MySpace's MyAds: Serving Up Drunk Teenagers To Advertisers

Ad targeting is hot. Many analysts predict that ad targeting will be the only way to reach consumer segments on the web within the coming years, and if Google AdWord's success is any indication, those analysts are spot on. So it comes as no real surprise that other would try to step in on the space, and who better to do it than social networks? They have built-in, loyal user bases, and they have a ton of personal data about the user to know what ads to cater to that specific user.

With that mindset, MySpace has come forward and launched their very own ad targeting service, MyAds. Their service will allow many of the same things that Google's AdWords does by allowing customers to create targeted ads on the fly and specify key words that could trigger the ad to appear on a page, but with a few noticeable twists. First, MyAds helps customers create graphic ads with some editing tools. But perhaps more importantly are the groups and keywords advertisers can target, including teenagers, drinking and partying.

That's right, MySpace is there to cater to the advertisers looking for drunken, teenage party-goers, which, judging from some of the pages I've seen over there, is about 97% of the user base. Advertisers looking for that particular demo should do well.

Aside from that, the MyAds works just like AdWords. Given that many advertisers are chomping at the bit to get into MySpace's virtual space, this should serve MySpace and their conservative NewsCorp overlords well. As for how this will affect users? Well, I don't really know anyone that regularly uses MySpace anymore, so I couldn't really tell you, as I don't associate with drunken, party-going teenagers... any more. The last time was just a mistake... I'm still not sure how we ended up streaking in the quad...

MySpace MyAds: Target Ads to "Drinking" and "Partying" [ReadWriteWeb]