As I was eating a bagel this morning â€" we have Bagel Tuesdays in the office â€" a news item caught my eye about Visa launching a small business application today using Facebook, and pumping in $2 million of advertising to support it. Visa is also promoting the initiative in a multimedia campaign starting next month.
The interesting hook is that the company is offering the first 20,000 small U.S. businesses that add the application a $100 advertising credit to use on Facebook. That's great news for the social networking site because if the small businesses see returns on their "test" advertising slots, then they will probably sign up for more, and spend ad dollars in a channel that they might not have considered. It could open their eyes to the possibilities of using this type of network to increase revenues.
[As an aside, I wonder what message the 20,001st small business gets on its screen when it signs up?]
Totally unrelated, here's a world mosaic created from 1,001 different clickable Web 2.0 logos.
~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada