In their infinity profit seeking wisdom, the owners of Myspace (should be called TheirSpace) have opened the floodgates to CPC advertising which can target based on location, age, interests, or gender. Its a matter of time now before a stampede of companies throw their ads on Myspace and make the site one more step worse than it already is.

As soon as Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace some time ago the obvious motivation for Myspace became money – not “a place for friends”. About this time the site and started promoting every shitty movie made by displaying a background image on the movie poster on the home page. Then we all got a whole side bar of ads of stupid T-shirt companies and single networks.

Now, we’ll get ads even more targeted and tailored to be “just for me”. Every Ad you see will target your weaknesses and insecurities and will be made “ideally desirable”. For instance, if you are single girl, you’ll will see even MORE single networks being advertised and all the models will all be men. Other ads which target other people insecurities will have a lower priority.

This is just another (more profitable) way to generate money. Im focused here on Myspace and generally stating how this will negatively effect the site, but the larger trend which I see is an every increasingly powerful advertising daemon.

The people these Ads will resonate most with will be children, who on average have no idea the research that has been done over the last 50 years to really change the way that companies promote their products. More recently the change has been to shift from promoting your products, to promoting a life style which uses your products, all of them. In this way your brand can become mentally connecting with a whole genera or group. Think of Sketchers, Honda, L’Oréal.

Now they can customize their ad and send it directly to you. Make no mistake about it, this IS a change, and unfortunately there isnt a lot we can do to stop it. The long terms effects of Ads being pushed SO HARD on our children, as young as 13 on myspace, but even younger in schools and in general society is scary and real: loss of short term memory, (even) shorter attention spans, loss of real social abilities… the list goes on.

A firm understanding of advertising processes, and its ugly brother propaganda, are required in todays world to help process information. Children are developing these filters younger and younger because they have to. Those who do not are stuck with the ongoing issues I mentioned above, usually in the form of some type of ADD. To which the treatment most sought out is drug therapy, instead of examining the environment of the children and their mental well being, which is the larger issue. ADD is only a symptom of this larger issue and the need for mental filters at a younger age.