. ABBA The Museum also has a MySpace profile, with photos, videos and news about the museum opening in Stockholm next year. Users can also join these as “friends”.

There are no official profiles for the former ABBA members, though there are several profiles for each that look like official profiles, but closer examination shows that they are clearly fan-created.

One of the most interesting ABBA-related items on MySpace is an interview with Björn, conducted in September 2007 for the international television documentary project Why Democracy?, where he answers ten questions on democracy.

On MySpace, profiles can be viewed without signing in or even having your own MySpace profile. That is not the case with Facebook, where you must have a profile and log in to see anything.

Like MySpace, Facebook has a number of groups that fans can join, including ABBA – The Facebook Group, ABBA Is My Life, ABBA (aka the best group EVER), ABBA!, and ABBA Forever.

There are also several groups for the individual members, including Anni-frid ‘Frida’ of Abba, The Anni-Frid :yngstad Experience (so-named due to an unfortunate typo), Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Bror Göran Andersson, and Benny & Bjorn The Greatest Songwriters Ever. There is also a group for fans of the MAMMA MIA! musical.

On Facebook, you also find a number of quizzes, and you can test your ABBA knowledge against friends and other fans.

These are just some of the ABBA-related experiences you can have on MySpace and Facebook.

Note: since this article went to print, a new fan group ABBA; Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaues, Anni Frid Lyngstad has been created. An official Mamma Mia! The Movie – Official UK Page has also been launched. Unlike Friends, some features of Facebook Groups can be viewed without logging in or having a Faceboook profile.

Fan groups ABBA Intermezzo, ABBA Remember and Raffem.com now have Facebook groups, while ABBAMAIL has a MySpace profile. Since writing this article, literally dozens of ABBA groups have appeared on Facebook - see the F or Fan contacts pages or New Links in the Links section - click on Links in the navigation bar above.

ABBA World now has a profile on Facebook and MySpace, and also the ABBA World group on MySpace.

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