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Index » Business & Services » Marketing

Becoming Famonymous: the Bittersweet Fame of myspace

Author: Michelle Edelman

In a marketing meeting yesterday at NYCA, we were all discussing and evolving our learning on myspace. With 111 million profiles, myspace.com is now the most visited of all Websites. And since the average myspace session is some 22 minutes long, myspace has become sort of a gigantic online reality show, 24/7.

Brands are becoming more and more present on myspace as advertising starts to take hold' but individual consumer pages are by far the most common. Contrary to what you'd think, many of the consumer pages we run across are more inventive and more vibrant than brand-sponsored pages. This is because, as human beings, we are gifted with a personality' and nowhere are our core personalities more evident than on myspace pages! Brands, on the other hand, often appear awkward and tongue-tied like the kid at the dance who suddenly has absolutely nothing to say.

So our group of experienced advertising mavens sought to learn from consumers how to create a great myspace page. One of our team members is a self-proclaimed myspace junkie, so we thought, 'Hey! Let's look at her page.' Her reaction was immediate and visceral: 'NO!!! Really. Let's not.'

So while this young lady has exposed her personality for 111 million other people to see, she didn't want a half-dozen of her colleagues examining it. The reason is simple. A myspace page makes a person famous among strangers whom they will never meet. Myspace people want to be famous and anonymous at the same time. 'Famonymous,' as NYCA creative director/CEO Michael Mark dubbed it right there in our meeting.

And this is completely natural. How many celebrities try to sneak into public spaces wearing a disguise so that for a brief moment, they can be just a face in the crowd? If you've ever run into your ex in the supermarket during a quickie errand, you know the feeling. We have the human desire to be recognized above others and to be special. And equally, there are times when we'd rather be invisible.

As more and more people become famonymous, will there be moments when you're vacationing with friends and some random stranger sidles up to one of you (or your daughter!) and says, 'Hey! You're KIM487! I love your page. I almost feel like you're my girlfriend.'

I bet you felt creepy just reading that. But we are entering an era in which privacy is actually opt-in. For example, in Europe, match.com deploys a technology that marries wireless phone GPS with their online dating profiles, to alert a member who is out in public when another member in the vicinity is a close match to their dating desires. So imagine you're on the Tube in London, and some guy walks up and says, 'I just got a match.com alert that we should meet.' Are you actually happy about this, or are you scanning the crowd for a bobby and the closest exit?

Let's face it: famonymous is not for the faint of heart. Even for fifteen minutes.

Author Bio:

Michelle Edelman is vice president/director of planning at NYCA, a full-service marketing agency that grows businesses with inspired ideas. NYCA has grown business for clients like TaylorMade Golf, San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, Rossa Putters, Maxfli Golf, ViewSonic Corp., The San Diego Union-Tribune, SignOnSanDiego.com, The EastLake Company, Kyocera Wireless, DIRECTV, Penta Water, National City Mile of Cars, AutoAnything, First Dental Health, TaylorMade Performance Labs, and others. To find out how NYCA can grow your business, log on to www.nyca.com.

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Becoming Famonymous: the Bittersweet Fame of myspace

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