MySpace will target ads to users' personal data
Oh lordy, whenever they say "new paradigm," you know you're in for something fun. Link.Executives at Fox Interactive Media, the News Corporation unit that owns MySpace, will begin speaking about the results of that program this week. They say the tailoring technology has improved the likelihood that members will click on an ad by 80 percent on average.
“We are blessed with a phenomenal amount of information about the likes, dislikes and life’s passions of our users,” said Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, who will talk about the program at an address to investors and analysts at a Merrill Lynch conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “We have an opportunity to provide advertisers with a completely new paradigm.”
I generally post phony data to sites like MySpace. As a result, I'm bracing myself for unicorn timeshare ads and polyamorous mesothelioma ringtones.
I have no doubt the new move will be profitable. But if they want to improve ad revenue at MySpace even more, they might start by de-shittifying the site a little. Horrible UI = takes 10x more clicks to do anything than it should = squeeze out more pageviews per user but = less happy users = Facebook drain. Sneaky stuff like that always hurts in the long run.
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Please, God, make MySpace go away! I'll switch to Windows and start going to church if you do!
Best use of unicorns. Ever. Usually those .gifs are annoying, but you found a fantastic use (and don't overdo it like everyone who normally uses an animated .gif . Not that I was expecting anything less from you, but just seeing a myspace page use .gifs in an agreeable manner.... I blew a brainfuse.)
I'm actually interested in having some real information on my Myspace page.... I might go take screenshots of the individual sections and repost them as images in the sections. I'm already annoyed by the GET DR. MARIO RINGTONES ad every time I log on, and that's just text.
I bet you a coke those extra pageview revenues outpace what portion of facebook drain they cause, and will for a long time.
Really though, I don't see how facebook is "better" than myspace
NEW GIFT TO GIVE! DIRTY SLUT TSHIRT! LIMITID QUANTITY OF 5! ONLY LOW PRICE OF $30 FOR A .gif FILE!!!
MOAR APPLICATIONS! FIND OUT WHO LIKES BOOZE!
I don't see the problem with scouring your profile for Keywords and relating the ads to that. a space on the internet where people can come look at you and the things you like is hardly personal data.
however taking information that is not posted on the profile itself is out of line.
MG! Xn bngbng'd hr wn myspc n vn ttmpt t hrvst frnds!
Already, Amazon assaults me with targeted ads based not only on my purchases but on my browsing at Amazon. While this is not so bad while visiting Amazon itself, Amazon serves these targeted ads up inline as banner ads and such on other websites. Therein lies the invasion of privacy, as I cannot show the web to people on my computer's browser without also potentially showing them embarrassing ads targeted directly to me (unless I kill the cookies use user switching Firefox.)
Exactly. I don't mind so much if a site announces the intent to use my profile info to toss ads at me, but when evidence of my site profile follows me away from that site and appears unpredictably eslewhere, I begin to have a problem with that.
And I second the motion for de-shittifying MySpace. Despite the number of young friends who use it frequently, I minimize my use of it because it's so obnoxious to navigate.
I also wish MySpace would bite the bullet and de-shittify their profile page code. Millions of kids are willing to jump through absurd hoops to learn how to customize their profile pages. But learning how to hack MySpace's bizarre nested tables and non-semantic CSS is a black art that must convince them that doing web design sucks. It's like learning to dance in a parka and leg irons.
um...yeah...this is news? myspace has been using targeted ads at me since i signed up 2 years ago. more targeted? still not news...ever since amazon started doing it wasn't it obvious that everyone else would too? (even if it didnt work)
speaking of amazon, is their super-targeted ad system EVER going to figure out that i bought that tshirt (and that book, and that etc and etc and etc) already...from amazon. i find that most of the things they're tring to sell me are things they've already sold me.
aaanndd...speaking of ads...does anyone know of a really good ad blocker for safari? i just really dont want to be brainwashed anymore. the worst? nike ads here on boing boing. seriously? nike? really? have you guys HEARD of starvation wages? do you reeeally need the money that bad?
Firefox + AdBlock = no adverts on individual MySpace pages.
Of course, you may have to disable AdBlock (depending on how deeply you block ads...they seem to exist on different "layers") in order for you to listen to music on the band pages, but that's a small price to pay.
I gotta admit, even on the rare occasion that I turn my AdBlock off, I don't even notice the ads. I think anyone who has used the web for a while develops serious blinders to anything resembling an ad. I can honestly say I have no idea what the last ad BoingBoing served me, let alone MySpace.
My God, polyamorous mesothelioma ringtones make me hot.
Amen on the shitty UI. Tom needs to take a little time off from making friends and get to work on some of that shit.
Didn't Cory just publish a story in Radar taking this story to its dystopian conclusion?
Your myspace page pegged my CPU. From top:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
5035 root 15 0 134m 44m 8432 R 79.8 4.4 3:15.20 Xorg
5421 cmpalmer 25 0 230m 110m 23m R 18.3 11.0 5:24.11 firefox-bin
Myspace has targeted ads on user data, especially sexual orientation, for some time. A friend pranked me by switching my stated orientation from straight to gay, and I was bombarded by images of men clutching each other for months until I figured out what happened.
they already do use targeted ads, they're just text and in a box above the "top" friends. i just hope they get rid of those stupid ads with sound that you CANT TURN OFF!! like those ones with the smiley faces.
i personally think myspace has the creepiest and most obnoxious ads in the entire internet. ive been infected with adware that gave me better pop ups than myspaces' ads. can't they get REAL advertisers on there? something better than britney spears' head on eminem's body?! what companies are these anyways and what makes them think that these ads are effective or even make me want to go to find out more?
for about the past two years that i've been on myspace, I've been getting the added bonus of targeted marketing (when I have my ads enabled or when i'm on a friend's computer). as I have my sexuality listed as gay, I receive ads that otherwise-oriented individuals would not. I get Gay.com ads, international male ads, and D-List ads. My straight counterparts usually get True.com ads or things of that sort.