Debate Intensifies on Monetizing Social Networks

Nice summary here of a panel discussion held at a recent conference that examined monetizing the social networks.
May 20, 2008, By
Marketers are becoming increasingly cynical about the value of social networks. But many who work in the space say value is defined by what the brand brings to the table -- social networks aren't the mass media buy many thought they were.
With pressure mounting on social networks to find monetization models capable of translating friendship into action, interactive marketers have taken an increasingly harder look at social networks, asking what opportunities -- if any -- they have in the space.
Joseph Dumont, a partner at the interactive advertising firm Questus, posed that question to a group of about 300 digital professionals.
"Recently we heard that MySpace had fallen short of its revenue projects and Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has come out and said that monetizing social networks is a lot more difficult than was originally imagined," Dumont told attendees at the iMedia Agency Summit in Austin, Texas. "Yet social networks account for a huge amount of where people spend their time online, and so the question is how do you come up with a monetization model that works?"