Depending on your point of view (or your job title) the news that MySpace and Facebook have launched advertising initiatives is -

a) good - it's a sign that this sector is maturing and finally living up to the outlandish valuations put on sites. Also - new areas to advertise with fantastic customer targeting!

or

b) bad - the innocence is gone now and users will move onto virgin territory where they won't be harrassed by advertisers

Not sure myself. I think the option to create pages for businesses / products etc is great - but already sick of finding flashing gifs for products that some advertisers has decided my demographic group should be interested in

I think people who use the social network sites for themselves, not thinking about the business of it, will just be annoyed by the adverts.
One of the great things about social network sites was that they were free from the advertisers, all you got was the view of the people using it.

I do get the point that this also shows that social networks are more prominent now as advetisers are willing to pay to be on them. But do strongly feel people will be ennoyed by this...

I think the key is in the ads being relevant, useful and not intrusive. Those horrible flashing banners from gambling sites, pop ups and banners that take three seconds to disappear and don't let you in the site all destroy user experience.

The same as Google - if the ads are relevant to what you want and not too intrusive nor too many then they are part of a positive experience. If you join the roller blade club it may be useful to see ads of deals on new roller blades. Google tries to achieve this by penalising irrelevant ads - ie those that get low click throughs by seeing this as a vote of 'relevance'.

Another interesting idea I heard was the ability to let users choose the kind of ads they would be willing to see on the network.

I think users accept that the service costs money and that the provider will have to pay the hosting, development and salaries to provide a professional service. The same as Google - you get an excellent search tool for free but who complains about the ads by the side. 65% of users are said to never click a Google Ad but they get to use the search tool with no problem. Google and its advertisers make enough money out of the other 35%.

It is part of a bargain - you give me a nice social network and I will accept to see some ads.

my specific point was that the whole world new about Diana and Elvis dying (there was literally nothing else on the telly for days after Diana died).

In the case of my message board friend, there was nothing on the telly, the radio, or even on the web - except for a couple of sites where he was well known.

There was a Diana-esque atmosphere in the immediate aftermath of his death on this board - but it was completely and utterly removed from mainstream news.

I don't think that the amount of advertising on Facebook at the moment is that bad, although some of the adverts themselves are ridiculous.

Having had a scan through some blogs it seems that the German version, studiVZ | Bist Du schon drin? has also received similar criticism but the advertising on that site really is quite intrusive. Some times you'd think you'd been redirected to another site because of the amount of flashing banners and advertising images. One blog did mention the possibility of users being able to "switch off" the advertising if they wish. Perhaps this could be an option with Facebook? Afterall consumers love choice...