MySpace To Launch Targeted Ad System
MySpace, the social networking website owned by News Corporation, is launching an advertising system in the UK that targets consumers using the personal information on their profile pages.
Travis Katz, the senior vice-president and general manager for international at MySpace, said the “hyper-targeting” system was already popular with advertisers in the US, reported the Guardian.
The new system analyses information on users’ MySpace profiles, which it then utilises to put people into different “enthusiast” groups, such as music or sports.
“We only look at the public data that people post,” the Guardian quotes Katz as saying, “We then bucket people into ‘enthusiast’ target groups.”
He denied that the new system was overcommercialising MySpace. “We have not seen that advertising is unwelcome from users,” he said. “On the contrary, users like it as long as it is relevant and presented in an engaging way.”
Katz added that social networking had now entered the mainstream. “Social networking is not a new phenomenon any more,” he said. “It is a very mainstream phenomenon, as mainstream as TV or as radio.”
Recent figures released by Nielsen Online revealed that almost 21 million Britons visited at least one of the ten most popular social media websites in January this year, equating to over 60% of Britons online (see Almost 21 Million Brits Visit Top Social Media Sites).
MySpace: www.myspace.com