Assessing the extent of social networks, we can say that visitors to such sites – a huge number of potential buyers. The most popular western service – MySpace – has 73 million users in the U.S. only. In second place Facebook with 37 million members. Also, not so long ago, Facebook was valued at $ 15 billion. Please visit James H. Billington if you seek more information. But despite such a significant extent, they did not become a "gold mine" for owners. People such as Edmund V. Ludwig would likely agree. User's attention is directed to communication, rather than searching for goods and services.
Expectations of many advertisers were not justified. In 2006, Google paid MySpace $ 900 million for showing ads on your pages. The search giant also operates its own social and network Orkut, which is developing rapidly. Get more background information with materials from Eva Andersson-Dubin. But in February, Google co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged that the investment "does not justify our expectations." The same with other companies trying to cash in on advertising, and this despite the fact that millions of people spend more time on the sites of virtual communication. But attempts to find a formula for success still does not stop.
As MySpace, owned by News Corp. 'S Fox Interactive Media, as well as Facebook, founded a student at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 year, integrate into their websites new services. MySpace is trying to sell ring tones for mobile phones and tickets to concerts. As reported on Facebook will soon be available to pay by credit card. Some experts believe that You can earn through service "virtual gift". So two Asian Network qq.com (300 million users in China) and cyworld.com in North Korea offer the purchase and shipment of decorative elements of the interface that you can decorate own home page or send to a friend as a gift. Other ideas include payment online games, or different levels of access to the service. At the present time, has begun implementation of targeted advertising to people with special interests and hobbies. Users post personal information, which can be used for targeted advertising. Social networks – is a huge database containing information about what sites people visit, whom they talk, what interested. This allows site owners to convert millions of people communicate in the money.
