By now, everyone knows what MySpace is–or at least, they think they do. The generally held assumption is that MySpace is a social networking site: “a place for friends,” as their slogan puts it. In reality, MySpace is the next generation of marketing, advertising and promotion, exquisitely disguised as social networking.� Simply put, MySpace.com is Spam 2.0.” The real genius of MySpace lies in it’s re-imagining and repackaging of spam.

While most internet users expend time and energy attempting to keep it out, MySpace is spam that they actually invite in. A social paradigm has shifted with the tipping of MySpace. It’s incredible to consider, but Spam–as negative a connotation as it has–has morphed to enable and fuel the massive development of an incredible Super Public. Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe may not even fully recognize the fantastic longitude and latitude at which they stand.” Read the exaustively long but interesting article at Valleywag.

Think your kids are bad? Watch this innovative commercial of a rioting youngster in a grocery store. The ad is for Zazoo Condoms and is a clever way to look at the benefits of condom useage. The commercial really sticks in your mind after watching it and creates beneficial word of mouth marketing for the company.

Although not related to Marketing or Advertising this story was too funny to not share. Apparently, a Greek bank robber armed with ninja throwing stars finally ran out of ninja juice when he was arrested Tuesday. In total,Â� it was the ninja’s 11th bank robbery.Â� The ninja made away with $63,590 over the past few months. The unmasked robber was made famous for threatening to throw razor sharp, palm-sized stars made famous by Japanese Ninja Warriors. The cops out ninja-ed the culprit when they followed him home and made the arrest. Sneaky sneaky greek police.

CNN reportedÂ� today that the film company that produces those late night “Girls Gone Wild” television advertisements did not provide validity on the ages of the girls in the videos. The film’s producers have pleaded guilty to the charges on Tuesday and will have to pay $2.1 million in federal charges. The film company, Mantra Films, pleaded guilty in a Florida courtroom to charges of “failing to create and maintain age and identity documents for performers in its sexually oriented films, and that it failed to label its videotapes and DVDs as required by law.” The charges were designed to prevent sexual exploitation of children. My guess is Mantra Films might have gone overboard with their late night television advertisements that brought the negative attention.

Developing awareness for the “World First Aid Day”, advertising agency Downtown Partners developed this realistic decal of a woman at the bottom of a stairwell. The realistic decal, which looks insanely real, was placed in a Cineplex Theatre in Toronto. The ad was created by the Downtown Partners agency for the Canadian Red Cross. I hope someone doesn’t freak out and run down the stairs to help the ‘person’ only to trip and fall themselves down those metal steps.

Magazines might be coming back in style. Then again, it is important to understand what the latest reports really mean.Â� According to the latest reports released by the Publishers’ Information Bureau, ad revenues have soared “9.6 percent, with ad pages rising 4.4 percent for August.”Â�

MediaPost points out that this latest report isn’t all that its’ cracked up to be. When considering magazine ad revenue year to date figures, the Publisher’s Information Bureau shows revenue was up only 3.9% and ad pages have only went up 0.3%. The only rising magazine markets are for Drugs and Remedies, Foods, Retail, Hotels, and Resofts helped offset the large decline in the Automotive and Entertainment category. Magazines such as Maxim, FHM, and other men’s titles have fallen by 7 - 17% over the past year.Â�

According to Edmunds, The Ford Motor Company has decided to launch a brand new web site to entice consumers to become overjoyed about their cars through the useage of online video games and children’s stories. I hope Ford is smart enough to know they are marketing to adults and that the secondary encouragement of a purchase through children has little or no effect on a vehicle purchasing decision. The new site has two games; Dunk The Donut and Turbo Racer. Although you get to try driving a variety of Ford vehicles including the impossible to acquire Ford Shelby GT500, what 40 something consumer would enjoy playing an online game that is poorer quality than the original Super Nintendo?

Car company Lotus has hired an award winning Los Angeles, California Advertising Agency called e2amp to promote their brand name across the United States and Canada. Forget Mexico, the sportscar company is predominate over in Britian where their operations are currently sourced. Having signed on e2amp, the British car company is likely to start promoting their vehicles with ad placement in movies, television spots, and promotional events.

Having checked out e2amp online, I found that their past clients included JVC Audio, Sony, universal Pictures, and others that have nothing to do with the automobile industry. I could only raise my eyebrows with worry over Lotus trusting this advertising agency to promote their image across the U.S. and Canada.

Most little people only get gigs in Hollwood as dwarfs, trolls, or babies. Sad really. But from the movie Austin Power, Mini Me, the evil clone of Dr. Evil is still getting work these days without having to bow down to Hollywood. I really enjoyed these latest Geico Ads with one celebrity translating for a customer. Everyone from Mini Me, Little Richard, to that movie announcer guy star in these short commercials. The celebrities “get paid to translate customers accident and horror stories” according to the commercials to add a bit of humor. The newest installment of the ad campaign with Verne Troyer who plays Mini Me is really quite akward. At the end of the commercial he even does a little rap with no point to the pitch. I think that Geico is just making fun of these “dried out” celebrities.Â�

The woman many of us on the YouTube network have fell in love with has been revealed today as Jessica Rose a 20 something graduate of The New York Film Academy. The nearly 4 month online drama following the “fresh faced teenager”, as she made herself out to be, attracted millions of followers. Rose played ‘lonelygirl15′on YouTube. Her first person video accounts became one of the most viewed of the clip sharing site. Rose has been revealed by the New York Times as a twentyish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles. It has also been revealed her videos were part of a stunt with an entire crew developing her ‘personalized drama’ for the purpose of catching a movie deal (continued below).

The YouTube video clips suggested Jessica was a character named Bree and a home schooled daughter of “strictly religious parents who improbably stole time to upload video blogs of her innermost thoughts” according to the NY Times. The developers behind the “bree or lonelygirl15″ videos are Ramesh Flinders. Flinders is a screenwriter and filmmaker out of Marin County, California. The majority of the videos were shot in his bedroom it was revealed. They teamed up with a software engineer in San Francisco to produce the fake video diaries. You can learn more about how “lonelygirl15″ was recently revealed by visiting the New York Times web site.

Having sold 10 million iPod Shuffles, Apple announced they will be releasing a new model the size of the iPod radio remote with 1GB of capacity. The shiny new aluminum cast body comes with a clip for easy belt buckle attachment. Apparently, the new iPod Shuffle will be the “world’s smallest MP3 player” known to man. It’s available for preorder now and expected to be released for sale in October for a measily $79.00. Talk abotu affordable!