Tom Tsao

Because “friends and family” remain one of the strongest purchasing influencers, retailers and manufacturers also are salivating over the social networks—News Corp.’s MySpace, Google’s YouTube and the venture capital-funded Facebook, to name a few—that are all the rage with young, technology savvy consumers. Vann’s CEO George Manlove finds the social networks “fascinating.” “MySpace, that’s a whole beast in itself, and now YouTube. It’s all about an association with something in common. It’s a community of things that people have in common … There are brands developing in this social network environment that you’ll never see on major television.” “We think there’s opportunity