It seems that commercial interests have taken over popular social networking sites like MySpace, at least if you read the smattering of business stories (like this one in BusinessWeek) detailing the different approaches everyone is taking -- from paying for custom profiles and promotion, to just building one and attempting to make thier own friends WOM-style. I think you can apply the same principals to blogging or any online marketing for teens as you would to social networking sites. Teens will befriend a musician or celebrity or even a brand they are into that they see as cool and that their friends see as cool. All other brands attempting to do this (i.e. Wendy's, banks, whatever) will most likely fail. Even if teens eat your burgers or have a checking account with you, getting bulletins from you on MySpace feels spammy - even if you're trying to be cool. Getting bulletins from your favorite band or tv show, feels like you are in the know and sometimes tells you about new content you might actually be interested in. And character blogs or profiles, if done well, can be fun.

In this way, I feel like people or entities in the entertainment space have the most potential to use the medium in interesting ways. For example, USA Today has a story about how the authors of a new YA book are using MySpace, wireless and the web to market Cathy's Book:

Some of the techniques:

* Creating MySpace.com profiles for Cathy and her best friend, Emma.
* Activating the seven cellphone numbers appearing in the book so readers can dial in and hear voice mail messages from the characters.
* Creating realistic websites for the fictional companies in the book

The only thing they seem to be missing is a Cathy and Emma vlog on YouTube. The authors also happen to be founders of a marketing company and didn't sneeze at including P&G's Beinggirl.com in the narrative for dough.

Reuters chronicles how television networks are adding social networks to their marketing plans for the premieres of all of the fall shows. And there are sites like Bravo's BrilliantButCancelled.com, where users are voting on which shows will be cancelled first. I'm sure you'll be able to watch them on YouTube.

In the music space, the L.A. Times (reg. required) reported on this cautionary tale of a teenage girl who answered tthe band Buckcherry's call for fans to show up to a club and be featured in a music video. Things went very badly and mom is sueing the record label. From the article:

"The plaintiff, a minor identified as Jane Doe who was living in Southern California, was allegedly given alcohol to drink and filmed exposing her breasts, kissing another female and writhing against a pole while Buckcherry performed a song with an unprintable title.

According to the lawsuit, the music video was posted on the band's website and distributed widely online, as was a 'behind the scenes' program that referred to the girl's first name, featured more nudity and had band members saying, 'It's like watching seven hours of porn.'

As a result of the video's airing, the minor suffered severe emotional distress, said Silverstein, who is seeking unspecified damages.

'You can imagine the panic this girl felt when this video started getting aired,' he said. 'She's been called a lesbian at school. She's had to switch schools because of that video.'"

The band says they carded her and she had a fake i.d. She says nobody carded her, which I'm more likely to believe since 16-year-olds can easily look 21 and very sexy.

I'm seeing images of The Who's Sally Simpson from Tommy right now...

Posted by anastasia