Facebook Talk

Has anybody else noticed the rash of new ads popping up around the net that are basically rip offs of Facebook’s buttons? Take for instance the ad below, which I saw this morning on WWTDD.

What’s up with that? I would link to the company that’s using the ads, but after looking at their site myself, I’ve decided not to subject anybody else to viewing it. Good lord, it’s a horrible site. For starters, the page loads with some annoying teenage girl verbally giving you a stupid sales pitch. And just in case you don’t get the point that a girl is talking to you through your speakers, it has the chick down in the corner of the page moving around as she talks to you. Who the hell comes up with these ideas and thinks they’ll be good for a website? To make the site even more enjoyable, when you try to close it, you’re greeted with a few million popups and warning boxes asking “ARE YOU REALLY SURE YOU WANT TO LEAVE?!” Sites like these are what’s wrong with the Internet.

Oh, wait, I was supposed to be talking about how they’re ripping off Facebook’s buttons to hawk some crappy ringtones. Eh, screw it, the site sucks and don’t bother clicking on their ads. Case closed.

Facebook, ads

It took little more than a month for Facebook ads to go from chicks in bikinis and sexually suggestive poses to nipple slips!

Look, I’m all for the occasional and unexpected nipple, so I wouldn’t naturally be complaining. But hasn’t Facebook always taken a stance against any kind of “adult” material being on the site? Sure, this isn’t hardcorn porn we’re talking about here, but the content of some of these ads are slowly getting closer to it while quickly increasing in frequency on the site. This ad was shown to a guy while he took a Simpsons quiz! Throw in the fact that just as many women peruse Facebook as us guys do and you can suddenly understand where this is headed in the near future: Ads with men wearing banana hammocks.

*shudders*

At the end of the day, Facebook needs to make sure they do a better job of filtering out any “questionable” ads from showing up on the site. There’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be and quite frankly, it’s nice having a haven on the Internet where fifteen adult ads aren’t on every page.

[via acekroth]

Facebook, ads

Then rock on, because you now can block Beacon from sending any stories to your profile. In fact, to his credit, Zuckerberg just posted his thoughts and apologies on the clusterfuck that has been Beacon:

About a month ago, we released a new feature called Beacon to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web. We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. While I am disappointed with our mistakes, we appreciate all the feedback we have received from our users. I’d like to discuss what we have learned and how we have improved Beacon.

When we first thought of Beacon, our goal was to build a simple product to let people share information across sites with their friends. It had to be lightweight so it wouldn’t get in people’s way as they browsed the web, but also clear enough so people would be able to easily control what they shared. We were excited about Beacon because we believe a lot of information people want to share isn’t on Facebook, and if we found the right balance, Beacon would give people an easy and controlled way to share more of that information with their friends.

But we missed the right balance. At first we tried to make it very lightweight so people wouldn’t have to touch it for it to work. The problem with our initial approach of making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends. It took us too long after people started contacting us to change the product so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share. Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I’m not proud of the way we’ve handled this situation and I know we can do better.

Facebook has succeeded so far in part because it gives people control over what and how they share information. This is what makes Facebook a good utility, and in order to be a good feature, Beacon also needs to do the same. People need to be able to explicitly choose what they share, and they need to be able to turn Beacon off completely if they don’t want to use it.

This has been the philosophy behind our recent changes. Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we’re releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don’t want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won’t store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.

On behalf of everyone working at Facebook, I want to thank you for your feedback on Beacon over the past several weeks and hope that this new privacy control addresses any remaining issues we’ve heard about from you.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Mark

Yeah, Beacon sucked, I think we all agree about this. And for a while there, Facebook seemed as if they didn’t care. But you have to respect a man who can stand up and say, “Look, I screwed up. I’m sorry. This is what I’m going to do to fix the problem.” Major props to Mark from the Facebook Talk team.

Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Beacon

For all the chatter that’s been going on lately about Facebook’s new ad system, Read Write Web wonders if Facebook ads are actually any good at using your profile information to display effective ads. So far? Not even remotely.

I will preface this by saying that last week I changed my profile to say I was engaged as a joke on my friends. Immediately, I started seeing wedding ads on my profile. So the technology is obviously in place, but it’s just not working all that well.

Case in point the photo above. Of course, FB Chicks might not object to such an ad, but still. What information triggers that kind of ad? Your sex being set to “male” on your profile? That’s about the only thing I can come up with. For all the favorite TV shows and movies I’ve put in my profile, you’d think that Facebook would be showing me some ads for season box set of Heroes or giftcards to Amazon. But no, as I look at my profile right now, I see ads for Pogo.com and those damn free iPhone ads.

Honestly, is this the best Facebook can do?

Facebook, chicks, ads, beacon

While people may be getting pissed about Beacon’s sneaky data gathering, such practices aren’t really that new, as CNN points out in a new article.

Based on the weather reports and restaurant listings you check out online, Yahoo Inc. has a good idea where you live. Based on searches you’ve done, the Web portal might also know where you want to go.

Don’t be surprised then to suddenly see an advertisement on flight deals between those two places. It’s what United Airlines did with an ad on Yahoo earlier this year as people browsed for something completely unrelated to travel.

Good points. Yes, Yahoo and United have been doing this as well, so why complain when Facebook does it? In fact, most people love Google and yet they openly admit that the ads you see are based on the search queries you punched in or the text in your e-mail. The fine line that I think must be pointed out here, though, is that having a website pick which ads to show me based on my habits versus having a website that collects my habits and then sells them to others are two huge differences.

I don’t mind seeing relevant ads. In fact, I rather enjoy them (and I use the word “enjoy” loosely.) If I’m in the market to buy a car, I listen to all the car advertisements on TV and the radio. If I’m hungry, then that Arby’s Chicken Sandwich looks freaking delicious. If there were a way to make TV relevant to your mood or desires, I don’t think so many people would own Tivos. But since you aren’t interacting directly with your TV, yet you are with your computer, suddenly websites can give you ads a bit more directed towards you.

But, and this is a huge but, if I don’t want that website collecting information about me, it shouldn’t. End of story. No ifs, ands, or buts.

One of the even bigger problems I see arising out of this is that, for most people, they’ll have no idea they’re information is being collected. If an annoying ad comes on TV, they can mute it. If they search for a business in Myrtle Beach and see ads for hotels in the region, they know the ads are relevant yet they can ignore them. But if the average, everyday computer user is asked if they want to share their information with a website and declines, then they are going to assume that their wishes were respected. The more tech-savy computer users can find ways to detect what’s going on and how to block them, which is why I’m not all that worried about Beacon. But then I think about my mom, brothers, and sister who are all on Facebook and I start to get a little peeved.

This shouldn’t be that hard, Facebook. If a consumer says “don’t remember that I bought these movie tickets just now,” then you shouldn’t. Anything beyond that is just asking for a giant bitch-slap from your community.

Cnn, Facebook, Yahoo, United

So Facebook’s new ad feature Beacon is already pissing a few people off. Well I for one am shocked. No wait. Not shocked. I meant to say, “duh.”

It shouldn’t really surprise you that some people out there don’t enjoy it when their purchase and web browsing history are displayed for all their friends to see on Facebook. I can understand why Facebook would want to do such a thing, but there needs to be a way for people to opt out of this service if they want to. If you listen to Facebook, they say there is. But Nate over at IdeaShower.com would disagree. Basically, using a plugin for Firefox that lets him know whenever information is sent to a third party via his browser, he was able to catch Facebook gathering information about him and the game he had just played, despite clicking on the “no thanks” option of sharing that information with Facebook.

There are similar complaints and worries about Beacon all over the Internet, which a simple Google search will show you. If Facebook doesn’t do something fast, they could be stuck in the middle of a public relations nightmare.

Facebook, Beacon, Firefox

Just in case you were a bit more curious about the new Facebook ad system, here’s a good article from the AP that I just read on CNN that might answer a few more of your questions. I’ll write more of an opinion piece on the ads sometime in the near future, but suffice to say: I don’t like them. At all.

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook has unveiled plans to target advertisements by injecting them into its members’ conversations, and now the popular online hangout must persuade its users to embrace the initiative.

Facebook is giving users some control over whether to share information on their buying habits and other online activities with friends. For the program announced Tuesday to work, enough users must actually say “yes” so advertisers can show users their pitches in the guise of friends’ endorsements.

David Hallerman, a senior analyst at the research group eMarketer, warned that users might not be as receptive to ads when they are communicating with friends on Facebook as they might when they are reading articles elsewhere in a more relaxed, consuming state.

“Facebook is everyone’s darling today,” he said. “If there is a perceptual problem as a safe place for communications, then will it be 2009’s darling?”

Facebook’s announcement follows by two weeks Facebook Inc.’s deal to sell a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, valuing Facebook at $15 billion. Microsoft also broadened a marketing relationship that began last year. The ad program announced Tuesday was unrelated to either deal with Microsoft.

In announcing the initiative, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has begun transforming itself from an online hangout into an online business district. Companies can now create their own pages on Facebook for free and tailor their pitches to the activities of users’ friends.

For example, if a friend has booked a vacation on Travelocity, the online travel agency will be able to display the friend’s photo as part of a “social ad” to entice the user to buy flights and hotel stays. Advertisers can similarly have their pitches appear when friends review restaurants and buy books or DVDs.

Companies can even embed coding Facebook calls “Beacon” on outside sites such as eBay Inc., enabling a Facebook user who lists an item for auction, for example, to generate alert messages for Facebook friends, who may then check out the item.

“People influence people,” said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the company three years ago. “Nothing influences a person more than a recommendation from a trusted friend.”

Although the friend can control what is shared, the user will have fewer choices over whether to receive ads, which would be marked “sponsored.”

As Web companies look to boost advertising revenue by offering to target ads based on users’ hobbies, interests and behavior, Facebook’s move could change the tone of the site and revive privacy complaints it faced last year. Facebook will rely on information in users’ profiles and on friends’ online activity to determine what ads might appeal to users.

Key will be how Facebook tells users about the program. Facebook described the changes in a blog posting, but not prominently when users logged on Wednesday morning.

“Some people may find it creepy,” said Deborah Pierce, executive director of the San Francisco-based group Privacy Activism. “They are trying to find some ways to monetize this and keep the lights on. If the disclosure is up front, yeah, I think this is a reasonable thing for them to do.”

Facebook has long prided itself on guarding its users’ privacy, but the walls have gradually lowered. A feature allowing users to track changes their friends make to profiles backfired when many users denounced it as stalking and threatened protests. Facebook quickly apologized and agreed to let users turn off the feature.

Facebook promises no information that could identify individual will be disclosed to advertisers. And Chris Kelly, the company’s chief privacy officer, said users can complain again if they find the new targeting program intrusive.

Privacy concerns aside, many Facebook members may be reluctant to endorse an advertiser for fear of alienating friends who had bad experiences with the same company, said Chris Winfield, who runs 10e20, an online marketing specialist.

“They are relying a lot on their users to make this happen, and that’s going to be tricky,” Winfield said.

Zuckerberg said marketers must respond to the changing nature of communication.

“Pushing your message out to people is no longer good enough,” Zuckerberg told about 200 advertising-industry executives, many already in New York for the ad:tech conference. “You have to get your message out to the conversations.”

Search companies like Google Inc. have generated a lot of revenue from text-based ads targeted to a user’s search terms. Those have been good at fulfilling demand — users often are already looking for a car or a travel package when searching and seeing those ads.

Zuckerberg said Facebook planned to go after the bigger opportunities in generating demand — something Google and other sites are also trying to do through display and other brand promotions. Seeing a friend buy a product or praise a band, he said, are good ways to generate demand.

Coca-Cola Co., General Motors Corp.’s Saturn and Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures are among leading brands contributing to the more than 100,000 company pages launching on Facebook.

The key difference between companies’ pages and individuals’ is that businesses won’t have access to individuals’ profiles the same way their friends do, even when users formally declare themselves “fans” of a company.

Facebook’s announcement came a day after MySpace said it would expand its targeting program to include more categories and more advertisers. MySpace lets companies create profile pages but doesn’t have Facebook’s system of alerts and adjacent social ads.

Zuckerberg told reporters he wasn’t worried users would consider Facebook too commercial. He said regular ads would stand out more because targeted ads can be better integrated with conversations users are already having with one another.

Facebook, CNN, Facebook Ads