Released: June 26, 2009

The online ad that knows where your friends shop

Source: Stephanie Clifford, NY Times (Free Registration)

If a marketer asked people to hand over a list of all their friends so it could show them ads, few would comply. On social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, though, friendships are obvious, and advertisers are beginning to examine those connections.

Two companies in particular, 33Across and Media6Degrees, are analyzing such connections, and they are not interested in basic friend lists, but in interactions on the sites, taking note when a user visits a friend’s page, sends a video or exchanges an instant message. In turn, they can identify people who are friends with a company’s existing customers, and then advertise to them.

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