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This guest post was contributed by well-known web skeptic Drama 2.0.
There's not a whole lot to dislike about Mark Zuckerberg. He walks around with flip flops regardless of where he is. He's a little bit awkward around people. If you saw him in a bar, you'd question how a minor got past the bouncer. Yes, even though Mark Zuckerberg's stake in Facebook is worth billions of dollars on paper, he's about as close to being your baby brother as, well, your baby brother. But don't let the facade fool you. Mark Zuckerberg is fast showing signs that he's really the ghost of George Orwell.
Facebook started off as little more than a way to stalk hot girls (and guys). If you were lucky, maybe you'd even get to poke them. But it is increasingly becoming clear that the most popular book in the "Facebook Network" is 1984. While Zuckerberg has positioned Facebook in the past as a technology company as opposed to a media company, Facebook's direction leaves little doubt that the data it has been collecting from users has not gone unnoticed and that the company will increasingly look to exploit this data however possible to deliver advertising. That makes it a media company, regardless of Zuckerberg's spin.
Following Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook, there has been considerable discussion about Facebook's pending announcements at ad:tech this week in New York. Speculation has mounted that the imminent SocialAds platform will enable advertisers to finally tap into the deep demographic and interest data that
Facebook collects from its users. It is not entirely unsurprising that Facebook would eventually try to leverage its database to better target ads. I've actually been looking forward to the day when I get Facebook flyers relevant to my interests. I'd much rather see flyers for Hennessy and Cohiba than the "Learn to Salsa Dance" and "Lose, Gain or Maintain Weight" flyers that I always seem to see when checking out Marissa Mayer's wall.
But Facebook not only wants to target advertising based on my interests, it wants to collect data about my purchasing habits. Facebook is planning to enable third parties to send Facebook data about purchases its users make outside of the Facebook website. For instance, if you buy a book on Amazon, you'll be able to let all of your friends know about it on your News Feed. Of course, Facebook is a "do no evil" company so users will have control over privacy options and will be able to opt-out of the system completely.
Privacy issues aside, I'm skeptical about whether these projects really serve any useful purpose to advertisers and users alike. Targeting me with advertising based on my demographic profile and interests is not necessarily going to be of any use if I'm not receptive to advertising when it is displayed to me (I do not like to be disturbed when poking) or if the advertising is not relevant to what I'm currently searching for (a woman on my friends list who recently broke up and might be free on Saturday night). And I highly doubt that the people on my friends list want to know that last week I purchased a deluxe nose hair trimmer at Drugstore.com, Calvin Klein MAN cologne at Sephora.com, a gold Figaro chain at Overstock.com and the book "How to Become an Alpha Male" at Amazon.