Social media websites MySpace and Facebook have garnered much attention in the past few years, gaining millions of viewers and page owners. They are also guilty of ad targeting—specifically placing certain ads on pages based on volunteered user interests. I’ve noticed them too, especially on Myspace. Since I listed writing as one of my interests on my personal page, I constantly see ads for publishing scripts and online freelancing job opportunities. What I have also noticed is the lack of creativity of these ads to attract click-throughs, and their weird placement. With advertisers focusing more and more on the ‘online conversation’ between consumers and online advertising, banner ads, links and side bars are becoming more and more specific in order to reach targeted audiences.

I just read an article in DMNews about a new photo-targeting application to be used on social networking sites. Eyealike created VisualAd, software which scans online images, such as ones in your profile picture section, and detects facial features, skin color, gender, age and even clothing. Then ads appear on these pages that correspond best to those features picked up by the application. People of all ages use Facebook and MySpace, and this software could eliminate the tacky ads that now appear on many of these websites and replace them with tailored, product- or brand-specific ads. For example, I’m wearing an Ed hardy t-shirt in one of my pictures on my MySpace page. Eyealike’s VisualAd would then notice I am interested in fashion, and maybe an ad would appear for a local clothing store or even Ed Hardy’s website itself. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the near future, and how successful it will be.