Major Marketers Avoid MySpace

"SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE MYSPACE HAS grown to 60 million members, adding 8 million to million new members in the last few months alone, and now accounts for around 12.5 percent of all online display ads.

But major brand marketers continue to shun the site. That's according to executives at a panel on the 'Revolution in Television' hosted by the Advertising Research Foundation Monday in New York.

Of six panelists representing major advertisers and ad agencies, not a single one advertised with MySpace or other social networking sites. Reasons for avoiding MySpace include concern about its potential for criminal use, especially given recent well-publicized reports about sexual predators searching for victims on the site, as well as fears that user-generated content--including pictures and text with sexual overtones--will be offensive."