So Facebook is going to post less annoying ads on users’ profiles in a bid to make them more effective.
It’s a great move from Zuckerberg and co, as checking my profile quickly I can see that one out of six adverts actually interests me – and one of them is for a sci-fi event I just ‘liked’.
But advertising is a clumsy business, and at odds with privacy, so it’s a hard one to get right: I’m not listed as single or as in a relationship, yet I still get dating adverts left, right and centre (actually just on the right-hand side…).
The theory goes that by targeting my user profile, Facebook will match up more suited adverts to people more likely to be interested in the product/service being offered. But I would have to pour so much personal information into my Facebook profile to make that happen, and I’m not comfortable with that much data about me resting online for a company’s analytics software to churn through.
But moreover, how many of us think our Facebook profiles are an accurate representation of ourselves? It’s a place, like Twitter, to promote a certain aspect of yourself. It’s great fun and I love using the site, but at the end of the day I haven’t updated even my favourite films list in about six years.
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