Frazoo, a D.C.-based search engine company offering pay-per-click advertising, has acquired in-text ad network BrandClik. The details of the acquisition have not been revealed but the acquisition amount is said to be in the six-figure range.

BrandClik works by enabling brands to push their ads through in-text publisher content based on key words and advertising inventory. Matching these two can result in a well-integrated in-text ad that actually provides a level of value to readers. With BrandClik there are no rollover pop-ups–an ad link isn’t activated until a reader manually clicks the link.
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Friendster is launching a new Do It Yourself advertising option for local businesses that would like to market on the social networking site. The new DIY program is being offered through the support of ZEDO, an ad serving company for web publishers. With the inclusion of ZEDO, Friendster is looking to keep costs down and extend its advertising capabilities without having to necessarily add staff or heavily build out its own marketing infrastructure.

This is likely the best approach for Friendster, given the current economic climate and the ongoing talks of Frienster putting itself up for sale. As Friendster has witnessed firsthand the ruthless nature of social network waning in the states, the company had spent the past few years seeking and gaining success overseas. But Friendster isn’t immune to the overall shift in advertising, which has largely affected the social networking, which has been rather reliant on ads for revenue.

A necessary change in the way in which ads are displayed and served across social networks has been a point of contention for social networks for several months now, and all the major social networks have had to make adjustments internally and for their client-facing options as well.

MySpace is probably the other notable social network that’s pertinent for this particular discussion, as it has undergone some hefty restructuring with its employees, programs and partnerships to streamline its advertising program as well. And as far as Facebook goes, the necessity to continuously update and improve its DIY ads doesn’t go unnoticed. Others still, including Trulia, have been seeking out the benefits of providing a highly localized DIY marketplace for individuals and businesses that would like to advertise within a social network setting.

To that end, Friendster will need to ensure the effectiveness of its ad server, as well as easy-to-use metrics and feedback tools. Leveraging its existing social network for the purpose of an inclusive DIY ad program can really help Friendster create a self-sustaining marketplace for local businesses. Building this out in other areas for local markets will likely add value to Friendster in the end.

To start, Friendster DIY Ads will be available globally in 75+ countries, though targeted ads are only supported in the US, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. See here for more details.

It’s clear that Twitter has been proven as a social media marketing tool, from the success of Dell to recent reports demonstrating the usefulness of the microblogging platform. So Buddy Media, the social media company used by brands and agencies alike, has created a Twitter Management System. This lets advertisers tap into Twitter as well as analyze the subsequent data for engagement purposes.

Some of the features to be included in Buddy Media’s Twitter Management system will be the ability to measure and identify various Twitter trends around your brand, as well as the ability to track your performance and trends across your Twitter followers, other mentions, and retweets. The Twitter Management System will also track basics, such as volume and frequency of click-through rates from links posted on Twitter. Other services include the option to schedule tweets and create profiles for brand families, which breaks down to multiple-Twitter account management.
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Online marketing is something that’s been around for some time, but the past few years of social networking popularity combined with the necessity for more effective marketing has brought us into a new realm of social media marketing.

It’s been somewhat experimental, given the need for the cooperation from both social site publishers and participating brands. There’s also been the issue of metrics, which have come from site publishers as well as third party services. The result is a long-standing interim of wonderment at the effectiveness of social media marketing. But looking at companies such as Dell, Skittles, Burger King and Starbucks and it’s clear that running certain kinds of marketing campaigns on various social networks does in fact have a lasting effect. And it all boils down to engagement.
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Weeks after announcing massive layoffs and international restructuring, MySpace is teaming up with a subset of its parent company Fox International Channels (FIC) in order to combine and streamline advertising deals. Under the terms of the partnership FIC will manage local advertising, marketing and promotion in several countries including Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Poland, Mexico and Turkey.

These are all countries in which MySpace has a localized version of its social networking site. These are also countries that are remaining active and nurtured after the major restructuring of MySpace as a company. Under the restructure, MySpace seemingly cut back on a good portion of its international efforts, closing several offices and combining the work towards an effort to create a more centralized account of localized sites and advertising methods. This was named as an initiative for focusing on innovation, which is an area in which MySpace has been lacking in relation to competitors such as Facebook.
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Buddy Media has been busy lately, pushing some of its newer products onto big brands seeking better engagement with consumers via social media applications. The company that brought us app-vertisements and helped solidify their existence as viable alternatives to display ads has launched four new Facebook pages this week for Parents magazine, the National Jean Company, the Shoebox (which is a sister company to the National Jean Company)and Better Homes and Gardens.

Here’s a quick rundown of a couple of the new applications, outlining how they work within the Facebook community.
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Meebo, the chat widget tool, had already launched its own ad network some time ago. Now the company is launching ads on its own partner network, with Toyota being the first marketer to advertise. With 85 publishers signed up for its partner network, Meebo is enabling brands to run ads on a larger scale directly through Meebo’s company, with the same results they’ve grown accustomed to on Meebo.com.

What’s this really mean? In Meebo’s long-standing effort to expand its own network, web presence and visibility, the integrated communication tool has launched several tools and gained several partners, many of which have teamed up with the company for marketing purposes. This is in part due to the fact that Meebo’s integrated communication tools enable brands to connect directly with consumers through multimedia brand messages, chat, and advertisements. On the consumer end, these communication tools provide great channels for product and brand discussion as well as valuable feedback that marketers can use in their larger data pools.
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Virtual goods has become one way in which to monetize social media applications, and entire marketplace has cropped up around this. Services such as Offerpal have established monetization solutions for such socially inegrated virtual economies, from games to mobile applications.

Months after raising $15 million in funding, a new update from Offerpal extends more customization capabilities for clients. In what appears to be an enhanced dashboard option, Offerpal is launching a virtual currency analytics package for social applications and destination sites. Participants can track activity as well as monetization performance for their specific campaigns.
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Whenever a platform becomes a standard, there are usually other companies that create platforms atop this initial one in order to help facilitate the available actions between third party developers and that platform. Such is the case with AdWhirl, which has announced a $1 million round of funding led by Foundation Capital.
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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently released its guidelines for social media ad metrics as well as best practices, reports B to B. The documents aim to set definitions, common metrics and industry best practices that are specific to the growing field of social media advertising.
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