Could somebody please explain in plain English - how exactly can widget vednors earn money from the ads displayed on MySpace pages where their widgets are placed? Should they develop their own ad engines? If not (I hope not), then how are the revenues shared by MySpace? Where do I read about it more?

This is a good question and I will try my best to explain it ...

MySpace is letting the developer community monetize the Application Canvas page.  The Developer Community can build, employ, or use any available ad serving technology.

• Developers can monetize their canvas page and keep 100% of the revenue
• Developers can use any form of Internet Monetization; ads, sponsorships, product sales, etc.
• MySpace will add in our Hyper-Targeting and Self Serve Ad Product in the future

Another side note, You cannot currently serve Ad Units directly to the Application (a.k.a. Widget). 

Does this answer your question?  All comments and questions are welcome on this?  I will do my best to answer more questions like this

Allen,

thanks for quick reply. I think you've created more questions in my mind than you solved though :) What are "Hyper-Targeting" and "Self Serve Ad Product". Do you comments mean that developers are basically given one page that users can access where they're allowed to put whatever they want and MySpace doesn't really share any ad revenue with them?

Also, what does "cannot currently serve Ad Units directly to the Application " mean? Where else can you serve Ad Units? And what are Ad Units anyway? Sorry, I'm new to MySpace advertising architecture...

An ad unit is just a block of ad(s). I'm assuming what he means is that the ad to be displayed must be served through some type of server call, although I'm not sure how that would work or even what networks support this.

Heya -

Okie, to try to explain this more...

We (MySpace) are not currently planning any type of revenue share program for anyone monetizing their canvas page. Smalto2 has a perfect description above.

That said-  we have a self-serve ad platform we're working on (the hyper-targeting piece basically just means you can target ads really well...ie: serve only to girls over 20 interested in dogs. At some point, that'll be open for devs to use if they want...only if they want. No idea yet how the financial model works around the ad platform. 

"Cannot send ads directly to application" - Basically, no ads on a profile or home page. Same rule we've always stuck to.

All good questions, keep 'em coming!  :)

Gottcha, thanks Stephanie!