'Embedded' marketing in FaceBook:

I found this interesting.

This morning, I sent a message within FaceBook to a pal of mine.

In it, I linked one of my client's flickr sets.

What I noticed was; that as well as sending my friend my message and link, FaceBook also appended the equivalent of a classified ad, (remember them) at the end of my message.

I can't decide whether that's cool,intrusive or naughty.

On balance, I'd go with the first.

My guess, is that this is FaceBook's take on the Google sponsored links behemoth.

And I wonder if it's part of the FaceBook plan to sell brand keywords to all comers, to tag along with a users sent messages?

Or am I just showing how little I actually know about FaceBook?

Probably.

Comments

[Malcolm Murdoch]

Though this shows yet more advantages for getting someone to putting some decent text in your meta tags.
It seems strange that in this day and age you still see large companies creating decent websites but allowing Google and other people to believe their page holds literally nothing.

Check this out: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=monkey+magazine&btnG=Search&meta=

The second listing in the results is actually the Monkey magazine page. However they've entered no data whatsoever into their meta tags so Google believes the page just tells people they don't have flash.

Not healthy and very surprising for such an innovative magazine.

[mike]

Robin,

Thanks for the clarification/education.

I'm learning.

(Aren't we all;-)

[Robin Grant]

Mike - Facebook is just pulling out the contents of the META description tag on the page you linked to. Flickr haven't paid them to do this....