Recently, I found myself a little bit envious of the 20-something set. Not because of their youth, or their ability to be just starting out with their lives, but because for the majority of their lives they have been connected to all of their friends via the Internet. Thinking back on my days at school, camp and college and all the people that I lost touch with before the Internet makes me a bit sad for the connection that I missed.  Browsing some Generation Y’s Facebook and MySpace pages, I realize that they have not lost touch with people, they have them all in their networks and can re-connect at any time.

However, as I joined into this new world of people networking, I realized that when someone does not care for you in this spectrum, there are many ways for them to show it. Prior to these friendship sites, losing touch could become a passive act; not returning e-mails or phone calls.  A person could fall out of contact with a friend or acquaintance and never know if it was lack of time, disinterest, or true dislike that caused the connection to be broken.  The Internet friendship sites take the guesswork out of losing touch; if someone wants you to know who they are and what they are doing, you are their friend, otherwise, you are not.

Let us take Facebook for example.  Recently I heard of a 30-something couple that broke up after a few years of dating.  He still wanted to be friends, she didn’t.  So, how does she make this clear?  She de-friends her ex on Facebook.  Not only is he sad about the demise of their relationship, but she makes it quite evident that he is no longer her friend, her acquaintance or a person that can know what is going on in her life.  This is the most extreme new way to say “I hate you”; taking someone who is your friend and actively erasing them.

Now, let us review a few lesser ways to indicate hatred online.  Ignoring a friend request shows someone that the friend in question has no interest in them and does not want others to associate them as friends.  Blocking a pal on Twitter means that the prior friend does not care what the person is saying and does not want them to access their comments either.  Perhaps the instant-messaging block is the most personal; a person takes a direct connection to them online and completely closes it – what better way to say “I hate you?”

So, what is worse, wondering what happened to that friend you used to do shots with in college or knowing that they are online but want nothing to do with you?  You decide.

Matt recently told me that he was starting a blog war with his good friend, Bill Townsend of Interminds LLC over a presentation that Bill gave to Matt’s executive MBA class. I have never met Bill, but after reading his presentation entitled the Black and White of Internet Marketing, I can see that he CLEARLY knows his stuff and that he is actively monitoring the pulse of the digital space. So this is not a knock on Bill, but an attempt to change his thinking on one point: advertising on social media.

In slide 72, Bill gives us a screen shot from Facebook (see blow) with the title: “What Do I Advertise Here?”

To Which I answer “whatever her friends like”, I would assume things like perhaps Axe Body spray, Seven For All Mankind Jeans and Verizon Wireless with unlimited texting:

I think Bill’s argument is more effective if he says: “Why Should I Advertise Here?” and then go back to his heat map slide. I think that the question is whether or not display advertising on the Internet works at all, not whether we should try the established techniques on Social Media advertising effectiveness.

On slide 59, Bill suggests that the way to get someone to click on a banner is to feign interactivity. How about actually creating interactive advertising for social networks? Instead of banner ads, make those ads short films or interactive widgets. These will fit more with the spirit of the medium. Facebook is about interacting. It’s about learning and communicating with friends and sharing experiences virtually. Advertising needs to blend into that space in order to be effective. The more that we can blur the lines between content and advertising, the more effective we will be, particularly as the Facebook generation is one that is more than happy to make an online purchase.

Given the amount of information that all of the little widgets and applications on Facebook collect and the connection to friends and friend’s friends, we should be able to mine all the little applications on facebook and come up with very targeted advertising.

In summary we mine the information on a person’s profile and the profiles of their friends and then incorporate:

• Video
• Widgets
• Games
• Surveys

What would you add to this?

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