"Facebook users will be the stars of the social network’s latest advertising product. The site will soon launch “Sponsored Stories.” Companies will be able to pay for users’ endorsements to show up as ads on the site. If you’ve used Facebook to check into a particular store or if you’ve “liked” the page of a particular coffee shop (Starbucks gets lots of shout-outs in the video and promotional material describing the service), that company can pay to have your interaction with their brand show up on your friends’ pages.
It’s a brilliant idea: Organic advertising for companies. A payday for Facebook. The downside? Users are going to freak out a bit. It’s not just a privacy issue. Facebook users likely won’t be happy about the fact that they’re not getting paid for their “celebrity endorsement.”
This isn’t the first time Facebook has plopped users’ names and photos into ads. And it’s not the first time people have gotten upset about it. Facebook previously called a version of this “social ads” and users had the option to opt out of appearing in them in their privacy settings, by unchecking a “Appearance in Facebook Ads” option. (See my post on this from June 2009.) But now that option is gone.
Here’s a sample of a Starbucks check-in turned into one of these ads (from Facebook’s video):
I asked a Facebook spokesperson about whether users’ can opt out of spokesperson duty. “Facebook’s privacy controls give people the power to decide what and how much they want to share, and Sponsored Stories respect people’s privacy settings,” she says. “For example, if your privacy settings exclude certain friends from seeing content you post, those friends will not see Sponsored Stories created from these posts.”
In other words, anything you do on the site that your friends can see can be re-purposed for ads. As in 2009, my privacy alarm doesn’t go off on this one. And I probably wouldn’t opt out if given the opportunity.
Monetizing word-of-mouth advertisingBut being used to sell a product without being compensated may irk some users. A Facebook spokesperson says that a “Sponsored Stories” campaign is “priced similar to Facebook’s advertising products. ”
It’s a nifty way to monetize word of mouth marketing… as long as users don’t revolt against it.
So when can you expect your face to appear in an ad? The Sponsored Stories will draw from page likes, application plays, Place check-ins, and posts to pages. So, if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, you may catch me endorsing the Scrabble-like game Lexulous in the near future."
But THIS. This is exactly the problem with Facebook. Its also one of the three main reasons I quit. Ultimately, signing up for FB is a business decision. They give you their platform in exchange for the rights to whatever you put on it. I decided that it was no longer a good deal for me; the content I provided facebook was more valuable for them and me than what I was getting from them. So I quit. Last May. And I didn't become a social pariah.
This move was as inevitable as it is stupid. Users who accept this are likely not taking the time to ask themselves a fundamental question - Who is getting what in this negotiation? Some who ask that may well decide FB is a good value. But I think that once real dollars become more and more a part of the trade, that number will diminish. Getting real money involved complicates relationships in ways that are very hard to predict.
It’s a brilliant idea: Organic advertising for companies. A payday for Facebook. The downside? Users are going to freak out a bit. It’s not just a privacy issue. Facebook users likely won’t be happy about the fact that they’re not getting paid for their “celebrity endorsement.”
This isn’t the first time Facebook has plopped users’ names and photos into ads. And it’s not the first time people have gotten upset about it. Facebook previously called a version of this “social ads” and users had the option to opt out of appearing in them in their privacy settings, by unchecking a “Appearance in Facebook Ads” option. (See my post on this from June 2009.) But now that option is gone.
Here’s a sample of a Starbucks check-in turned into one of these ads (from Facebook’s video):
I asked a Facebook spokesperson about whether users’ can opt out of spokesperson duty. “Facebook’s privacy controls give people the power to decide what and how much they want to share, and Sponsored Stories respect people’s privacy settings,” she says. “For example, if your privacy settings exclude certain friends from seeing content you post, those friends will not see Sponsored Stories created from these posts.”
In other words, anything you do on the site that your friends can see can be re-purposed for ads. As in 2009, my privacy alarm doesn’t go off on this one. And I probably wouldn’t opt out if given the opportunity.
Monetizing word-of-mouth advertising
It’s a nifty way to monetize word of mouth marketing… as long as users don’t revolt against it.
So when can you expect your face to appear in an ad? The Sponsored Stories will draw from page likes, application plays, Place check-ins, and posts to pages. So, if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, you may catch me endorsing the Scrabble-like game Lexulous in the near future."
via blogs.forbes.com
This is my problem with Facebook in a nutshell. Look, privacy is a major concern for me and it should be for almost anyone. That said, that's not *specifically* a FB problem. Its just that FB has found a way to get most people to ignore the inherent problems with putting so very much personal, private information on their site. But THIS. This is exactly the problem with Facebook. Its also one of the three main reasons I quit. Ultimately, signing up for FB is a business decision. They give you their platform in exchange for the rights to whatever you put on it. I decided that it was no longer a good deal for me; the content I provided facebook was more valuable for them and me than what I was getting from them. So I quit. Last May. And I didn't become a social pariah.
This move was as inevitable as it is stupid. Users who accept this are likely not taking the time to ask themselves a fundamental question - Who is getting what in this negotiation? Some who ask that may well decide FB is a good value. But I think that once real dollars become more and more a part of the trade, that number will diminish. Getting real money involved complicates relationships in ways that are very hard to predict.
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