Please, No More Online-Dating Ads In Social Networks!

September 21st, 2007 | | Email This Entry

Remember those explicit ads for the True online dating service? As a self-identified male in my young thirties, they used to follow me around constantly inside of MySpace. Below is one such example.

(an advertisement served to me in MySpace in 2006)

I’m not sure what’s happened to True, but now its category sibling Singlesnet.com is coming after me inside Facebook!

(an advertisement served to me in Facebook in 2007)

For the record, I’m not “having trouble meeting attractive female Friends.” I already know “how to meet chicks.” In fact, I’ve been happily married for seven years, and have a kid.

To avoid banner blindness, I need ads that provide service or benefit to me — like how to balance work and home, or how to ease my toddler’s intolerable teething pain at 3am in the morning, or tips to more efficiently manage bookkeeping and tax filings for my nanny.

I’m all for achieving viable advertising models to support social networks, but please no more online-dating ads.