From Wired, although I’m sure you’ll hear it all over the place today:
Facebook plans to unveil a new advertising scheme later this fall. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Facebook is planning a system that will target ads based on the wealth of information people have placed in their Facebook profiles.
The WSJ says that Facebook plans to target ads somewhat like Google’s AdSense tool, but take advantage of user profile data such as “favorite activities and preferred music.” Facebook tells the WSJ that its ad technology will “point the ads to the selected groups of people without exposing their personal information to the advertisers.”
The ads will apparently be inserted into the user’s “news feed,” and will run in addition to the various banners that surround the page.
But here’s where it gets really creepy, the WSJ’s source says that Facebook’s ad system will be able to “predict what products and services users might be interested in even before they have specifically mentioned an area.”
I knew there was a reason that Facebook’s Director of Media Sales spoke at the AAAA Account Planning conference a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t matter how cool Web 2.0 apps or widgets or whatever are: Somebody’s gotta pay for it.
