New feature on Facebook: more ads
This week, Facebook’s newest update has gone public and sponsored stories now appear in the news ticker which appears at the top right of your Facebook home page and scrolls live updates of your network’s activity (Joe and Gina just became friends, Bob liked a status update, Jackie added two photos) that is less relevant than a manually entered status update.
Technologists comment that the news ticker was unpopular at launch, so why not shovel some ads into it? ReadWriteWeb.com says, “It received a ton of complaints; teens, for one, called it a stalker tool. Now the news ticker is more akin to a spammer tool.”
Advertisers, however, will likely flock to the feature despite the rising cost of advertising on Facebook. Mega brands often find ways to subtly appear to be a natural part of a conversation in hopes of clicks and ultimately conversions.
So, if you see a strange looking update in the news ticker on your Facebook homepage, it’s probably an ad and while some will click on funny ads, others on shopping ads, many are calling it spam and are upset about the new update.
