Clunky Flow

Dean Donaldson sees Facebook’s plans to monetize your attention through in-your-face advertising as uninspired and uninspriring and old hat.

Facebook are back hard-hitting the headlines of the industry press with rumours of anticipated advertising offering. Though currently generating a measly $125 million a year in advertising revenue, plans based around user-profiled advertising are beginning to emerge that fuel speculation as to the company being worth somewhere in the region of $15 billion (as shown by Microsoft recently buying a 1.6% stake) - and this would certainly put them out there as a force to be reckoned with.

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I do not agree, as either a user or as a marketer. It is not sufficient to say that just because I want to chat with my friends, I also want to be tracked and approached by advertisers. If digital advertising has taught us anything, it is that intrusion will not sustain itself for too long as it is getting lost in all the modern day clutter – and shown by falling results. Shouting louder does not help and neither does just following me around like a cyber-stalker. Unless you can come up and hold an interesting conversation with me, engage and immerse me, then I am most likely to tell you to shove off with the same gusto I would tell a drunk lady at a bar trying to chat me up…

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Web 2.0 is not about social networking, it is about conversation – and that is ‘two-way’. That is why companies are now contemplating how they build a brand against a vocal audience that no longer buys the tripe of a marketer. We are intelligent people, not experiments in an ad lab. As a user, we want to be appreciated and treated as an equal – and our opinion matters. Rush ahead and dictate to the rest of us and watch the backlash against Big Brother.

Ask and you may well receive, dictate and you’ll probably end up with a smack in your Face-book…

Full post here

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