Social networking website, Bebo, is set to launch its first advertiser widgets which are small web based applications that social site users can embed in their personal profiles.

One of the widgets is an advertiser supported photo-sharing widget from Slide, Photobucket, and Rockyou. The company plans on adding a variety of other widgets users can add to their profile such as video and music players. The ad widgets are part of what Bebo vp of sales and business development Jim Scheinman calls “engagement marketing,” designed to combine Web ads with user-directed viral marketing. Visitors to a profile with a widget for their own page can add it with a couple clicks.

“If it’s great content, it’s going to engage the user so much more,” he said. “To the Beboer, they don’t look at it like advertising but great content.”

Zillow.com was recently opened up by Expedia (DOT COM!) founder Richard Barton who wants to quickly gain ground in the competitive U.S. property business. The Zillow website is a user generated content site similar in concept to MySpace.

Homeowners and real estate agents alike can use the website to upload properties, photos, descriptions, and improvements along selling prices. The Financial times reports that Zillow will combine elements from Myspace, Wikipedia, and Craigstlist.

Currently, Zillow has 3.5 million members but the site still faces competition from Move.com and other similar concept websites.

Chillis has launched a contest in which you can enter a new version of the classic hit “Baby Back Ribs” song and you can hear the 10 finalists and vote for your favorite on MySpace. All votes will be tallied on December 22nd and the winner gets to be a “Rock Star The A Day” and travel to Los Angeles to meet with a record label. Some of the entrants sound horrible but give the website a go.

I’d still prefer to hear “Fat Bastard” from Austin Powers sing the song like he did in the movie.

MySpace continues to grow by 51% between March and September 2006 and other social networking sites are gaining popularity as well. A new report by HitWise revealed that e-commerce and business websites received (on average) 2.4% of their visits directly from MySpace during the month of September 06′. Other websites that are receiving hits from their MySpace Business Profiles include the telecommunication, banking, and travel industry.

The report showed that business profiles for teen-oriented retailers Hot Topic and American Ealge have received the most MySpace users and traffic to their website. Read

A 13 year old girl named Ashley Morgan posed as a record executive on MySpace and lured several bands to Los Angeles with the promise of a record contract. Morgan had developed a ‘sonymusicexec‘ MySpace profile to lure bands to her home. After the discovery and police intervention, Ashley’s mother grounded her as punishment. When band members arrived to Ashley’s house they were lured in with free pizza and Crystal Light. The 13 year old would then lock the performers in her basement and force them to play for free. All her “fake” profile said about her position with Sony was that she was a 50 year old and “a very powerful executive at Sony Music and I can sign your band.” ÂÂ

Most MySpace bands are pretty ‘dumb’ and the RIAA had to create a website warning bands about these ‘online predators’. Some tips they gave bands included; 1) If you think the record executive is a “nice person” then you aren’t dealing with a real executive. It’s common knowledge that all record executives are assholes 2) If the contract you’re being offered seems “fair” then you’re dealing with an online band predator.

I was browsing MySpace today and clicked on the “Contact Us” link. To my suprise I saw an image with “Tom’s” face and a cheaply done graphic with a circle and cross through it with the words “You are e-mailing Customer Service, not Tom.”

DUH! True, many people are falsely believed that MySpace was somehow started by this “Tom” guy and the site somehow now has over 100,000,000 members. This just reiterates in my mind that Myspace’s market idea to create this almost “fictious” Tom Anderson character as more of a PR or mascot theme has backlashed.

So much so that Myspace has to draw little cartoons and maps to let users know that Tom Anderson did not start nor runs MySpace. Rather, MySpace was created by a company named eUniverse (who later changed their name to Intermix Media). eUniverse was a marketing and entertainment company who had over 50 million e-mail addresses in their databases, as well as over 18 million monthly web users.ÂÂ

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