Business Week has this helpful, broadranging, article about social networking sites (think MySpace, Buzz-Oven, Xanga, Classface, PhotoBucket, FaceBook) and their relationships with the commercial world. I particularly liked the comments from the young networkers. Talking about Coke's sponsorship of BuzzOven: "I know they care; they think what we're doing is cool,"; "I don't know if they care about the music or they just want their name on it, but knowing they're involved helps,"; "They let us do our thing. They don't censor what we do." But this more critical one from the comments section is probably the most enlightening of all...
"(At MySpace) users are subjected to fake "users," which are advertisments. These
fake people will often engage in scripted e-mail conversations that may
involve several letters before leading readers to the intended ad.
These are extremely annoying and dramatically reduce the appeal of
MySpace. No one likes to be lied to, and when companies pretend to be
people (and potential friends) they are lying. I'm currently boycotting
Sony indefinitly on moral grounds. A lot of my friends are too.
Companies can't afford to be as underhanded as they have been in the
past. Modern users catch on and get mad."
Modern users need modern marketing.
(Via SPR)
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