In just about every MySpace profile, there’s all sorts of information that advertisers would love to see. Users don’t list their likes and dislikes with marketers in mind, however, and a MySpace exec has said that participation in the upcoming HyperTargeting program will be optional.
Travis Katz
HyperTargeting will create segments relating to different interests, and then, by examining profiles, connect users to appropriate segments and advertisers. Travis Katz, the senior vice president of MySpace International, told Jeremy Kirk that HyperTargeting can increase click-throughs by 300 percent.
Katz also said that HyperTargeting will first be released in the U.S., with the U.K. the next most likely spot. “We’re still pretty early in the process,” he admitted.
Privacy is bound to be a concern, though, and by making participation optional, MySpace is presumably trying to avoid all the bad press that Facebook’s Beacon generated. Actual users didn’t seem to care about Beacon, of course, but some groups and bloggers got fairly upset.
Admittedly, it still remains to be seen how easy MySpace will make it for users to opt out, yet the company seems to be aiming for the sort of compromise that will make Rupert Murdoch, marketers, and its core audience happy.
