I caught a two-tweet conversation between @orli and @eyalshahar that kind of drove home a point I was making a still-unpublished post I'm working on entitled "Facebook Knows Enough About You To..." (which will be published probably in the next week.) The two-tweet conversation went like this:
EyalShahar How long before FB will offer targeted ad widgets for webmasters? A real threat to Google...
Orli Facebook AdSense ftw? - RT @eyalshahar: How long before FB will offer targeted ad widgets for webmasters? A real threat to Google...
Of course, Facebook AdSense ftw! It's the next logical step!
Before Facebook's Social Graph, Facebook learned about its users by their profiles, their interactions, and their IP addresses (probably.) Facebook Ads then allowed Facebook to use the content on your profile to target ads specifically to you. Pretty awesome. So what's changed with Social Graph?
Social Graph allows you to "like" anything anywhere on any website. That means that you are basically telling Facebook where you hang out on the Internet. You're saying "hey, Facebook! Here's the stuff I like, and here's the websites I check regularly. Considering I liked 5 Mashable articles and 8 TechCrunch articles - you know I'm into gadgets, and you know I'm a registered target for ads on Facebook's version of AdSense should one of those sites use Facebook's version. It's that simple.
Also - as opposed to the Google Ad platform, the Facebook platform will fit the content of the ads specifically to your likings, not the content of whatever you're reading. Makes sense!
If I'm a boating enthusiast (hat-tip Mitch Hedburg) and I'm on a cooking site because I want to make dinner tonight - I don't want ads about more cooking stuff - I'm just here to check out how to make Naan Pizza! Instead of doing that, Facebook's Ad platform for other sites will show me boating ads even on the cooking site!
In my opinion, Facebook is, and will succeed to continue expanding across the Internet. This is really the first time a company's tried this. Oh, except for Google - who at the moment are failing with pretty much everything they're coming out with (except for Android.)
What do you think? Do you think a Facebook AdSense-type platform is a good idea, or do you think they're being too ambitious?
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