This IDC study reports on the results of IDC's latest consumer survey with regard to social networking services (SNS): What is today's SNS audience reach compared with mainstream services such as Google and Yahoo!? What is the demographic of their users (i.e., who do advertisers reach on SNS, how well do consumers tolerate advertising on SNS compared with online advertising in general, and how effective is advertising on SNS). More than half of U.S. consumers with Internet access use social networking services, such as Facebook and MySpace, and penetration is expected to continue to grow.

"Major social networking services such as MySpace or Facebook reach a lot of consumers by now, and they don't reach only teenagers anymore. But our research also shows that social networks face problems when it comes to ad effectiveness," said Karsten Weide, IDC's program director, Digital Media and Entertainment.