One of the activities I enjoy the most is getting on Facebook, Myspace and the such to check on the status of my friends, see their new photos and generally get an idea of how the people I care about are doing. One of the great benefits of these free online networks is that they are free, but time after time I'm finding my interest in using these "free" social networks is being overly interrupted by advertisements that are either too sexual, too adult, too off base that I want to close the page immediately and often I don't come back for some time unless I have a reason like a new message or some one has updated their blog I've subscribed to.Late last year we saw how Facebook's Beacon miserably failed due to the public pressure of the Facebook community and how they reacted to their privacy being ignored in order for Facebook to make their money. What I haven't seen and what I think would make a great difference to any advertising program on the social networks is to give people more choice. Like asking them what kind of content they are willing to be exposed and respecting that some people hate horror movies (Myspace get a clue) or dating ads (I'm married already) and no I don't believe that anyone can read my future, give me a bigger penis, give me a free I-Pod or Playstation 3 for just sending them my email address...
When social networks respect what I'm interested in then you can expose me to any advertising according to my tastes and morals. It's not that hard to figure out that advertising has to cater to each individuals tastes. That may even require them to base their ad rates by the popularity of the ad category or tastes.
Revolutionary idea? Give me feedback let me know what you think?
