From the Social Networking Frontier?

Users of social networking sites and advertisers seem to have opposing views on the topic of whether commercial messages are needed or wanted in sites like Facebook and MySpace. While advertisers think that these sites are the one best way at the moment to reach the ever-elusive Gen Y, members of Facebook and MySpace are getting fed up of being bombarded with advertisements on their profiles. As BusinessWeek reported yesterday, a lot of social network users are discontinuing their accounts just because they are sick and tired of learning every little detail of their friends’ online shopping activities.

Despite these accounts and the decreasing rate of growth of social networking sites CBS entered into a partnership with Facebook and is launching a microsite that will allow the users of the network to track the NCAA college basketball tournament and make predictions about who is going to win it. The name of the application, which can be found at www.facebook.com/brackets, is NCAA March Madness Brackets. It will allow Facebook users not only to post their own predictions but also to compare them to their friends’ bets. They will also be able to browse through the tournament coverage of CBS Sports, CSTV, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com, including links to watch the games live. The application will also be available on mobile devices so that users can rank competing schools directly from their phone via the CBS Sports Mobile Web site.

MySpace also entered into a partnership with a media outlet last week. The social network with the greatest number of users around the world will promote the digital issue of Spin magazine. Spin Digital was posted for the first time in January in a “soft launch,” the February issue will mark the official launch. As part of the deal, MySpace users will be able to read Spin Digital for free for the first 12 months of the campaign. They will also have access to audio samples, video footage and interactive ads that they can post on other Web sites.