Social network ads now take up 20% of total online ad market
 

http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Pre...core_Ad_Metrix

And its growing. Check out the list of top sites that have the juiciest social network traffic:thumbsup

?Over the past few years, social networking has become one of the most popular online activities, accounting for a significant portion of the time Internet users spend online and the pages they consume,? said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president. ?Social networking sites now account for one out of every five ads people view online. Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle.?

Some staggering figures there.

Yep. There's a tie in to tubes as well. User-centric sites are going up and "one-way" sites are losing ground. Real tube sites are user-centric so it's part of this general trend. Promo/content models have to change to leverage this development to webmasters' favor.

Two facts:
1 According to Razorfish, 75 percent of Facebook members doesnt mind having ads on the right corner of their pages
2 And social media has replaced watching porn as the main leiusure activity on the Net

Too bad the revenues from those ads for publishers will never be any good.

If you had a TV show watched by tens of millions of people per day you could charge millions per show for adspace.

Those are the numbers everyone ignores and it's why there has yet to be real money in social networking (or online newspapers, etc). The ads are virtually worthless compared to other forms of traditional advertising and it's not going to go up.

I'm not hating on social networking because I have no reason to, those are just the facts.

The answer is not more traffic because Facebook and Myspace and Youtube are already the highest viewed sites. Higher traffic won't solve the problem. They have to find a way to get advertisers to pay MUCH, MUCH more money for the ads they run.

it is still too early in the game to say NEVER. Expect more changes and some paths might lead to greater monetization. Sometimes, its the people spamming/marketing on social networks that make more money than the site itself. Why? Because the site owner keeps looking for big money while there's bigger money to be made through specific more channels. :2 cents:

Maybe not never, but it will be quite a while IMHO. With TV you get 30 seconds as an advertiser all to yourself which means you can control the message 100% and THAT is what matters to advertisers. On-line advertising has always been about traffic and nothing else, that's why the money never came in, advertisers want more than just traffic. Real marketing is about controlling the message, branding your company, etc., and that's what advertisers will pay top dollar for, not some banner or text link stuffed in the corner.

With TV, commercials are widely accepted so if you have a good one, it can be received favorably and even become well liked. With the internet, if an advertiser tries to steal your attention for 30 seconds, they are seen as intrusive and "spammy". The question is, when will the internet be more like TV in regards to the acceptance of commercials?

Look at the success of Apple recently, a HUGE part of that was because of the early ipod commercials that became iconic and later the mac vs PC ads. You could never have that kind of success with an on-line ad campaign and that's why Apple pays 100 times the price for TV ad space over on-line ad space. Same with any other company.

But you are right, often the spammers make more from social networking sites then the site itself, which shows the faults in the business model.

Will it change someday? Probably, but there will have to be a monumental change in the way websites look and function for that to happen. They are simply not able to command premium advertising revenue in their current form.

At least that's my take on it.

I'll let you know when my social network site is up and running

So I guess livejasmin, friendfinder and fling are down to just 80%...

Cool, which platform you using?