Myspace tests community tools for advertisers

The new platform also gives MySpace advertisers analytics information, via Hitbox, that they can use to measurement the real time effects of their political campaign tweaks. The platform is under beta reappraisal by interactive marketing federal agency Deep Focus.

The platform comes in self service and full service versions. The company said the DIY version is "aimed at advertisers who are familiar with MySpace and who have advanced design cryptography skills (CSS and XHTML) with the time and resources required to maintain a community," said the company. The full service version keeps the MySpace experts in the mix as a "insurance premium in-house production solution," but it still affords advertisers a good amount of mugwump control, according to MySpace.

Both versions provide around the clock access for updating aspects of the sites including blogs and bulletins. They also allow advertisers to bring many forms of interactivity, including sweepstakes and contests. To their MySpace profiles.

The community builder platform will ab initio be available only to U.S.-based advertisers.

In a statement announcing the service, MySpace SVP of Sales Bryce Emo called community detergent builder "the next development of the MySpace brand profile," and said it should help ensure that advertizer communities stay up-to-date "between major campaigns and undertaking.�

Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer said the platform builder "helps them place their merchandise as something more than just an online publisher" and will help MySpace make money due to its "ability to be a client relationship direction tool."

MySpace's owner, News Corp., hopes ad is the key to turn the sociable networking site into a big money-maker. MySpace's proclamation about the new community builder platform came on the heels of less-than-upbeat reports about the success of the News Corp.-owned site's attempt to make money off its huge popularity. Sanford C. Bernstine analyst Michael Nathanson reportedly slashed his price estimate on News Corp last week as did UBS's Michael Morris.

Schafer said much depends on the pricing model for the community platform builder, but he noted the DIY aspects of it can save agencies time and money. "There's a great production efficiency," said Schafer. "We don�t have to rely on someone else's production queue thanks to the ability for us to get in under the hood ourselves. We can make changes when we need to and not have to wait for somebody else to get to it."