Hi, I'm Bob and this is my best friend Nike Air

JupiterResearch just released a new report, "Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape." For those who have been paying attention over the last few years, nothing in it is a big surprise. However, the report does give quantitative credibility to those initiatives we (who do not live under rocks) have known to be true for some time.

The summary: if social networking is a party, it's about to be sponsored by marketing tools everywhere. They can smell money, and they are on it.

The old marketing idea of "making the brand your customer's friend," well, it just goes one step further in the social networking space... the brand can actually BE your friend. Just add Coke or Pepsi as your literal MySpace friend and there you go. You're in with the in crowd.

In addition to documenting the viability of this new venue, Jupiter found that, "30 percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers' opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only 10 percent trust an advertisement," something an Austin startup, BazaarVoice - also quantified about a year ago.

Nothing here is groundbreaking, but it does mean that social networking and the Web 2.0 way of thinking is gaining some real credibility. You can now officially sell it to your boss and budget-doler-outers.

Now, what I really look forward to is some really innovative campaigns/implementations.... come on... impress me!