
When Facebook opened up their site to anyone not that long ago, it was taking a risk that many people weren't sure would work. At this time it seems like a smart move as the site has grown from 13.3 million visitors, to 19 million as of January 2007.
What's more important, in spite of that, they're sticking to their purpose and offering advertising that will work with the sites objectives. The reason I know that it's being done is some of the complaining by agencies that they can't get their splashy, fancy stuff on the site. I like that.
It shows that Facebook understands the niche they serve and won't disrupt the service for the sake of those that could end the type of experience their users enjoy.
Mike Murphy, Facebook’s chief revenue officer doesn't deny that they sometimes turn down RFPs that want all the fancy stuff up. He said, “The way we package
media isn’t the same way that buyers are used to on other sites. We’re selling a very different product. Marketers need to be part of the site’s flow, not screaming from the sidelines.”
Facebook did have a problem for awhile when they signed a deal with Microsoft (MSFT) which took away some of the targeting options until they got it worked out, now they say it's a much better system.
Marketers are still rebelling against the Facebook experience, but I hope they don't give in too much. The experience they've promised their users is being maintained and it would probably hurt them to change. It's the marketers that need to change their ways of doing things, not the other way around.
We need to keep in mind the types of communities that are online now and market to them accordingly. To simply do the "in your face" type of advertising won't work in these types of circumstances. To try to make it look like Facebook is failing advertisers, like some are saying, is to not understand the environment that's changing online.







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