platformer

The details of Facebook's "SocialAds" initiative, set to debut on Tuesday, have leaked through enough channels so that we have a pretty good idea of what we'll be hearing. SocialAds will not only serve up uber-targeted ads based on your Facebook profile information, there will allegedly be some sponsored vertical categories involved, as well as e-commerce tie-ins that will tell your friends what you've been buying, preferably with an opt-out clause.

Facebook rival MySpace, meanwhile, has recently introduced "HyperTargeting," a similar advertising strategy.

The debut event itself, intended to be shrouded in mystery, … Read more

Silicon Alley Insider editor Peter Kafka had the opportunity for some cocktail conversation with Facebook investor and board member Jim Breyer of Accel Partners on Thursday night, and he had some interesting news to report.

Most intriguing is the fact that Breyer refused to outlaw a Facebook partnership with OpenSocial, the Google-created social networking platform that's managed to steal a whole lot of Valley buzz from Facebook right as it gears up to make a major advertising announcement.

"Jim said that the company isn't philosophically opposed to what Google is trying to do, and that its business … Read more

Social-networking site Bebo, which has made its most significant inroads among young people in the United Kingdom, is set to announce that it has joined Google's OpenSocial project, joining the ranks of MySpace.com, Imeem, LinkedIn, Six Apart, and a laundry list of other participants that seems to encompass any social-networking site that isn't Facebook.

Additionally, Bebo plans to soon release an application programming interface (API) later this year that will "enable Facebook developers to easily bring their applications to the Bebo community," a Bebo representative said Thursday. It's not yet clear what this really … Read more

MySpace and Google have issued a press release that, confirming rumors, announces that the News Corp.-owned social networking site will be part of Google's new OpenSocial developer initiative.

MySpace was not initially announced as a part of OpenSocial, leading many to believe that it was absent from the project despite the fact that it already has a search and advertising contract with Google. In an interview with CNET News.com on Wednesday, Google's director of product management, Joe Kraus, said "We would love MySpace to be a part of it," which technically neither confirmed nor … Read more

The Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka reported Thursday morning that he heard MySpace will be announcing a partnership with Google's new social-networking project, OpenSocial--potentially before the end of the day.

MySpace, which already has its search and advertising functions powered by Google, has not yet responded to requests for comment.

If true, this would probably be a good thing for MySpace, which has lost its place in the social media spotlight to Facebook (though it still leads in traffic and membership) and is struggling to play catch-up by working on a developer platform strategy that may not see … Read more

When Google announced that its new social-networking initiative would extend to any site that wanted to participate, the land grab for the social Web's attention just got a whole lot more intense.

In a move that was anticipated for weeks, Google has unveiled a set of application program interfaces (APIs) that allow third-party programmers to build widgets that take advantage of personal data and profile connections on a social-networking site. But instead of limiting the project to its own social-networking property, Orkut, Google has invited other sites along for the ride--including LinkedIn, Hi5, Plaxo, Ning, and Friendster.

Read the … Read more

Online advertising firm AdBrite is set to announce on Tuesday a new program to serve ads for third-party Facebook applications. Considering it a niche "channel" alongside existing AdBrite verticals, the company has launched a new Web-based interface so that Facebook application developers can join the program and make their inventories "instantly available to AdBrite's large base of advertisers."

The company saw it as a logical move, AdBrite co-founder Philip Kaplan said in an interview with CNET News.com. "We've just had a lot of Facebook applications signing up to use AdBrite," he … Read more

When Facebook confirmed widespread blog rumors that it would be making a major advertising announcement on November 6, a few people pointed out that this date may have been a strategic one. The previous day, November 5, had been widely rumored as the day when Google would leverage its Orkut social network along with a host of other software properties (Google Reader, perhaps, or new acquisition Jaiku) into a powerful social networking tool to rival Facebook's.

But now Google has allegedly delayed its own announcement by several days, according to reports. A TechCrunch source claims that the project "… Read more

BustedTees, the Web site responsible for that "Prose before Hos" t-shirt that you wore to your English 101 final exam, has announced a Facebook Platform application that offers to split cash revenue with users willing to install it.

The application has soft-launched and is set to launch formally in a few days.

The model here is similar to traditional "affiliate programs" for advertising on Web sites and blogs--and indeed, it's essentially a "Facebookified" version of BustedTees' existing affiliate program. Pimp them on your Facebook profile, and you'll get a cut of the … Read more