Big discussion around the web about this weekend's New
York Times story on MySpace's anemic revenues relative to its huge traffic. My favorite contribution to the mix
so far is Tim O'Reilly's
post about the part of the story reporting that 10,000 MySpace users have accepted a friendship with the bouncing
square of ground beef from the Wendy's commercials. [Correction - that was 100,000 users!] What were you saying about
MySpace users again? Meat market jokes could abound...
Regardless, O'Reilly posits a theory that
relationship marketing like this between brands and consumers could be the next big thing. It could be as big as
the creation of contextual advertising ala Overture and then Google, he says. Thoughts?
My only
thought initially is that if I want to maintain a relationship with a vendor (and I do, many) then I'll subscribe to
their RSS feed (so I can catch square burgers in my aggregator, I guess). Is that what this is, if not on a
technical level then on a semi-functional level? Maybe that's the level of sophistication that will be needed in
order to see mass adoption of syndication/subscription technologies - click here to make friends with a square
burger. It seems possible.
Tim O'Reilly asks: will friendships with brands rival contextual advertising?
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Myspace.com, being born in the US, has not caught up yet with the mobile opportunity. What if you mix geolocation services with advertising opportunities, and only send the Wendy's ad to those users that are within a ten block radius of a Wendy's restaurant, instead of just sending the burger ad to anybody anywhere. Services like Dodgeball.com can probably do it (that's their niche) but, they haven't exploited the consumer generated content part of the social networking fenomenom.
Posted at 5:46PM on Apr 24th 2006 by Rafael Bonnelly
3. Rafael, I think you're probably right about that. I'd be a lot more willing to make friends with a square of meat if I knew I was only going to hear from him when I was near where he lives.
Posted at 5:49PM on Apr 24th 2006 by Marshall Kirkpatrick
4. Jennifer, I think you're right too. I don't know if I'd want to, say Dodgeball someone else who likes square burgers just because they are at the same bar as me - but there are a number of interesting possiblities here. Good for MySpace not being as backwards about this as others have been.
Posted at 5:52PM on Apr 24th 2006 by Marshall Kirkpatrick
5. If corporations are going to pony up $35k so I can put a hot dog or a Lexus on my pal list more power to Myspace, that kind of money is not going to be thrown at them for very long.
This all started back when Friendster started kicking off people who were signing up as inanimate objects. I thought it was great to be friends with the Grand Canyon and the Eiffel Tower. Who says you have to be yourself all the time on the interweb? Being someone other than yourself does not necessarily detract from the overall value of the community.
As for contextual advertising rivaling friendships on social networking sites, see Behavioral Targeting Beats Contextual Targeting - http://dating.corante.com/archives/2006/04/24/behavioral_targeting_beats_contextual_targeting.php
Posted at 6:58PM on Apr 24th 2006 by David Evans
6. To echo the first comment, folks use their commercial behavior as identification, especially as a way to find connection with others of the same ilk. On quasi-dating site Consumating.com, members have been known to tag themselves with the brands they like (eg., "target_shopper").
But I think this a more successful endorsement over MySpace where often the impetus is to "collect" the funny avatar/stamp to dress-up one's profile. On Consumating, if a darling hipster says that a particular brand is part of their self-definition, I imagine it has quite an impact on his/her admirers.
Posted at 4:45PM on Apr 25th 2006 by Diego
7. Online communities like that on consumating or hi5 are perfect spots to place some effective ads - I see more and more development in this "online socializing area"
Posted at 2:15PM on Apr 29th 2006 by Michael Rad
1. I think this is more about brand affinity than wanting to constantly updated about the goings-on at Wendy's. The MySpace demographic enjoys defining itself by the things it likes, and this goes extremely well with that. Users attempted to do this themselves when Friendster launched -- people created fake profiles for things like In-n-Out Burger and favorite TV shows -- and Friendster responded by pulling the profiles (called "Fakesters" back in the day, if you'll recall). MySpace has done just the opposite; they've built an effective advertising platform out of it. As the NYT article points out, the youth market likes to see "what a person is about" via their profile, and, as weird as it may seem, whether or not they may be "friends" with a hamburger is compelling to these users. It can speak to one's humor, be used to break the ice as something they have in common, etc. These things are all bring value to the user, something that other types of ads do not.
Posted at 1:50PM on Apr 24th 2006 by Jennifer