Monday, November 12, 2007

Facebook's pursuit of 'fan-sumers'

Recently facebook has revealed their plan to implement advertisements into their social networking website. Their new advertising technology allows advertisers to build websites on facebook to promote their products, musical bands, or celebrities. Users of facebook can list brands that they are "fans" of. These companys can then pay to have their adverisments of these bands sent to the users friends when they have contact with them through the network. The technology uses a program called "beacon" to trace whether or not the audience of the advertisment follows through to make a purchase.
I think that this is a great idea, but also believe that it will turn people alway from Facebook. How many people do you know who talk about the brands that they purchase, im sure some do, but the majority of the people who use the website are not interested in recommending friends a brands to consider while making their next purchase decision. If anything this idea will just make users pissed off. For the users who go along with marketing a product while socializing with friends please leave me out of the discussion.