Decade-old Classmates.com, a granddaddy among social networking sites, is about to relaunch with a spiffed-up new look (with only one ad unit per page) - and a novel take on contextual advertising, writes AdWeek. Its new "My Favorites" page will allow its 40 million members to not only create a profile of their interests in music, movies, books and travel - but will automatically turn those lists into advertiser links.

Those advertising links would direct visitors to merchant sites. For example a profile that lists a music artist might link to a song on RealNetworks' Rhapsody, which is a sponsor of the music section. Books lead to Amazon.com purchase pages; names of celebrities to stories in People; and movies to Netflix.

Each advertiser will appear as a sponsor, with a graphical ad, for their respective sections in My Favorites. "It makes a lot more sense than traditional offers in banners that you see in some other social networks," Andy Terentjev, general manager of business development at RealNetworks, is quoted as saying.