Do you have a MySpace profile? If you do, your personal information on MySpace could soon be made available to a number of other Web sites.

The largest social network in the U.S. said today that it is making its members' data available to third-party sites. The first partnering sites are Ebay, Yahoo, Twitter and Photobucket. That means that if you want to make your profile picture or blog available to people on your Yahoo Instant Messenger buddy list, you can. Or if you want to add more information about yourself to your Twitter account, you can sync it with your MySpace profile, and potentially find friends of yours on MySpace who are also regular Twitter-ers.

MySpace says the primary purpose of this move it to help the Web become more social and interconnected, and less like a collection of disparate Web sites. "MySpace no longer operates as an autonomous island on the Internet," said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace, during a conference call with reporters today. "We believe your profile will become your Internet address...by being more personal and more portable."

From an advertising perspective, MySpace hopes integrating its features with other sites will encourage people to spend more time on the platform, which generates more ad revenue for the company. And if other sites have access to personal data about you, there's more potential for MySpace to sell highly targeted ads.

From a privacy perspective, this means the personal details you've included on MySpace could be visible across a number of different sites. MySpace says it will let consumers control what information they share and who they share it with. And if you delete or change information from your MySpace profile, those changes will be reflected on the other sites with whom you've chosen to share your information.

Steve Pearman, senior vice president of product development at MySpace, told me this afternoon that the company will take into account any consumer complaints about the data-availability feature as it rolls out over the next couple of weeks. "User data is sacred to us," he said.

MySpace is also part of the OpenSocial alliance spearheaded by Google, a group that was created to foster development of social network applications by third-party developers. While that initiative is supposed to give outside developers access to MySpace members, today's announcement is intended to do the opposite, Pearman said, by giving users the power to export their content and data to outside sites.

MySpace says it is open to relationships with virtually all Web sites--including Facebook, if it is so inclined.

What do you think? Does this raise privacy concerns? Does the Web need to be "more social" or are we all maxed out on status updates?

If you'd like to share your thoughts, shoot me an e-mail at hartk (at) washpost (dot) com.

The promise of mobile marketing has been talked about for several years now, yet we still haven't seen the flurry of cellphone ads that have long been predicted--let alone the sophisticated ads consumers see in other countries.

This week, the Federal Trade Commission held a "town hall" meeting to discuss the state of the mobile marketing industry and what, if any, rules need to be in place to guide its development. Several ad agency folks and other industry execs reported what we've been seeing for a while now: mobile marketing is still largely experimental for many large companies and makes up only a small fraction of overall advertising budgets.

For consumers who'd just as soon not receive ads on their cellphones, that's good news. But mobile marketing is starting to get traction in certain demographics, such as college students. Michael Hanley, professor of advertising at Ball State University, has found through his research that four in 10 students have received mobile ads, and 28 percent of college students would accept coupons on their cellphones. (Coupons for restaurants and movie theaters were most desired).

At the same time, the consumption of mobile content is leveled off, so people typically aren't increasing the amount of content they read and watch on their cellphones as much as they have over the past few years, Hanley said. However, the level of annoyance with mobile ads also seems to have subsided, even as the amount of ads out there grows.

One of the biggest hurdles to mobile marketing lies in the fact that not everyone has an unlimited data plan on their phone. That means they pay a fee to send or receive text messages, click on a banner ad to open a mobile Web site. While the iPhone has helped to change that by making the mobile Internet more accessible, having extensive data plans isn't the norm, said Ben Ezrick, senior strategist of digital innovation for Ogilvy Interactive. He pointed to research that showed 85 percent of iPhone users access the Web on the regular basis, compared to 13 percent of the rest of cellphone users.

Some big brands, such as Cover Girl, are using mobile marketing as a piece of larger ad strategies. "It rarely stands alone," said Jean Berberich, head of Proctor & Gamble's mobile marketing practice. Another problem is that it's hard to tell how effective such campaigns are. "It's all about measurements, and there's not a lot of data to pull from," she said. But from the data she does have, Berberich said she can tell that people are eager to interact with mobile ads. Even though it's a smaller audience, those that actively receive mobile ads engage with the brand nearly five times more than they do with online ads.

I'm curious about how some of you feel about receiving mobile ads. Would you be willing to get them? And if you did, would you find them useful? Or just annoying?

Today, several sports leagues, including the NFL, NASCAR, and NBA, formally challenged the "white spaces" proposal put forth by tech companies including Microsoft and Google.

In a filing, the leagues asked Federal Communications Commission require the technology companies that want to sell wireless white space devices to prove that their devices won't interfere with wireless microphones, which already operate in white spaces.

A group of prominent tech companies have proposed using fallow airwaves, known as white spaces, for wireless devices. The FCC is currently testing devices to determine if they can potentially be used by consumers without interfering with nearby signals.

Broadcasters have also opposed the use of white spaces for personal devices because they could get in the way of their signals. The tech companies say their devices should be able to detect existing signals and avoid them. The sports alliance's filing is the latest move in the prolonged back-and-forth on the issue.

Ken Kerschbaumer, executive director of the Sports Video Group, said the devices could knock out wireless communications systems like headsets used by coaches, microphones used by referees, and microphones used by journalists.

"Now is not the time for the Commission to be distracted by proposals that rely on unproven, yet-to-be-developed technical fixes,"said the Sports Technology Alliance in its filing. The Sports Technology Alliance was formed by the Sports Video Group and is made up of major professional and collegiate U.S. sports leagues.

No word on when the FCC will wrap up testing of the devices, but there will likely be more jabs by each side to keep us from forgetting about it. An advertising blitz on the issue was launched a couple weeks ago.

One of the main challenges for online advertisers is figuring out which Web sites are worth their advertising dollars. How do they know where their competitors are advertising? How do they figure out whether a banner ad would be more effective than a keyword search ad?

A new search engine called Yureekah launched this week to help ad agencies and advertisers find where competitors are advertising and determining the best options for future brand advertising.

Devaraj Southworth, one of its creators, said the idea stemmed from his own company's needs. He runs a small creative agency and a media planning firm, and it often took several weeks to put together an online ad strategy because he had to manually go through Web sites, ad networks and portals to figure out where his client should be visible. Southworth said he's even had to cancel a campaign because finding that information was too labor-intensive to meet the deadline.

He envisions, for example, a small boutique hotel using the service to find out out where Marriott and Hilton are advertising. The small business owner can then determine how best to spend his money to compete for patrons.

"Clients always ask us, 'Where are we and where should we be?'" he said. "This can help level the playing field so everyone can figure that out," not just the advertisers with huge budgets.

The site is currently free to use, but Southworth says more features will be rolled out that have revenue potential. Right now the information is coming from portal sites his firm works with, but he is trying to add information from more ad networks and publishers in the future.

Yelp, the site that lets people review restaurants, bars, hair salons, doctors and pretty much any other business, is now letting those businesses take part in the conversation.

San Francisco-based Yelp is today introducing a suite of features that allows business owners to create an account for their establishment. They can then see how many people have viewed their page, update information like hours of operation and receive alerts when Yelpers review their business. Most importantly, the feature lets business owners send messages directly to Yelpers to thank them for a positive review--or address issues that led to a negative review.

Until now, business owners could sign up as individuals to contact other reviewers on the site, but the business tools are intended to help businesses have a more credible and professional presence on the site. Some local restaurants are already using the site to gain loyal clients.

"There's been an ongoing conversation happening about local businesses on our site," said Jeremy Stoppleman, Yelp's CEO. "There's always been an interest by biz owners to be part of the conversation."

Whenever someone reviews a business, the owner can send them a message. If the user responds, the business can send another message. The idea is to keep businesses from spamming users. Businesses are also not allowed to send out mass messages.

Stoppleman said users seem to like talking directly to the owner of their favorite restaurant or boutique. And it helps keeps the dialogue on a more human level.

"This isn't your old school anonymous review site where, once the rants and raves are out there, there's nothing you can do about it," he said.

So will giving business owners more of a voice on the site also help boost advertising?

"In the long-term view, I would hope so," Stoppleman said. "I'd hope they find Yelp a valuable place to be."