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June 5, 2008

Facebook Collecting User Feedback on Ads

Facebook is soliciting user feedback on the quality and relevance of its ads. KnowledgeBid founder Rob Webb spotted a new thumbs up/thumbs down icon, posted below, similar to what it's used to let people rate notifications. The feedback mechanism is fairly detailed, allowing a person to critique the ad for accuracy, relevance, offensiveness, and so on. ClickZ hasn't yet been able to spot the feature in the wild. Based on the screen grab however, it appears to apply only to the company's branded Facebook Ads units, which are not IAB standard formats, and not to the skyscraper ads that are brokered through Microsoft.

Based on my personal experience observing Facebook Ads, it would seem the company has a lot of work to do on relevance and value before it begins asking people what they think. Offers I'm seeing today include ads for executive coaching (I'm not an executive), Halo Wars (I'm not a gamer) and a semi-pornographic "high school cheerleaders" ad (I'm not a, uh, cheerleader).

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 2, 2008

Swiffer, Social Media's Cinderella

At the Interactive Advertising Bureau's forum on social media, speakers tossed out examples of good social network applications. One example: a Fedex virtual gift where someone can build a package, seal it, "fling" it to a friend, who can then open it.

But finding a social application for some brands, especially consumer-packaged good companies, is tougher.

Take Swiffer, a sweeper.

"Swisher…Swiffer. I wouldn't put that on my [Facebook] profile," said Tim Kendall, Facebook's director of monetization.

Don't tell that to a dozen or Facebook groups devoted to Swiffer, although these groups are sparsely populated. "Ive Discovered The Joys of Swiffer and I Can't Stop..." has 55 members. "I love my swiffer duster!!!" has five members who made this appeal: "Cleaning nerds that love there swiffers should join this group...because we f*ing rule!!"

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Social Network CPMs: A Penny Arcade

Run-of-network ads on social communities fetch a measly 5 cents per CPM, while those associated with a social application command 70 to 80 cents, says Seth Goldstein, chief executive of SocialMedia.

"We have to march beyond $1 CPM and move to $2 to $3 to $4," he said, speaking today at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's forum on user-generated content and social media.

Keep in mind that Goldstein has a vested interest in the success of social media applications. After all, he's building a business to help advertisers use social media.

When asked how social applications differ from widgets, Goldstein said applications are more engaging than widgets. "This is one man's view. Widgets are from '06 or '07. They tend to be more one-way," he said. "You cannot have an application for one."

Pointing to an example of an engaging application, he pointed to one developed for BMW's 1-Series that let Facebook users design their own car and invite friends for a virtual road trip.

Asked an application's lifespan, Goldstein said: "An application is like a song. You rarely have a song that's popular forever. Bands are popular, singers are popular."

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 1, 2008

'Sex and the City' and Facebook

It was the girls' night out at the movies and Facebook this weekend with the release of "Sex and the City."

Offline, women organized cosmo parties before heading out to see the movie.

Online, more 80,000 people signed up as a "Sex and the City" fan on Facebook as of early Sunday, many writing enthusiastic reviews. "OMG-This is the Girls at their absolute best!," wrote one fan.

(Who's counting, but fans of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," released more than a week ago, totaled 72,000 as of today.)

And, Pogostick.com developed a Facebook quiz, "Which Sex and the City Character Are You?" that has nearly 4,000 fans. Complete it to learn whether you're sexy like Samantha or correct like Charlotte.

How about you?

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 12, 2008

U.K. Facebook Creatives Branded 'Illegal'

A range of ads promoting credit and loan facilities on Facebook are in fact illegal, according to U.K. debt charity Credit Action.

The charity has said that a number of companies advertising on the social networking site are not providing information on their products that is required to satisfy U.K. advertising laws set out by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

An article on the credit action website reads, "If you've been on Facebook recently, you can't miss the adverts for 'payday loans' and credit cards. What you may not have realised is that many of these ads are breaking the law!"

The offending ads fail to state the annual percentage rate of interest (APR) of the loans being advertised. According to Credit Action, this information must be clearly displayed if the ad offers an incentive or interest-free period, makes comparisons with other lenders' products, or provides services tailored for those with poor credit histories.

Malcolm Hurlston, the charity's chief executive, said that some of the companies are U.S.-based lenders who may not be aware of U.K. advertising rules, but that others are from big-name firms who have been active in this country for some time.

"We must be sure that such creative products concur with existing rules and regulations and offer customers the full protection of the law," he told the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper.

Credit Action has written to the OFT complaining about the ads, but says that users should also report them to Facebook.

Offending companies include Payday U.K., Payday Advance U.K. and My Payday Online.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 28, 2008

The WB Will Not Be Televised

"The next great network will not be televised."

With this, and other grandiose pronouncements, Warner Bros. Television Group unveiled two major new broadband sites, a couple of virtual worlds, and named some of the advertisers that will support the launch.

The WB.com, which comes out of beta in August, will be an online video-on-demand network featuring both library content and original Web productions. "We're in the digital storytelling business," noted Warner Bros. TV Group President Bruce Rosenblum, "and making a significant investment in our digital initiatives."

The company was more tight-lipped about advertising opportunities, but did reveal initial sponsors include Mattell, McDonald's and Johnson & Johnson.

In addition to distrubution partners including Comcast, AOL, Fancast.com, and some mobile carriers, WB created an application on Facebook. All content on the WB site will be available for viewing from within Facebook, and vice-versa: users can peruse Facebook from inside The WB.com.

KidsWB.com is the juvenile version of WB content on the Web. Integrated within the platform are two virtual worlds: Warner Zone, featuring characters from WBs extensive cartoon library, and DC Hero Zone, where Batman and his ilk can be encountered. It goes live sometime next month.

It's interesting to note that "mix, mash, share" is a motto. Give Tweetybird a mohawk, turn the Tasmanian Devil into a tutu-wearing avatar - WB doesn't care. That's massive, considering the proprietary attitude entertainment conglomerates have traditionally taken toward the sanctity of their characters. On the adult site, users will be encourage to re-mix episodes of, say, "Friends," and share them with their own friends.

Are you listening, Mouse?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 4, 2008

Super Targeted Facebook Ad: You're Aiming Too High, Get a McJob

Facebook has offered powerful ad targeting since last fall, but I had no idea its algorithms had gotten this advanced. As you can see from the above ad which appeared in my feed yesterday, the company has not only strip-mined my profile for demographic, psychographic and interest-based data, but also somehow read between the lines to discover my inadequacies at work. I am truly humbled by this insight, Facebook and McDonald's, and I thank you. Click to see landing page.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 7, 2008

CBSSports.com Goes Social with Facebook for March Madness

College basketball is ramping up for next month's NCAA March Madness tournament, and CBSSports.com is getting ready for the action too with a deal with social networking site Facebook.

CBS Sports and its CBSSports.com Web site hasn't been shy about experimenting with online and interactive components when it comes to promoting sports events like the March Madness tournaments. Next month it will run much of its coverage online for the sixth year in a row, but this year it will also host an NCAA March Madness Brackets application on Facebook. The application will allow Facebook members to make predictions on winners for each round and share them with friends, and will also link to tournament coverage from CBS Sports, CSTV, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com, according to the company. CBS will also offer a mobile component that will include a "Smack Talk Wall" and team rankings.

Considering how rabid some fans can be about March Madness, I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of Facebook friends linking to this new application and then being brought over to CBSSports.com's coverage for some additional online advertising page views.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 3, 2008

Phishers Phind Phacebook

It was bound to happen. The scourge of phishing, which has long plagued rival MySpace, has evidently come to Facebook. Mike Arrington, who blogged an example this morning, oddly wonders "what the bad guys want with a bunch of Facebook user account credentials." The answer of course, as with MySpace, is they want to spam your friends.

On the upside, the value spammers can generate by phishing Facebook log-in credentials will likely be considerably less than MySpace, since MySpace enables drive by visits to its users' profile pages and Facebook does not. When you spam someone's Facebook network, all you get is their network.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 5, 2007

Zuckerberg Offers Apology, Global Opt-Out for Beacon

Facebook users now have the ability to opt out of its controversial data sharing and behavior tracking initiative completely.

Mark Zuckerberg announced the new control, which can be found here, as part of a lengthy post on the Facebook blog in which he apologizes for the way the Beacon program was conceived and rolled out to users. Salient quotes:

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...

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.

The whole Beacon episode -- from radical product launch to privacy outcry to sober apology -- has been remarkably similar to the progression of events that accompanied Facebook's introduction of the News Feed last year. Indeed, the combination of reckless product launch and considered response appears to be a Facebook trademark. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

As Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer put it to me last week, "What they learned was that if you put something out there, people complain about it, you fix it and then people embrace it," he said. "You listen to your audience. If you solve or address their issues, people will know you're listening."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 3, 2007

A Few Advertisers Distance Themselves From Beacon. Why?

Facebook has taken steps to ease privacy concerns about its Beacon consumer data sharing initiative, but many of the social net's own partners are wary of the program.

Overstock.com was among the first of Facebook's early partners to back out, but as the Times' Bits blog reports, Coke has also begged off for the moment. My guess is both companies will return to Beacon after assessing the new changes, which require users to explicitly approve the broadcast of off-Facebook behavioral and purchase data to their social networks.

If you happen to be a Facebook partner, whether you're skittish about Beacon will depend a lot on your product or service. Overstock.com probably blinked because of the holiday-heartbreaker come-on in MoveOn's pitch ("Matt in New York already knows what his girlfriend got him for Christmas...") Also, analyst Charlene Li singled out the company in her blogged complaint about the program.

However I also spoke with a Fandango rep Friday who said the company remains enthusiastic about the Beacon program. After all, he noted, Fandango doesn't sell tickets to skin flicks, and who's secretive about their movie-going habits?

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 28, 2007

MoveOn's Facebook Privacy Campaign: Pot, Kettle, Black?

Judging by the astounding rate at which MoveOn's Facebook group 'Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!' is gaining members, it's clear that there is a great deal of public concern surrounding the way in which the site is using user data.

One of the key privacy issues for MoveOn, according to the petition group page, is the fact that Facebook's new 'Beacon' ad format automatically shares information about a user's activity gathered on third-party sites.

The text in the group description, presumably written by MoveOn, states, "Facebook says its users can 'opt out' of having their private purchases reported to all their friends. But that option is easily missed."

It continues; "The obvious solution is to switch to an 'opt in' policy, like most other applications on Facebook."

I couldn't agree more! However, an interesting comment on the group wall was pointed out to me yesterday. A member has posted the following:

"Well, I tried to write this yesterday but it looks like it was removed. I'd love to sign a petition, but I am not going to sign something that will automatically subscribe me to moveon.com emails. Sorry."

I took a look at the petition on the MoveOn.org site earlier today. The privacy policy is outlined at the bottom of the page and reads; "MoveOn will send you updates on this and other important campaigns by email. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from our email list, you may do so."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this reads very much like an 'opt-out' policy to me. Admittedly, if someone is interested enough to sign an online petition, the assumption is that he or she will want to be updated on its progress. However, I'm not sure that sending e-mail updates on campaigns that MoveOn deem to be "important" really passes as an acceptable use of user data.

To avoid hypocrisy therefore, perhaps MoveOn should take some of its own advice. To quote their Facebook group description once again, maybe "the obvious solution is to switch to an 'opt in' policy" for future e-mail correspondence.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 27, 2007

Facebook Ad Trial Update

Zero clicks. Zilch. Nada. Facebook ran my ad 1,086 times, but no one clicked. Yesterday I decided to do a Facebook ad experiment, ponying up 5 whole dollars from my own personal funds for a one-day maximum CPC campaign spend.

Today I'm re-running the campaign. This time 'round I'm sticking with the same exact ad creative but targeting a much broader audience of "people in the United States who like Baking, Rock, Punk, or Punk Rock." According to the system, that brings my audience up to 682,600 as opposed to yesterday's narrower 185,960 potential ad viewers.

That whopping $5 daily minimum is still burning a whole in my pocket, Facebook. Help me spend it!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 2, 2007

Drew Pops Up on Facebook

Ousted WebTrends CEO Greg Drew is laying low this week, clearly thinking of his next move, but that hasn't kept him from updating his Facebook page.

The official word on his Facebook profile is that he's taking some time off, and sources say that he'll be updating his page with more information soon. Of course, we still recommend reading ClickZ rather than Facebook for all your breaking news.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2007

Facebook Shopping

Following the release of the Facebook API availability, micro-advertising company Chitika took the experienced it developed with its eMiniMall ad unit, which runs on numerous blog sites, and created similar unit for Facebook. Using the Facebook platform, Chitika built an API, which Facebook application developers can use to integrate and display revenue-generating eMiniMalls directly on their applications.

The advertised products will show up alongside paid merchant listings from Chitika's merchant partners and allow users to search and compare stores to find the best price. The existing network for the eMiniMall unit is primarily comprised of blogs and smaller publisher sites. Chitika felt the Facebook opportunity was a good way to expand its offering. "The excitement here is that social networking sites are being looked at as a very fertile ground, as new horizons for advertising and the advertising industry as a whole is exposing ways in which we can make this advertising model work," said Chitika CEO Venkat Kolluri.

Chitika provided information on the Chitika Facebook API and how developers and other advertisers can access its new channel.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 13, 2007

Borrowers Bare Fangs with Facebook Group, and a Bank Relents

HSBC felt the wrath of online WOM recently. The firm said late last month that it was scrapping plans to charge interest on its U.K. graduate accounts in response to pressure from an online Facebook campaign.

That pressure came in the form of a Facebook group launched by the National Union of Students (NUS) and titled "Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-off!!!" The group has amassed almost 7,000 members since its creation in mid-July, and its founder, NUS Vice President for Education Wes Streeting, credited the collective online protest with forcing HSBC to back down.

“There can be no doubt that using Facebook made the world of difference to our campaign,” he said in a statement.

Back story: Previously, as with many U.K. banks, opening a student account with HSBC would entitle the holder to an interest-free overdraft not only throughout their years of study, but also for three years following their graduation. When the bank moved to renege on the promise, the collective outrage of Britain's post-grad population spurred the Facebook group, and the mea culpa. “Like any service orientated business we are not too big to listen to the needs of our customers," HSBC’s head of product development Andy Ripley said in a statement.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 23, 2007

Facebook Targeting on Profile Data: Is Interest a Proxy for Purchase Intent?

The Wall Street Journal today discusses Facebook's plans to target ads on user profile data, but according to what VP of Sales Mike Murphy told ClickZ during a Q&A last month, the company is already doing some of that:

"Our users are updating their profile on average every 48 hours," he said. "While most sites rely on either demographic targeting or behavioral targeting, in our case our users are giving us those 200 words that are most meaningful to them every day, we're targeting against that."

According to the WSJ story, the "system" Facebook is planning to release this fall adds a back-end keyword buying system to its recent profile-based targeting offering. The article makes some rather breathless comparisons to Google's AdWords system, even going so far as to invoke that magic word "algorithm," a mantra in this age of machine-driven advertising.

Next year, Facebook hopes to expand on the service, one person says, using algorithms to learn how receptive a person might be to an ad based on readily available information about activities and interests of not just a user but also his friends -- even if the user hasn't explicitly expressed interest in a given topic.

Trust the borg? Not so fast. The appearance of "movies" and "surfing" in a social net user's list of interests doesn't necessarily imply a willingness to buy the DVD version of "Surf's Up" -- much less a willingness of her friends to do so. Put differently, interest has not been proven to be a proxy for purchase intent. What Facebook, and MySpace too, are pursuing is still just a slightly more evolved form of contextual advertising.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 13, 2007

Facebook Adjacency Crisis: U.K. Advertisers Can Now Opt Out of 'Groups' Placement

Facebook made a move late last week to appease several advertisers that recently yanked campaigns (and others who might) from Facebook due to ad adjacency with the right-wing British National Party's group on the site.

It's giving U.K. advertisers the right to opt out of placements alongside any of its Groups, which is certainly the easiest -- and maybe the only feasible -- way it could address the most current crisis.

To clarify one point not made obvious in the FT.com coverage of this last week, advertisers are not able to choose specific groups to be excluded from or included in their ad buys. Rather, they can opt out of appearing next to Facebook Groups in general. From the company's statement on the move:

"For those U.K. advertisers who don’t want ads displayed alongside content that they find objectionable, we are working with them to find alternatives. UK advertisers now can choose whether or not to run their banner ads alongside group pages on Facebook. We are continuing to look into ways to apply our technology to give advertisers even more options in the future.”

For now, this is a U.K.-only concession, so as always with media and site ad exclusion, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 13, 2007

Facebook Ad Performance: Faceplant?

Is Facebook "the next Google?" The frenzy over its progressive platform strategy, rapid growth and technology are drawing comparisons to the mighty search company. I'm no tech analyst, and so I can't comment on the brilliance of its products or developer strategy. But from an ad point of view, Facebook just doesn't have that shiny magic bullet that's inherent to search and responsible for Google's incredible wealth: namely, consumers volunteering their purchase intentions (and not just their interests, which is what they do on Facebook, not to mention MySpace, Yahoo and yes, AOL, another company FB has been compared with.)

The best proof of this is that Facebook ads just don't seem to perform. Valleywag points to the experience of digital marketing consultancy Reach Students, which has run four disappointing campaigns using Facebook's flyer ads. Its most recent purchase of 1.4 million page impressions targeted to specific universities scored a CTR of only .04 percent. And that was after creative testing.

"When we first experienced poor results earlier this year we looked carefully at creative and planning," Reach Stude wrote on its blog. "Further experimentation saw a variety of quite different offers and creative approaches. What kept us going was the fact that others had anecdotally mentioned good returns from Facebook ads… Yet our results did not improve."

What have been your experiences advertising on Facebook? I'd like to know.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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