Social network ad spending

This is from eMarketer – analyst Debra Williamson.

She says ad spending on social networks in 2006 will be $280m in the US and $70m in other markets.  This is mostly on profile pages and sponsored promotions.  Social network ad spend will be 1.7% of total online ad spend in the US this year.

This is actually a great report which I will comment on in more detail later, but here are a couple of interesting things as a taster:

• A quote from Rupert Murdoch -  “God knows what we are going to do with Myspace”
• A definition (not many of those about these days….)

“eMarketer defines an online social network as a site whose main purpose is to enable people to connect with others by creating personal profiles, describing their interests and otherwise sharing content.”

• Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn in Wired “You’ll see us morph from a content company into a marketing company” - will they have much choice as the price of content is heading towards zero??