MyAds.com Downplays MySpace Ad Inventory

I recently revisited MyAds.com to give my POV to a colleague and found it rather interesting that a platform which started out as the self service ad network of Myspace (https://advertise.myspace.com) is now touting “Across the Fox Audience Network”.

Since Myspace ads are known to have extremely low user engagement, not to mention the lowest age demographics on the web, it seems as though Fox is attempting to disguise their ad network by downplaying the amount of Myspace inventory (by not mentioning it) on almost every page of MyAds.com. Anyone in the online media space knows that Fox has been struggling with excess/devalued inventory on Myspace, so I only think that un-savvy small business owners would buy into this platform.

Myspace Amber Alert System

This morning I noticed something interesting when I logged in to my Myspace account. The following message was at the upper left (very noticeable) area of the main profile management page, which is the hub of a user’s Myspace experience:

ATTENTION: There is an Amber Alert in your area.
Please CLICK HERE to find out more information.

When expanded, the window overlaid the page with the following information (details removed):

Missing From:
Missing Date:

Contact: Police – 911

SuspectName:
Gender:

Vehicle Information
Make:
Color:
License State:
Vehicle:

I’ve never seen this before, but after doing a little research on Myspace’s participation in the Amber Alert program, it seems that they have been working on this implementation since January. Gladly, there were no alerts visible to me in that time, as they are geo-targeted, meaning that there were no reported incidents of child abduction in my area.

This seems like a great move for Myspace, in light of the many criticisms that it is not doing enough to prevent use of its platform by sexual predators attempting to connect with underage users. Myspace has made some other efforts to quell these accusations, such as no longer allowing anyone under 14 to register and deleting over 250,000 profiles of users under the age of 14 last year. Also, users under the age of 18 no longer show up in the search results.

While I understand the concern for minors, I think that the social networking giant is doing its part (and really going above and beyond with the Amber Alerts) considering that the foundation of social networking is enabling user self-reporting and communication between individuals.