Myspace and Social Networking
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Sav Banerjee
Webliography for MKT 352
Topic : MySpace and other social networking companies as Internet Advertising Revenues. Factors to consider are the business models for these websites, their rising popularity, and the attraction of brands to advertise themselves in social networking websites (especially MySpace)
1. OMalley, Gavin “MySpace vs. eBay? Site leaps into e-commerce.” Advertising Age; September 11 2006, Vol. 77 Issue 37, p6-6, 2/5p, 1 chart, 1c < This article discusses the need for a revenue model for social networking websites like myspace.com. Myspace is a very active web destination, second only to yahoo in terms of page views. There are 106 million profiles on myspace.com. With such a prime web real estate, Myspace enjoys an excellent opportunity to serve as an advertising venue for prospective marketers to advertise their products. Similar to musicians, direct marketers can take advantage of MySpace to target a feasible and large target audience. Very similar to their classifieds platform, Myspace also has a display advertising section, which can be targeted and suited to a very selective target audience. This will also increase traffic for MySpace, and using a similar model like yahoo or AOL, their ad revenues can shine superbly. Due to the diversity of the member base of its website, MySpace can select the pages that any offer can be placed. 2. Sowa, Tom "Space to grow: More businesses are using MySpace" Spokesman-Review, The (Spokane, WA); 10/16/2006 < This article in the Spokesman Review discusses the importance of Myspace and social networking sites to monetize revenue for smaller businesses. Smaller cities like Spokane, Washington are having businesses like smaller bookstores advertise on MySpace. Most audiences that regional base are finding it informative to know about local businesses. 3. Adegoke, Yinka "AMERICA: Why mainstream advertisers are launching into MySpace" Marketing Week, May 25 2006 < The world of web media is constantly changing. The online media industry has always been in a state of flux, and now with the rise of Web 2.0, social networking has taken the online advertising industry by storm. While traditional marketing has not witnessed a phenomena called social evolution - newer brands are taking advantage of this target market, and launching their brands in user generated content websites like Myspace to put themselves in front of Americas youth today. Eyeballs or "audience" seem to rule the business model for these social networking and hence companies like Honda Motors, Wendys and Cingular Wireless have scored contracts with Myspace to give their brands more exposure to the Gen Y, who have a massive spending power and are demonstrating signs of changing the economy. The power of the Internet unfolds into social networking as targeting, reach ability, interactivity, and other factors make it easier for brands to target to their consumer. The interactive aspect of the web also helps these brands connect directly with the consumers and have the latter play with the brand. Consumer interest on the net is peeking, and brands have to take advantage of that. 4. Ad-Age staff "The Water cooler" Advertising Age (Midwest region edition) Chicago edition. November 20 2006. < This article in the advertising age discusses the rise of social networking giant MySpace.com in a report prepared by Credit Suisse First Boston. The report announces MySpace as the toughest and single largest media platform and network on the web. It is fascinating to note how MySpace rose to this level, surpassing media power by web giants Google and Yahoo. In the last one year, MySpace grew 347% with a total number of profiles to 130 million, making itself a high visibility website for brands to advertise. 5. McDermott, Irene E.1 "I need MySpace" Searcher; Apr2006, Vol. 14 Issue 4, p22-25, 4p, 3bw. < Irene McDermott talks about the popularity of MySpace in this article in the Searcher Internet magazine. Online social networking can be compared to those times when people get tied up to the phone for hours to stay in touch with other people. Teenagers are into online social networking because it allows them to express themselves, meet new people and keep up with friends. They even spend hours online decorating their pages and writing messages. This story goes into breadth discussing how MySpace is beating all competition and moving ahead. The article primarily focuses on the applications side of MySpace, which makes MySpace more desirable than its competitors Friendster, Bebo, Xanga and other social networking websites. MySpace offers to its target audience (mostly young people) applications such as music, streaming videos, instant messaging and blogging at no cost at all. Another cool feature that is attractive to young people is the ability to rate photos of other members, a very similar feature applied by the popular website www.hotoronot.com. All these applications are attracting more users to sign up every day, making MySpace a popular destination site, also lucrative for media vendors to sell advertising space. The site is also supported by banner ads, which turned out to be a profitable business model. 6) Horovitz, Bruce "Survey: Social-network