Facebook's plan for a new ad targeting system received lots of attention, but News Corp.'s MySpace--social networking's former media darling--actually launched a beta version of a similar platform, and almost nobody noticed. That's not to say that MySpace and Facebook aren't making money, but monetization is still the No. 1 concern for most social networks. To that end, MySpace is doing a far better job than Facebook; Google's search partnership is certainly one of the main reasons, but Pali Research's Richard Greenfield predicts that "the industry powerhouse" has "a huge advertising opportunity in front of it" with its new …

Last week, at the Second Life Community Convention, founder Philip Rosedale boldly declared that his virtual world would be "something that everybody on Earth is going to use," that it would someday be "bigger than the Web." Marketers, on whose presence the site partially depends, are starting to disbelieve the hype. The audience Rosedale addressed may have been full of Second Life denizens, but much of his hyperbole was reserved for the media. Like Rosedale's opening keynote, CNET's Caroline McCarthy said panel discussions at the event, (consisting of business, education, social networking and virtual world animation, or machinima), …

SoundExchange, the music royalty board set up by the federal government, will limit the fees imposed on Web radio stations that offer more than 100 channels to consumers to $50K per year. Representatives from radio companies agreed this was a positive first step in repairing relations with the royalty overseer. SoundExchange sets the royalty rates that terrestrial and Internet radio companies must pay artists and labels for broadcasting their music. Following the announcement of a substantial royalty hike and a fee of $500 per station or channel, Webcasters said the new rates were unfair as compared to terrestrial radio. …

An eye-tracking study from Jakob Nielsen reveals what many marketers have long known: Web users have trained their eyes to move directly towards content, away from ads. As a result, ads need to look more like content, right? Unfortunately you can't really do that on the Web like you can in say, a print magazine. So what are advertisers to do? Eye-tracking studies don't exist for newspapers or magazines. You can't measure where someone's eye lands. For example, whole sections of a paper are often ignored--sometimes, the paper just sits there. Other times maybe 10 percent of it …

As the days go by, more and more is being revealed about the massive security breach at Monster.com that resulted in the theft of information from some 1.3 million job seekers. The online recruitment site waited five days to tell users about what the report calls "one of the biggest Internet security breaches in recent memory." Using a Trojan, a program that facilitates the stealing of log-in information, hackers broke into the online recruitment site's bank of resumes to steal sensitive personal information from Monster's users. The attack was launched from servers in Ukraine using a software program …

Great Britain, farther along than the U.S. in the areas of broadband adoption, cell phone technology and Web advertising, is in the midst of a revolution in communication services, according to a new study. The Web, cell phones and MP3 players are all contributing to a shift in media habits, away from older technologies like TV, radio and DVD players. Interestingly, the Ofcom study says that women are the dominant Web users in certain age groups, while older Web users spend more time online than their younger counterparts, who also are spending more time with Web-based and wireless media. …

A new advertising system on Facebook gives marketers access to an unprecedented amount of information that its users reveal about themselves. The idea is to ultimately devise a system that predicts what products and services users might be interested in before they know it. Unnamed sources say the new behavior targeting plan, set to be unveiled this fall, is the company's top priority moving forward. Facebook declined to discuss specifics. The same sources said the social networking giant is trying to achieve what Google did with AdWords, allowing advertisers to buy groups of people with similar interests …

Third-party software development on Facebook is booming, but are application makers making any money? Where is the business model? Advertising is the logical choice, but even the most interesting Facebook applications are attracting small audiences. For many companies, like Fantasy Stock Exchange, Facebook is treated more like a marketing tool than new business tool. However, there's no reason you shouldn't go right to HedgeStop.com (the developer) to participate in the fantasy stock market. What's the benefit on Facebook? Also, HedgeStop hopes to make money selling banner ads-but who would buy 92,000 users who are most likely novice traders? …

Selling legitimate, digital rights management-free music looks like a trend that will continue, as encouraging signs emerge from Europe, particularly France. DRM freedom allows consumers to play music files purchased from any online store on any music device. Once music opens up, the future belongs to ISPs that offer DRM-free music for a monthly flat rate. This is already happening in France, where Cegetel and Orange France are offering access to large catalogs of music for either an added price of 5 euros (in the case of Cegetel) or as part of its existing service. In the U.S., …

A new study that says music piracy will cost the U.S. economy more than $12.5 billion this year takes a shortsighted view of pee-to-peer file sharing technology. The Institute for Policy Innovation study, like many that measure the negative effects of P2P networks, assumes most illegal downloads should be considered lost sales. To its credit, the study substitutes a weighted average that says 65.7%t of illegal downloads would have been CD sales. Still, it's a somewhat arbitrary, if educated guess. One important factor not considered by the study is that P2P users also buy a lot of music. …