Beyond the noise of Facebook and MySpace's fight for advertising, the creative layouts and personal connections, junior social work major Brandon Hanshew does his usual check on Facebook and MySpace.
He patrols these social networks an hour a day to see if the juvenile delinquents he supervises are out of trouble, all while disregarding the advertisements.
Now, the companies might move past the typical, broad advertising into a future that might include personal ads relating directly to users.
Hanshew said he used Facebook, "To see if somebody likes him today." But the 12 kids he watches from the juvenile detention home is his main objective.
Hanshew said the networks gave him the luxury of being at two places at once. Once he saw a resident talking about doing something wrong, which Hanshew reported.
"Now with Facebook and MySpace, we can keep track of who they are talking to, and what they are talking about," he said.
James Chesebro, distinguished professor of telecommunications, said about 25 percent of users were trying to find a romantic partner, but after that, Facebook and MySpace posed different uses for different users.
Chesebro said MySpace was used for corporate enterprises while Facebook was something more personal and "sacred" among users.
"Facebook is trying to hold on to its integrity more as an interpersonal space," he said. "MySpace has objectives."
But with more visitors per month, Facebook may change. Chesebro said Microsoft was in charge of the advertising component of Facebook.
MySpace has a similar relationship with Google by using third-party agreements to decide how it advertises, he said.
Chesebro said last month Microsoft declined using the information on profile status pages for advertisements, which kept the space more personal and less commercial than MySpace.
Typical advertising hasn't worked for years, he said, so a new form of "micro-advertising" might arise to combat the issue, he said.
Chesebro said if the networks used the abundant information about users on their profile page, the Web site could adjust advertising intended for individuals.
"It would be a new advertising world all together," he said.
Another factor in advertising is that Facebook is for college students and MySpace is for high school children. Chesebro said that idea wasn't true, and as these networking services age, so do their users.
"The demographic is changing for both [networks]," he said. "The people over 21 is getting [more and more]."
In the Atrium, the rain gently pressed against the windows in the Atrium as Jennifer Druba, a sophomore elementary and special education major, checked her Facebook waiting for a friend.
But in the meantime, she viewed some of her 485 friends on the network. As a Facebook user, she enjoys more privacy than on MySpace, she said.
Earlier in the day, Druba had passed a message of "Happy Birthday" on someone's wall, but the network doesn't control her life because she is on for one or two hours a day.
"I have gotten rid of Facebook a couple of times because of the stress, and it seems like you are always on it," she said.
One evening freshman legal studies major Sarah Craig and Heather Koller, a freshman meteorology and political science major, sat together for dinner, taking a break from their avid networking. Both people are avid users of Facebook and MySpace.
When Koller was asked about how many hours she spent on the Web site, she laughed to herself while trying to think.
"Oh my God," she exclaimed, "I couldn't even tell you."
In the end, she decided five to six hours a day was an accurate guess. When asked about how many friends she had on each site total, an inquisitive look flashed across her face.
"Oh Dear Lord," she said. "On each one, there is about 600 or 700 people."
Koller said she enjoyed MySpace more than Facebook because it was more expressive in controlling the layout and the music on the site.
She also said the advertising was becoming a larger factor on the networking sites, but understood the companies needed to make money.
Craig then chipped in and said advertisers had a great advantage targeting users who were on the networks so frequently.
"That's the only site I'm on half the time," Craig said.
Craig also said with a sigh how she couldn't live without the Web sites.
Facebook and MySpace representatives were not available for comment.
Chesebro said Facebook members didn't want to have their profiles viewed for content analysis, he said, but in the next year Microsoft might have ideas for Facebook's advertising future.
"I can't imagine they would back off without something else in mind," he said. "They have to make money off this."
But what Microsoft and Facebook does in the coming year is still a mystery, he said.
"Let's wait and see," he said.
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