In that case, as long as she isn't pretending to be real, it's ok.

There's definitely something about marketing that makes people check out of their ethics.

Just remember, one SNS can have a completely different rule set than another. It's for that reason that I think a few major SNS sites can coexist peacefully. Myspace is Times Square. Facebook is town hall. And so forth.

As long as these marketer’s character MySpace accounts are not bothering anyone, I think they are fine. What bothers users is when someone like a webcam girl sends out fired request saying "check out my web cam" and befriending users who have less than 200 friends. A user that has this few friends might indicate that this user do not accept friend request from just anyone, and is more sensitive to reporting spammy accounts which then get shut down. When there is an overtly strong call to action (visit my webcam), your will be annoyed and call it spam, report the account, and it will get shut down. It is spam if most people think it is. If it annoys most people, it is. You need to know how to walk the line.

Does the marketer’s character MySpace accounts add value to the user they are befriending? If the marketer’s character MySpace account has blog entries worth reading (fake or not), a profile story that is interesting (fake or not), hot pictures, links to a YouTube vlog, hot pics on their Flickr account, then the answer is yes. Is this marketer’s character MySpace account someone you want people to think you are friends with because this marketer’s character MySpace account appears to be leading an interesting life or can get you access to something, it adds value. There is a difference between the fake Coke blog or the fake L'Oreal blog and a fake but successful marketer’s character MySpace account. One marketer fully understood the medium, and the other did not. One took itself very seriously (failed character blogs), and the successful marketer’s character MySpace accounts do not.

I can start fake MySpace account, go and send friend request to hot chick only with more than 2000 friends and be pretty sure they are going to accept my friend request because I can see that they don't discriminate. Then I can have all hot chicks in my top 8. I can then solicit testimonials from them. Now I have instant (but fake) social proof (although you can find out if it really is fake if you pay close attention by finding out if all the friends are in the same geographical location, not worth your time). The people you have befriended will not know each other, so for all anyone but your true friends know, you do actually know some of the people you have befriended.

A problem exists if all of this really bothers you. You do not have to befriend or accept friend request from people you don’t know. They are not going to affect you at all you are not linked to them. You have a problem if you are like Jonathan Abrahms, founder of Friendster who really wanted the network links to be of people who actually knew each other because the whole think was an experiment in who really knows whom. Friendster deleted fake accounts and took measures to deter mass befriending by asking you for the friends last name or e-mail address. This all lead to the demise of Friendster.

Now lets take a look at Lonleygirl15. If she had admitted she had two friends helping her, or did something tounge -and-cheeky to let you know that it was not real, they team might still have a real marketing channel. Instead, a lot of people who were following it were upset when they found out it was not real. Why did they care? Because: they liked the content, it had some kind of value to them.

BTW, if you are impressed by my analysis, I am available for hire in this medium.

It seems that, similar to the 3-dimensional world, people are engaged in various levels of pretense.

There are people who dress like skateboarders yet cannot skate. There are people who dress like Catholic schoolgirls but haven't seen the inside of a school in over a decade.

The "social network site" provides a lot of tools for pretense and social performance. Perhaps the potential for posing and deception will make the decision to add a friend to one's list pivotal in identifying/ostracizing fakes. If the signal to noise ratio gets too watered down, we may see a decrease in the 9,000 friends phenomenon.

But to be fair compare this to TV ads. You get sued when you lie in US. Remember the whole scandal with the Million Little pieces book? The guy sort mixed up reality and creativity and it just did not fly.

I do not think these tricks are reasonable, acceptable or fair. Its clever and elegant, but its not really legit.

Alex

That's easy: the same way you can have a social community around a fictional character like Harry Potter. The people in the community are still real, and still interested in interacting with each other. Why does the object at the center have to be a real person?

See also: William Gibson's novel Idoru, which predicted this by about a decade.

If only to prove their point, it's a no brainer. Post any porn on any site, site meter will go haywire. You post it at the largest social networking site, what do you expect?

Abuse of technology with all the hype. I haven't watched the video, is it Salma Hayek? If not, does know about it? Or is it technical tweaking?

Well, I'm right after all about MySpace.

Andrew, that's a great point. In this case though, it's not entirely clear that Red Passion is not a real person - whereas with Harry Potter it's very obvious.

ipanema, the video is not of Salma Hayek. And yes, sex does sell on the Web...

In my opinion the most interesting point is:
"The people in the community are still real, and still interested in interacting with each other. Why does the object at the center have to be a real person?"
This is really the most interesting point.
I fully agree that Herry Potter is known by everyone as a character. But remeber Lonelygirl15. Was it clear that she was fake? No it was not. It became clear when she became famous, not before.
Think about this: All the children believe in Santa Claus and, guess what, it originally was a powerful marketing tool by Coca Cola. And still it is. The difference is that we got used to Santa Claus and Lonelygirl15...

Other points I'd like to clear:
Me and my company are aware of dangers of porn for young people and that's why the campaign is not porn at all.I guess that a 13 years boy can find easily porn everywhere else in the web.

We never pretended to abuse of the users: destination website url was clearly shown at the beginning of the campaign in every profile. We never forced anyone to buy or sell or anything. Just have some fun all together around a sort of femme fatale.

These profiles are a just game, a sort of entertaintment. Most of flickr users did not care about fake or real becouse they were interested in the quality of the pictures. Most of the comments are about that, not about trying to date the girl:)
All the story was a game and I guess almost everyone enoyed it.

The faceless internet is an inefficient way to build community. "Real" community requires accountability and trust, both of which are incredibly hard to come by on the 'net.

In my opinion, MySpace and the like aren't really social networking community sites, they're just (as the previous comment says) "just a game, a sort of entertainment." It's because of this reality that corporations can get away with making fake identities.

Did you also read the number about the "community interested in red passion"? Those communities have millions of users, 3.000 "friends" are so many? Looks like people smelled something...

I imagine if you added that now to the profile posted a photo of "her" with an explanation, there would be people who are upset, who assumed it was
a real person like most flickr accounts.

Marketing companies should realize that people value being open and transparent.

But then again, you might have to post pictures of people falling down drunk, throwing up, going into rehab, and eventually dying of cirrhosis of the liver.

Also, did you check to make sure everyone who "friended" or made "her" a contact was over 21?

I wonder what kind of backlash he had, like Edelman had with their Wal-Marting Across America fiasco that's gotten them suspended from WOMMA, who's guidelines they helped draft and then promptly ignored.

On the other hand, if the marketer attempts to really deceive people into believing it is actually a real person, then those who've invested significant emotion into interacting will feel taken advantage of. People really dislike that feeling and rage will be their likely response; it won't be pretty.

Smart....its all a marketing gimmick.

I agree wit u scotty..and Jonathan ...