Facebook Advertising Just got Sneeky
I was expecting this after stories this last week about Facebook’s plans to introduce contextual advertising was rumoured all over the blogOsphere. But this little dirty trick I was not expecting. It seems Facebook has shown it’s cards.
The advertising is here and it ain’t pretty. No it is not on the sidebar, no it is not flashing scripts and no it is not a pop-up. It is cleverly disguised in your News Feed! I appreciate that online businesses need advertising to generate revenue, or at least some type of business model. But this stinks and falls into the same category as Google’s deceptive “Sponsored Links” in searches.
The advertising that appears on Facebook looks no different to any other News Feed item other than it has a very discrete “sponsored” tag after the ad. The word is a different colour and blends in very well to white. Don’t blink you will miss it.
This is yet another bullshit attempt into tricking users to click links to generate click-through’s! When I clicked the link I was taken to an external site for what looks to be a band or concert or something of that nature. So much for contextual, the closest that I get to music in any of my interests or profile is the LastFM application!
If advertising was any good and indeed contextual then they would have obvious ads on my pages that I actually wanted to click on! They would not have to fight for my attention they would get it willingly and I just might purchase what is on offer. The conversion rate for Facebook would be better and I would not be pissed off!
When will these companies learn that you can not piss off your users or make them feel that they are being tricked or manipulated?
Unfortunately though Facebook will get their money because of the disguised ads in this context. There are enough Facebook users out there that won’t know any better. But I do and I am not clicking on any of them.
My advice: move on mass and don’t click these deceptive ads in your News Feed.
Dave
August 26th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Knowing you and how passionate you are about your RSS feeds (don’t take the word passionate the wrong way lol) I can understand your frustration. I too think the sponsored text was cleverly made to fade into the white background. Is it just me, or are we seeing many more web 2.0 startups beginning to introduce advertising to a once ad free product or service?
Out of all of the services that have ads, I actually don’t mine the way Pownce does it.
August 26th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
I am expecting that will be the trend. Personally I would rather pay a nominal fee for ad free. But then there are very few services that are offering this. The only one that comes to mind is Flickr. Taking this option is a risky option - of loosing users - but as with Flickr - the service still exists with ads and less functionality and by no means less popular because of it. Other services might be different though.
I just wish they would wise up.
August 26th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Yeah. I can see it now. A wide range of services adding ads thus causing their userbase to go into a blogging frenzy fueled by rage, claiming the once free service they used has sold out.
P.S. Dave, did you happen to check out the link I sent over Twitter yesterday? I think that article would of made for a good conversation starter for your listening audience. And I know for sure, that Tim would probably agree with Mark Cuban
August 26th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Jeff either I missed it - or it got lost in the noise… sorry
August 27th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Here it is http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/08/24/the-internet-is-dead-and-boring/ I’d like your take or anyones take on this subject.