MySpace cleaning up online

MySpace has been getting a lot of negative publicity because of the raunchy content and pedophiles who have used the site. Despite the fact that their traffic is approaching Google and Yahoo! proportions, advertisers have been slow to adopt the site.

MySpace has recently launched a 'Safe' content area. According to the Wall Street Journal, "The areas, which contain articles written by editors and links to related blogs and groups elsewhere on MySpace, are meant to be safe for advertisers that want to appear on the site but don't want to be associated with unsavory material."

It appears to be working. Advertisers are using the site to create profiles, and then giving special offers to people who add the advertisers as a "friend".  Take a look at what 20th Century Fox did with X-men:

X-Men III: The Last Stand" has attracted more than three million friends so far -- in part because of an offer that those who befriended X-Men would be allowed to boost the number of "top friends" permitted on their own profile pages to 16 from eight. Exit polling showed that 15% of the under-25 audience for X-Men heard about the movie on MySpace."

Pretty significant results. Check out the X-space Myspace page. - Paul Herring