Using SelfServe, American Express, for example, might aim ads at users that MySpace has identified as having a pulse and mercilessly beat them into submission with credit card offers. The site has created more than 100 user-interest categories already and hopes to have 300 by the end of the year. “We’re looking at everything people put into their profiles and what their friends are into,” Arnie Gullov-Singh, a Fox Interactive vice president, told the Los Angeles Times.

And so the evolution of behavioral targeting begins. “It changes everything,” said Michael Barrett, chief revenue officer at Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. unit that includes MySpace. “Every form of targeting has been trying to get to what that individual is thinking about, passionate about and interested in. It defines the next generation of targeting.”