Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

Lookery Heads To The Deadpool

TECH CRUNCH -- Aug 21 -- Lookery, a startup that focuses on collecting demographic data about users and sites around the web and then selling this information to ad networks to target users, is heading to the deadpool. In a blog post, Lookery’s CEO Scott Rafer confirmed that the startup will be shutting its doors after launching in 2007. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Lookery Raises $2.25 Million

DMW MEDIA -- Sep 5 -- Lookery, the operator of a social network-centric ad network, has raised $2.25m in new funding, from investors including Attractor, Holtzbrinck, several principals of venture capital firm Sand Hill Road, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, VentureBeat reported. Lookery initially operated an ad network on Facebook, but has since expanded its services more broadly. FULL ARTICLE @ DMW MEDIA

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Lookery Cut Its Ad Rates In Half

TECH CRUNCH -- July 22 -- Nobody can make money on social network ads. Even Google is having a hard time. Lookery, an ad network for social apps on Facebook and elsewhere, is renewing a promotion, guaranteeing 15c per thousand page impressions to app developers who sign up. With two ads per page, that comes to 7.5c CPM. Back in January, Lookery was offering 12.5c CPM. Other social app ad networks, such as Social Media, are commanding ~50c CPM by focusing on higher-quality inventory. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Social Networks Need to Make Money

WIRED -- Mar 27 -- MySpace's membership has ballooned from 20m people in 2005 to 225m today, an average annual growth rate of 513%. Rival Facebook grew at 550% a year during the same period. LinkedIn's rate was 182%. Social networking was supposed to be the Net's next rocket to riches. But many social sites are having trouble capitalizing on their audiences. Lookery, an ad network specializing in social media, offers display ads on MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo for only 13c CPM. Yahoo's average CPM is ~$13. Video ads on MySpace reportedly fetch just $25 CPM. LinkedIn has a CPM as high as $75. The site caters to professionals, making it easier to target ads. FULL ARTICLE @ WIRED

Mark Brooks: Throwing banner ads to the wind does not work. SNS users are especially good at tuning out banner ads.  In my experience, the performance of untargeted ads on social networks sucks.  Ads on social networks need to be highly targeted to perform. And the ads need to drive traffic to communities on social networks rather than to the advertisers site. i.e. ads on MySpace for xyz brand should drive traffic to the xyz community on MySpace. Social networks are a great place to harvest and encourage brand ambassadors and evangelists, and open discussion about your brand. Encourage those that might be ambassadors in, give them special treatment, listen to them, and THEY can turn your social networking ad campaign into a success. Easier said than done. Please let me know about your successful SNS ad campaigns at mark@socialnetworkingwatch.com.

Lookery Ad Network Taps Facebook Apps Market

BIZ REPORT -- July 30 -- Facebook currently has almost 32 million active users and, with 10,000 new registrations every day, it's growing at a rate of 3% a week. It's no surprise then that an ad network called Lookery was created with Facebook applications in mind. Like other third-party providers, Lookery is allowed access to user profiles under Facebook's new open platform. With over 1,800 applications and the top 10 having more than 3 million users each, Facebook's data will surely prove worthy to Lookery soon. FULL ARTICLE @ BIZ REPORT