• CNET News.com, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 10:45 AM

A bevy of social networking startups were on display at the Under the Radar Conference in California yesterday. Maybe half will still be around next year. Why, because the success or failure of these startups is directly tied directly to online advertising, and if Facebook and MySpace don't have that figured out yet, it's unlikely these newbies will. Olsen also points out that traditional brands still aren't spending nearly as much online as they do on TV.

For social networks, part of the problem is that marketers don't want to risk having their brand appear alongside a marijuana leaf on some 16-year-old's profile page. Another problem, executives say, is that social media companies tend to be technology-driven, and tech companies often fail to hire media-savvy execs who can sell brand advertising.

AKQA Chief Tom Bedecarre scoffed at the smaller social networking startups for touting their rich user data. "I can't imagine a large agency giving a rat about a small firm's data," he said. "Advertisers are looking for aggregation of data...and someone at a very high level to give an overview (of what it means)."

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