Thursday, September 23, 2010

Facebook Sells Your Friends - BusinessWeek

Excerpt from an extensive Facebook advertising profile

Marketers have long hoped to turn the Web into the perfect advertising medium. Pop-ups on AOL (AOL), banners on Yahoo! (YHOO), and search ads on Google (GOOG) were steps along that journey. But it's Facebook, the Palo Alto (Calif.)-based social network whose life as a moneymaking business is only now beginning, that may be best positioned to deliver on the Web's promise.

The company has developed a potentially powerful kind of advertising that's more personal—more "social," in Facebook's parlance—than anything that's come before. Ads on the site sit on the far right of the page and are such a visual afterthought that most users never click them. These ads can evolve, though, from useless little billboards into content, migrating into casual conversations between friends, colleagues, and family members—exactly where advertisers have always sought to be.

Facebook Sells Your Friends - BusinessWeek

No comments: