ocial Networking sites are making waves. The total ad spending on social networking sites is expected to top $1.8 billion by 2010. But for that to happen, network operators such as MySpace and Facebook have to develop tools to measure such results, as concluded by research firm eMarketer. The firm has also cautioned these sites to develop metrics for their unique marketing offerings - including sponsored groups, or users that add brands as 'friends' or 'interests'.

Most of the ad spending is expected to be dominated by MySpace, with a 60 per cent market share. Other general social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo, Piczo and Friendster are expected to have little over 20 per cent market share, while social networking offerings from portal sites (MSN Spaces, Yahoo! 360, AIM pages, Orkut) are expected to garner about 10 per cent share. ... more