If you’ve never heard of MySpace or Facebook then I’m assuming that you’re new to the Internet. In short, MySpace and Facebook are two social networking websites where users can register and set up a profile about themselves, and use these profiles to interact with the profile’s of other users. Of course there is far more to these websites than this, but at its basic functionality, including powerful photo tools this is all they are.

Much like the rest of the Internet Social Networking websites suffer from spam and malicious advertising. Some users will register with the full intent of using their profiles, groups and/or photo’s to promote their products and websites.

The entire point of these websites is to talk to friends and to make new ones. Whilst these websites are full of potential customers these users have not registered to be lied to. It’s almost like trying to talk to someone you don’t know at a bar about mobile phone tarrifs or what the best social networking tool is.

Online marketing has become an extremely strong force on the Internet, and at times these methods are preffered to those conventional SEO ones. Websites like Stumbleupon and Digg are almost dedicated to the online marketing side of website promotion, in turn making the host websites popular themselves. There are many tricks around getting lots of people to make your content go viral, and one of the tried-and-true is to get a close group of friends that will vote content up on various social networks, as well as promote within websites like MySpace and Facebook. The next popular, and the worst way is to get an automated script to advertise for you.

When I log into MySpace or Facebook I hope to see information about my friends, not information about what shampoo will work best on my hair or what email client I should be using. Whilst both website are fantastic marketing tools they hold strict boundaries as to what constitutes spam, and when you’re not acting like a normal ‘out-of-hours’ person, you’re a spammer.