With The CW's recent sponsorship of Facebook, I've decided to look at the other sponsored profiles on that service. Here's my top ten compilation, by popularity, with comments:

#1 Apple (437,836) is getting by far the most mileage out of its facebook sponsorship. The look of the profile resembles a slimmed down Apple Store page. Apple's brand has a strong emotional bond with youth, most of whom were raised on iPods and some on Macs at school, so I see its Facebook presence as relationship maintenance. There are plenty of freestanding, third-party Apple forums to host discussion and community, but I see this serving that less than rabid but more than passive fan. The profile is a convenient way to remind students of campus discounts and new models and to fuel the continued dominance of iTunes. The marketing material is so heavy that the community activity at the bottom of the main page seems like a small footnote. Apple gave away 25 free iTunes tracks each week but apparently that promotion has ended. No doubt that giveaway was a powerful force in drawing subscribers to the profile.

Holiday Center (334,243) is a Facebook featured promotion that allows members to razz each other while also allowing comments. This group seems to be seasonal and now defunct, at least for now until the next holiday activation. Since it is Facebook homegrown, I won't include it in the count.

#2 Pink Victoria's Secret (286,347) is a brand extension of casual wear for female youth. Accordingly, the vast majority of members are female; with one in twenty or thirty being otherwise. Clothes are a bit like soda pop. The lock-in is based a lot more on the ephemeral than the iPod which wields unique technological integration and musical industry arrangements. Much of that ephemeral is tribalism - these are the clothes are young happy active women wear: the PINK logo is branded prominently on each item of clothing. Compared to Apple Students, the Pink VS page balances marketing materials with community participation a lot more evenly. The marketing pushes special deals and tribal signifiers like wallpaper and icons. Sadly, the low quality of the discussion is mostly vacuous and not specific to the products or the brand.

#3 Contiki (41,768) the vacation tour operator targets the 18-35 audience. College is all about exploring the world and though many will travel by guidebook and youth hostel or exchange program, many will enjoy the comfort of group tours. The profile is a big winner for Contiki. Students join the group to win trips to exotic destinations like Mykonos, Greece. Contiki does a good job of planting the idea of travel and particular destinations through video and selling special deals. Social networking plays a big part here too by allowing students to discuss packages and experiences. I remember checking out Contiki forums a few years back and finding a lively community. You feel better and more confident about booking a package when members give honest feedback and when you can find other - or at least get a sense of - other tour participants. With the strength of Facebook social networking, this confidence should be boosted greatly.

#4 Dave Matthews Band Summer Tour (39,596). Music profiles launched MySpace, so little commentary is needed here. DMB is all about live performance and the profile does a great job of stoking grass roots interest. The 2006 Summer Tour is obviously over but the 2007 tour is right around the corner. The main graphic advertises a VIP tickets contest for group members. The third column advertises miscellaneous contests. The page is clean and simple with profiles for each band member, a tour schedule, member contributed photos and a healthy dose of member discussion and commenting. Basic stuff simply executed.

#5 aerie by American Eagle (37,852) is a brand extension similar to Pink VS. For whatever reason - it would be instructive to peek at the parent company 10-K financials to see the relative brand revenues -Pink VS has a six-fold greater membership despite both being launched around the same time in August or September 2006. As Sergio Zyman points out, consumers may strong identify with a brand but not necessarily buy. Think of all the fanboys with Ferrari screensavers or wallpapers. VS is unquestionably racier than AE, and identify with it as sexy women rather than Pink consumers.

aerie's page is pleasant, promoting deals, products, and lifestyle in the main column. Lifestyle is promoted through free music downloads, blog excerpts linked their corporate blog, and video. The third column sidebar pushes freebies. The volume of discussion on the boards is much lower than Pink's but the quality is much higher with talk about products and shopping experiences, some of it negative.

#6 The Chase +1 (28,627) profile is as lively as an iguana. The profile page is pretty much static serving only to promote the benefits of the Chase +1 card: a credit card that earns (karma) points towards and special access to youth products and services; and the TicketMaster gift card bonus for applying; the only thing dynamic about the page is the changing member listing; members can't post comments or join in discussion. Group members are enticed to signup by contest that promised an ill-defined award of backstage access.

The static nature of the page is understandable. What is there to discuss about the credit card? Chase's purpose is to tout the benefits and get people to sign up. The viral marketing comes when the influencers use their cards back on campus and extol the benefits to their friends.

#7 Rock the Vote (18,775) is a weak effort on Facebook, though much of that is due to the project's diffuse aims. The profile page has mostly text with links to scattered Rock the Vote efforts across the internet. It lacks a sense of coherency or unity.

#8 Cingular (17,222) is supposedly the new AT&T. AT&T claims that market research shows that youth are fickle and adopt new brands readily. That is the justification for debranding Cingular in favor of AT&T post-merger. Warping reality to your predetermined ends is what got us into Iraq. AT&T is a great brand… if you lust for Buick and Oldsmobile.

The profile is a bit garish and full of orange title dividers that make the page look like a bad PHPNuke theme. The intent is to encourage existing users to learn about and use Cingular wireless services by dragging them through an AOL homepage-like gauntlet. Throw enough features or services at the user and hope they will click something.

Mobile plans do have too many features and services to keep track of and the groove of habituation tends to raise blinders. Promoting them through your favorite social network is a good idea. The centerpiece of the page is the CingularFriends.com program -- which uses the Facebook API login -- that rewards subscribers with points towards ringtones and other goodies for introducing their friends to the service.

The volume of discussion is low but on topic about contracts, services and equipment.

#9 Firefox (16,640) is a great open source product-but also a cash generating non-profit organization that earns $50 million a year from Google. The campaign to spread Firefox has an MLM / cultish quality to it. The profile page beckons people to join, download and spread Firefox.

The third column promotes the newest group members and the top refers, and advertises for campus reps. The campus is the place to capture minds, no?
(For the record, I use Firefox, particularly for the GreaseMonkey extensions, but find myself killing Firefox shifting some of the load to IE7 when the memory management issues grinds my PC to a halt.)

Discussion is on the profile is low, very low.

#10 Microsoft Student Group (14,791) is understated but perhaps the best of the bunch in terms of member participation. Microsoft's products and marketing are ubiquitous like water, so any effort on Facebook must be careful of overkill. The Student Group avoids pushing Microsoft's products hard, it's really does seem like a club for students. The quietly featured items on the profile are the Imagine Cup programming contest, the free HotSpot wifi access promotion for Vista users, Xbox 360 Gears of War giveaway for those who share links and the MSDN Academic Alliance. The amount and quality of discussion on the board are both very high. Microsoft - or its PR agency - has assigned someone to answer questions and give prizes on the board.

#11 Fox News - We Report. You Decide (15,973) is a polished page worthy of being on the open Internet. It highlights links to constantly updated headline stories and videos; promotes shows and their schedules, links to the discussion on conservative issues dear to Fox; and if all that fails to earn your clicks, baits the user with dozens of celebrity factoid questions. All of this effort is designed to draw traffic to various sections of the Fox News website or to their tube programs. Fox earns an A for the effort. The profile doesn't allow for user discussion or wall comments. Good move considering the polarizing nature of their programming. Open the page for user input would certainly make it one of the noisiest places on Facebook. (I obviously can't count -- so consider #11 a bonus.)

Popularity: 3% [?]