Facebook invites ads into user profiles
January 24th, 2008, 4:07 am Hobbies And Interests
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Social network Facebook unveiled a new advertising system on Tuesday that will let companies introduce ads into the Web profiles of its 50 million users and launch dedicated pages on the site for their brands.
The privately held company has signed on several dozen partners for the system, including phone company Verizon Communications Inc, movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc and online auction market eBay Inc.
“What we’re building here is a massive network of real world connections through which people can share information,” Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told a gathering of advertising and media executives in New York.
Facebook’s ad partnerships could pose a new challenge to News Corp’s MySpace, the world’s largest online social network, and Web search leader Google Inc.
Both seek to offer advertisers more direct and efficient ways of reaching audiences on the Web and have announced new advertising and social network programs in the last week.
Microsoft Corp took a minority investment in Facebook last month that valued the privately-held company at $15 billion, largely on the expectation the social network would soon be able to mine user profiles for valuable ad data.
Facebook’s new advertising system will test how willing users are to accept advertising in the most personal of media formats. Partners said users would soon make it clear what kind of advertising they wanted to hear.
“It’s not about being commercial, it’s about being useful,” said Quincy Smith, president at CBS Interactive.
Tags: audience, blockbuster, chief executive, google, launch, real worldRelated posts
