Social Nets Ad Forecast Cut Back; Blame Economy Or Hype

So much for social network advertising. eMarketer has revised its earlier forecast for 2011 down to £2.2 billion ($4.32 billion) $3.79 billion), citing “today’s economy, combined with the fact that social networks are still trying to develop successful ad models”.

Growing social media audiences, plus the potential to mine profile data for targeted advertising, had offered great hope – and plenty of hype – for this sector. But Facebook’s user biteback at its Beacon proposal, for example, seemed to underscore a scepticism about such advanced practices at least. eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson: