the big push to start using facebook and twitter as advertising platforms - not banner ads - but product placement, mutual promotion deals, etc. - started about 18 months ago. It's been pretty fascinating.
There's also been huge ramp up in the audience research space where the use of impossible to kill cookies collates all the data about you connecting the email address you use for your mortgage app to your legalzoom account to your browsing to your store purchases. The goal is to be able to serve up completely different news, content, etc depending on who you are. I'm a low income black woman I see one set of articles containing news of the world, I'm a 55 year old white guy living in upscale neighborhood, completely different set of news items (or whatever).
good news is: all the commercialization will ruin the space and people will flee to something else.
At 09:14 PM 5/30/2012, Marv Gandall wrote:
>When Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks contacted Facebook for help
>understanding how best to use the site, the company's representatives
>showed him how. After Mr. Lin underwent knee surgery this spring, he
>returned the favor: a live chat for Facebook fans from his hospital bed.
>To date, about 54,000 people have "liked" it.
>
>Social-media sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Tumblr are
>formalizing their relationships with the entertainment industry to show
>users and advertisers that the sites offer content beyond the trivial.