Facebook is Ready to Run
It has already been wildly reported on the announcement from Facebook that they are going to be selling ads on users’ profile pages on items that users might have already purchased or recommended for others. In layman’s terms, Facebook is hoping to deliver the best targeted ads that we have ever seen online. An example of that might be if someone goes to Amazon and purchases a book. Amazon would ask the buyer at the time of purchase, would you like this purchase to be included on your Facebook profile? If you say yes, every single one of your friends will see the book you bought and where you bought it from. Very cool, but also a bit creepy.
I think anyone who has been in this business knew that this was eventually coming from Facebook. Now the question is whether it is going to work? I think there are still a lot of unanswered questions. The first one of my list would be whether this is going to piss off Facebook users? Facebook has always been the anti-MySpace. While MySpace was the wild wild west and when you signed on you got thirty different flashing and totally annoying banners and pop-ups. While at Facebook, you logged in and got exactly what you were expecting, the run down on everything that your friends have been doing all nicely structured and controlled. How much of that will change?
Another important question and still an inherent problem with online advertising is that for Facebook advertising to be successful, users are going to have to leave their beloved Facebook and go somewhere else. So again, using the Amazon example I used earlier, if I see one of my friends purchased a book, I am going to have to leave Facebook and go over to Amazon to buy it as well. We have seen a multitude of data that people do not like leaving their cozy little social networks.
And my final question would be how is Facebook going to handle the high wire act between targeted advertising with their users privacy? Facebook members love Facebook and they trust Facebook. Now that Facebook is going to be mining this incredible wealth of data they are capturing each and everyday to better target users for advertising, will Facebook lose that all important trust factor with its users?
These are all important issues and in my opinion, Mark Zuckerberg has continually made the right calls so I think he is going to be successfully doing this as well. I still get a little dizzy when I think of him turning down 1 BILLION dollars from Yahoo many months ago, but look who is laughing now.
Technorati Tags: Facebook, targeted ads, Amazon, online advertising, privacy, Yahoo
Great post. I’m particularly interested if there will be a generational difference between Facebook users’ reactions: http://karinawright.com/node/10
I think that to be successful, Facebook needs to be very wary about their users’ privacy concerns (obviously), but particularly if they’re employing targeted advertising efforts through third-party developed applications. It has the potential to go totally wrong, but if they do it right, they’ll definitely change the face of social network advertising.
I’m not sure that I am too crazy about this – it feels like such an
invasion of all things personal, so to speak. I just don’t know where
the founder is going with this, really. hmmmm
Love the post, btw.
Okay, one last thing….what the founder understands and understands
VERY well is just how much influence we, as people have over one
another. In particularly, the trust and bond shared amongst people who
are friends.
There is nothing more powerful than the referral of
a product/service from someone you admire/trust. Nothing, not even the
most powerful of broadcast tools out there can trump this.
Many would consider the recommendation of a business from one whom
you trust as akin to the ‘Holy Grail Of Advertising & Marketing.’
That said, it still bothers me.