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Facebook plans to unveil a new advertising scheme later this fall. According to a recent Wall Street Journal [report][1], 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 say 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."
Essentially it sounds like Facebook plans to mine your profile for interesting tidbits of data which can be used to serve relevant ads and then compile that into its own profile that the system can use to predict what additional ads you might click.
Back when I wrote that Facebook should [open up its walled garden][3], the number one response from readers was that they liked the fact that Facebook pages are limited in viewing scope, which makes me wonder how they'll react to having that walled garden opened up and extracted for the purposes of advertising.
While Facebook may claim that the private data won't be revealed to advertisers, somehow that doesn't seem very comforting. Facebook users already have a [history of revolting][2] when things don't go their way, which leads us to predict the new ads will enjoy all the success of a lead balloon.
[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118783296519606151.html
[2]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/09/facebook_yields.html?entry_id=1553092
[3]: http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2007/08/open_social_net
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