MANHATTAN BEACH—Joining the fray of companies diving in to the much-hyped world of online communities, G&M Plumbing created its own profile on the popular website myspace.com.

“We did it as a alternative new business effort,” noted agency Principal Glenn Miller. “Many companies have had success with myspace.com as a source for business development.” Within days of uploading their profile, the agency learned they had no real potential new business leads, but instead had hundreds of new “friends.”

“We were pleasantly surprised with our “friend” total,” said Creative Director, Mickey Taylor. “None of them are marketing V.P.’s with major brands, but a lot of them are really cool. For instance, it turns out AnTHOny555 from Sacramento loves the White Stripes and so do we. So you can imagine how much we had to talk about,” he added.

The agency plans to stay active on myspace.com, hoping to add more new friends each day.