Alex Harries's diary

Warning: it's another rambling, terminally-dull, work-orientated (kinda) blog entry. Read this,* or this,* or this,* or this,* or this* if you're looking for something a whole load better ;o)

I was wondering earlier how Facebook - a social networking website which must have some huge bandwidth bills - could justify its existence. After all, it's not like it can pay the bills on props alone...

I've just spotted this advert appearing in my "news feed" (a listing of changes in the status of the people in my social network) which probably explains how Facebook are raking in their money...

It's an inline advert which looks like it's part of the site's content, recommending something that's nothing to do with my social network - a company is paying Facebook (probably a helluva lot of money) to drop this advert into peoples' feeds right across the site.

As far as advertising goes, it's highly effective - apart from people accidentally clicking on it thinking it's genuine news, it also looks more "endorsed" by Facebook, which (from what little I can remember of my sketchy knowledge of psychology) implies to viewers that a warm, cuddly brand they feel they can probably trust - Facebook in this case - is endorsing a product.

As far as advertising effectiveness goes, it's right up there with the drinks companies who pay a ridiculously good-looking person to hang around in a bar all night getting people to chat to them/chat them up/whatever, and then get the unsuspecting dupe to buy them one of their employers' drinks. At the other end of the scale, by comparison, you have unsolicited ("spam") e-mails, whose proliferance make me want to throw things out of the window ;o)

Anyway, that's enough from me - bedtime. I've tweaked the profile pages on UPSU.net - now members can add more information about themselves, e.g. their Facebook profile address, more interests, and so on, and I've had a stab at cutting down on spam by changing peoples' public e-mail addresses into less-obvious ones (e.g. noodle [at] banana.com).

Anyway, night dahlinks... /al

* Neither UPSU, UPSU.net, nor myself, could give a toss if you're offended by the content of any of these links, since they're nothing to do with us, but I guess it's only fair I warn you I'm nothing to do with any of those links. So there you go...