Social networking has taken a foothold in every major market and has been labeled as the consumer phenomenon of 2008, with Facebook and Myspace leading the charge. With people spending so much time online, media and advertising companies have had to re-evaluate the ways in which they interact with their consumers and worldwide audience, and attract advertising revenue.

Reviewing the activity of the two leading sites, the Nielsen Company reports that advertising online is, “a real ‘Catch-22’ situation. Part of Facebook’s extraordinary subscriber growth is due to a clean design with little advertising clutter; consequently, the audience growth hasn’t been accompanied by a similar surge in advertising revenue. On the other hand, MySpace’s more customisable entertainment and content-oriented offering – carrying more advertising – has been more successful at attracting advertising revenue, yet MySpace’s audience is flattening. The industry will be watching very closely at which one of these fundamental differences in strategy will prove the most successful in attracting advertising revenue in 2009.”

The rest of the Nielsen Company report, ‘Global Faces and Networked Places’, can be viewed at http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2238196/social-networks-popular-email


And, of course, if you feel like logging in and having a click around for yourself, you can set up accounts with either Facebook or Myspace by visiting their sites: www.facebook.com or www.myspace.com