14 DAY TRIAL // It's a well known fact that Google is the owner of the best advertising platforms on the web, with numerous rivals aiming to compete with the Mountain View company. Although numerous firms debuted technologies to conquer the ad-world, only a few of them really mean something for the web competition. But this time, it might be a serious threat for Google: MySpace plans an advertising platform which seems to be similar to AdSense but with more evolved functions. According to the Guardian Unlimited, SelfServe will allow the consumers to create ads using their logos and images but will also come with several tools to measure the performance of their advertisements.
"AdSense was the first targeted advertising product that was open to everyone, and tapped the long tail", Travis Katz, the MySpace international managing director, said for the Guardian Unlimited. "It showed that you don't have to be a huge company to buy media space, you could be a small start-up, a pizza place or a band. We're taking the same concept but it's not just text based."
Basically, the advertising technology prepared by the social networking website refers to a "self-serve advertising system" as it is named by Guardian Unlimited, enabling users to conduct most of the operations required for an ad process. At this time, approximately 50 advertisers already signed up for the testing the technology such as Toyota, Ford and Procter & Gamble.
"It's a very sophisticated technical engine that looks at all the publicly available data on users, groups and the interests of their friends. For advertisers, it's [delivering on] the promise that internet advertising has always been, and users, who have been involved in the testing, like targeted advertising better than generic ads. They don't like untargeted ads because they feel more intrusive, whereas if ads are relevant and of interest to them they enjoy them", the same MySpace representative added for the same source mentioned above.