Facebook faces challenges
By Matt Rebeiro November 4th, 2007
In Networking · Social media · Stories
So the Facebook Vs Google advertising war is in full swing. Who will win? In short - Buggered if I know. Whats far more interesting is an article I read this weekend about the monumental task facing Facebook in online advertising. Or rather, they’ve set themselves a huge task in deciding to have a completely targeted advertising system. Don’t get me wrong its a brilliant idea - which if pulled off will make Mark Zuckerberg even richer - but 2 things strike me:
1. Why rush? Ok, so they want to steal a march on Google’s forays in to Social Networking (cf. Leo’s last post) but it seems like they’re going to rush out a system which, based on the enormity of the task, is likely to encounter problems (Like this one from a few months back…). Why not start smaller targeting specific networks - like university networks - and work up?
2. Microsoft. Microsoft’s much publicised purchase of 1.6% of Facebook (at the low-low price of £117m?!) doesn’t look like its going to help. Why do I get the feeling that for every Ipod advert I see on Facebook I’m going to get 20 for the Microsoft Zune?? Will advetisers be wary of Microsoft’s input? (Maybe i’m being to skeptical here…)
Anyway, how do people feel about the task facing Facebook?
1 Dan O'Connor // Nov 4, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I think you’re right about Facebook being better off starting with smaller networks to trial the system. It’s how they started the platform itself, so why not stick with the formula? As to Microsoft’s imput, I don’t think its too much of a worry. Taregtted ad systems only work if the targets trust the system. If people suspect that FB are gaming their own system (as some have begun to believe of Amazon’s reccomendations/reviewers) then they won’t act on the ads.
My mild concern is this: just how targetted do we actually want the ads to be? Are we confortable with having things hawked to us on the grounds that a brand ‘knows’ us? I think there are going to be serious privacy issues on the horizon…
2 Matt Rebeiro // Nov 5, 2007 at 11:01 am
…I guess from that you could say that we might experience what I think of as the “Last FM effect”: whenever I plug a band I like in to Last FM EVERY SINGLE OTHER BAND I get played is either A: a band I already know and like, or B: a band I already know and don’t like.
Danger is targetted advertising might just advertise the things I already know about and have/don’t want rather than, ahem, broadening my horizons. Is there a danger then of over-targetting??
3 Dan O'Connor // Nov 6, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Precisely… my Amazon reccomendations are so tedious I’ve just started to ignore them.