The online research business has become so crowded that the firms jockey for position by posting nearly meaningless numbers. ComScore took its turn at releasing inane figures saying that advertising views at MySpace (NWS) had passed those at Yahoo! (YHOO). According to Reuters, Fox Interactive’s collection of sites, led by MySpace, drew 56.8 million advertising views in June, compared with Yahoo’s group of sites which had 53.1 million,
The trouble is that no one wants to advertising on social networks like MySpace and Facebook unless the space is sold at a very, very low rate. People online at social sites sharing their favorite rock groups, phobias, and secrets about their best friends are hardly a good target audience. It is not a group that can easily be put into categories which match marketer’s needs. Placing advertising on MySpace is close to being a waste of time.
Yahoo! ,on the other hand, at least has its content broken into discrete subjects and companies who want to reach people interested in travel, finance, or entertainment are self-selected by the parts of the portal that they visit.
Yahoo! has nothing to fear.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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