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All the entries posted on November 06, 2007.
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Home > Plugged In > Archives > 2007 > November > 06
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
MySpace profiles to be used for targeted advertising
Think of all the advertisements you’ll be getting if you’ve loaded up your MySpace pages with gobs of detail about yourself.
You love salsa-dancing and travel and coffee drinking. You love detective novels and punk rock and scuba diving. Your favorite movie was Ocean’s Eleven. Your favorite band, Coldplay. Your favorite TV show, Grey’s Anatomy.
First, let’s assume all of that is true because a lot of stuff on MySpace isn’t. But even if it is, you’ll be getting advertisements from Microsoft, Ford, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, and Universal Pictures tailored to you, based on the vast material you’ve written on your profile page. See this link.
Maybe that’s not all bad. It’s what you like, right? But then again, will you be getting more ads than you do messages and postings from your friends?
There’s also no escaping it by jumping to the other brand. The New York Times says Facebook is looking at doing it too.
Maybe less is more when it comes to stocking up your MySpace page. Think about it.
You + 178 million others = U.S. Internet users
Four out of five U.S. residents - about 79 percent of us - are now regular Internet users, according to the latest Harris Poll on Internet usage.
Just as importantly, the number of Internet users - surprise surprise (okay, not really) - continues to grow. According to Harris, the number of people who used the Internet in July and in October totaled about 178 millon - up about 10 percent from the comparable periods a year earlier.
Here’s a factoid that’s even more telling: In 1995, when Harris first began to track Internet usage, only 9 percent of adults said they used the Internet.
The amount of time Internet users spend online - surfing the Web, watching videos, reading this blog - is also increasing.
The average number of hours per week that people spend online is now at 11 hours, up from 9 hours last year and 8 hours in 2005.
Here’s a link to a Harris press release with more details.