Tommorrow Facebook is set to unveil a new advertising strategy, and Venturebeat has a source saying this is what they plan to do:
In a project code-named Pandemic, Facebook will remove the somewhat popular “sponsored groups” that advertisers can buy on the site. Instead, it will introduce pages that advertisers can buy, and which can include interactive games or other applications of the advertisers’ choosing.
Pending the outcome of an internal debate within Facebook, these pages may include a number of vertical categories, such as movies, music, restaurants, travel, nonprofits, and others.
Facebook has already developed applications for these categories, that we understand to compete directly with many successful third party applications on Facebook already in these categories.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn.
Sure, Facebook is going to compete with its own developers, that’s something any grown up in this business would expect. Mark said as much at Web 2. I am still hoping for something a bit more …. innovative. Hope Venturebeat only has half the story. Or less.
10 Things to Watch (Online) During the TV Writers Strike: Time to openly support the progress of Web 2.0 offerings. http://tombomb.typepad.com/tombomb/2007/11/10-things-to-wa.html
John, I would even take this further and think about new business models. The current web 2.0 standard, free ad-based services lead to unwanted effects like walled gardens. The developer needs to leverage the value of the network, instead of thinking about creating user value. The user gets spoiled with free services, but ignores the ad pressure on him, and the advertiser thinks he gets through to his potential customer, but that is just a fantom idea.
Not current mainstream thinking, but it feels to me we really need to get out of this advertisement trap. So my advise to Mark Zuckerberg is “when in doubt, follow the money”.