GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 4 - April 2008

31 S ince its inception, the Internet Era has been filled with innovations and advancements in marketing. First there was e-mail. Then came text links, banner ads and affiliate marketing. And that was followed quickly by the ability to target ads, both on e-mail and the Web, to specific audiences. Now Internet marketers have to adjust to a new paradigm. The use of social networks is exploding, and it’s created a new realm of “public private space”— space where friends can congregate online to share every aspect of their lives. And as millions of users make Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, PerfSpot and Orkut their primary homes on the Web, portal webmasters need to consider how to reach this critical and growing audience. In the following articles, we take a look at two different perspectives on marketing on social networks. The first story focuses on PerfSpot, a popular social network that is counting on online gambling to generate advertising revenue for the site. Our second article looks at the convergence between e-mail marketing and social networking, and challenges us to rethink our concepts regarding both.