MySpace: zeroing in on YOU
p2pnet news | Advertising:- It all looks so, well, innocuous —- innocent, even.
“MySpace said today that it soon would allow not just big advertisers but also everyday users to target increasingly narrow slices of MySpace’s membership,” says the Los Angeles Times.
It’s a “potentially large step toward boosting ad revenue and peer-to-peer commerce,” meaning buckets of money.
Literally (see below 
)
P2p is supposed to be about sharing, not polluting, but MySpace is grouping users, “into increasingly specific categories” and, “has let dozens of big companies aim ads at users that MySpace has identified as sports fans or movie fans, for example,” says the story.
And it’s even come up with a neat new buzz-phrase: HyperTargeting.
Of ‘hyper, ‘fanatical; rabid,” says Dictionary.com.
MySpace today said it’ll launch its “SelfServe” advertising platform, “and expand its ‘HyperTargeting’ advertising platform, which provides “customized tools” so advertisers can, “upload their own ads and select the types of users they want to see them based on geographic, demographic and user interest criteria,” says Dow Jones.
Hmmm. Where do they get all that information? Did you give it to them? Guess you must have.
“Social networking sites offer enormous promise to advertisers because of the vast amount of information entered by users on their profile pages – including geographical information, hobbies, employment and other details,” says Times Online, going on:
There have also been fears that personal information intended to be kept private could be used by the networks for advertising purposes, which has led MySpace to assure users that only the details they choose to display publicly will be used.
As part of its new platform, MySpace, which is owned by News Corporation, the parent company of Times Online, will divide its users into more than 100 categories with names like ‘movies’, ‘travel’ and ‘auto’, based on information in their profiles. Advertisers will then be able to target campaigns at people who are more likely to be interested in seeing them.
MySpace also wants to narrow the possibilities down even further. With that in mind, it’s building lists of people with more specific interests,to enable an even greater degree of relevance for a particular advert” because, “The more specific the information that an advertiser elects to make use of, the more it will pay.”
Nor will it stop there
Times Online has MySpace boss Chris de Wolfe saying he hopes to expand the number of categories, aka ‘buckets,’ to more than 1,000 in the coming months.
MySpace is also “collaborating” on a $13, 160-page children’s environmental paperback, which means we can now expect cynical quotes about how News Corp, MySpace’s official owner and handler, has always had world environments at heart, etc, etc, p2pnet posted.
The environment and HyperTargeting! Just think of the possibilities!
Meanwhile, Facebook, is getting ready to announce details of its new platform tomorrow,” says the story, adding:
“Reports suggest that it will give users the option of letting the site track their movements on the web at large.”
No need to stay tuned.
Also See:
Los Angeles Times – MySpace will let users aim advertising at site members, November 5, 2007
Dow Jones – MySpace To Launch New Ad Platform, Expand Targeting Platform, November 5, 2007
Times Online – Social networks get personal with ‘hyper-targeting’, November 5, 2007
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