Earlier this year we said that 2007 would be the year for behavioral targeting. Both Facebook and MySpace have fulfilled our prophecy in the past month. Facebook just announced that they would be using profile data from their sites to sell advertising. In late July, MySpace launched a similar program in beta.
Why did Facebook get all the attention for their endeavor and MySpace get the media shaft?
Facebook is the Angelina Jolie of social networks. Media just LOVE to cover every move of this “It” site. And they are making smart ones: dropping their college-only exclusivity, a PR strategy of total transparency, opening their API…and perhaps going public? (just speculating.) It’s no wonder they are the web 2.0 darling.
Beyond that, Facebook has a leg up on MySpace regarding the simple logistics of behavioral targeting (BT): they control the real estate on every profile page. Just like Mixi in Japan, they organize information in blocks (which you can move around your page to some degree). These all contain a certain type of information that can then be easily gathered. MySpace made the mistake of giving too much space up to users, then (crap!) trying to insert advertising into free slots, making the site look like a spam collage. Now MySpace just reported that they may let members post ads and do commerce (openly) on the site. Will this turn it into a virtual mall? Still tacky, but profitable.
Now, MySpace claims that their site is attractive to advertisers because it is more “media-centric” than Facebook. Perhaps it is more traditional media-centric. The model they are working from is web 1.0. For the most part, the Newscorp site has focused content channels for news, politics, etc. Great, but this has been done. It’s called My Yahoo! Facebook, on the other hand, is more user-centric, and that is what marketers and advertisers–and USERS–should be looking for.
While Facebook has released a rate card, MySpace is still working on theirs. In light of Danah Boyd’s study of the class differences between the two sites, it will be interesting to see how they compare.
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