Advertising on Facebook, should Google have to worry?

Well it's always fun when there is some competition. The pot gets stirred a bit and things get turned on their heads. It was really just a matter of time until Facebook jumped into the advertising fray and went head to head with the mighty Google. But who will be the winners, and who will be the losers.

Gino Cosme of Cerebra writes:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week announced the launch of Facebook Ads, an advertising system that lets businesses connect with their target audience, roll out viral social ads, and track social activity on the site.

According to this statement, Facebook Ads now makes it possible for “businesses to connect with users and target advertising to the exact audiences they want.” Some of the companies already on board include Sony Pictures, The Coca-Cola Company, Microsoft, Verizon Wireless and BlockBusters.

Essentially, this is a very logical step for Facebook, and one that makes a lot of sense for advertisers. Think about it. Social networking sites have access to an almost unlimited amount of data about users. This includes their interests, friends, demographics, favorite on-site applications and groups, to name just some. Arguably there isn't a better way for advertisers to reach their target audiences with advertising that speaks to users on a very individual basis. Read the rest of Gino's story

Erick Schonfeld of Techcrunch was there when Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement, and in a liveblogging report stated:

"I am at Facebook’s social advertising announcement in New York City, where Mark Zuckerberg is about to take the stage and tell us all what we already think we know: Facebook is getting into the advertising business in a big way. Much of what will be announced today, such as projects code-named Beacon and Pandemic have already leaked out."

In this great demonstration of skilled liveblogging Erick goes on to tell us:

"Facebook is announcing three things: Social Ads (ads targeted based on member profile data and spread virally), Beacon (a way for Facebook members to declare themselves fans of a brand on other sites and send those endorsements to their feeds), and Insight (marketing data that goes deep into social demographics and pyschographics which Facebook will provide to advertisers in an aggregated, anonymous way). These three things together make up Facebook Ads. Here are the press releases for Facebook Ads, Project Beacon, and its launch partners."

Read the whole story

Search Engines and Directories

We all use Search Engines and Directories, but I guess most of us fall into a trap of having one or two favorites that we always use.

When it comes to Search Engines, I'm a devoted Google user, maybe it's just because I like the toolbar and it's convenient. I use Aardvark for South African searches.

Directories are a bit of a mystery to me. I'm always looking for more to submit my websites and my blogs to, and usually find these endless lists of Directories that end up with dead links or complicated registration procedures and paid registration.

So I was quite excited when I found this link called 140+ Search Engines and Directories on Mashable .com. I couldn't wait to see what it had to offer.

Google pays $10 for people to walk into shops to take a picture

I saw this interesting post on Digg - Google will pay you $10 per store for walking in and taking pictures.

This is all about becoming a Google Business Referral Representative.

The comments are great - sadly the offer is only for the US at the moment, otherwise I could see crowds of people with access to a digital scuttling around, sleuthing out the local shops.

Oh well, we'll still have to wait a while, but it will get to South Africa - and ten bucks for a photo is a lot of money!

Rumor: Google, Facebook Get Cozy

By Michael Estrin

A post in Publishing 2.0 has helped fuel speculation that search giant Google might be getting cozy with social networking site Facebook.

While Robert Young of Publishing 2.0 says he believes a deal is already in the works, neither company has commented on the rumor.

If true, the deal could put a crimp in Google's pending deal with MySpace, which accounts for nearly 11 percent of Google's search traffic.

read more

MySpace Is for Retail?

MySpace Founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe has said the social networking juggernaut may soon team with the likes of eBay, or some other e-commerce company, in a bid to launch a retail component for the site.

"We will at some point offer user generated e-commerce transactions," DeWolfe told The Telegraph. "So if you're on your site and you have a line of T-shirts you have designed and you want to sell them to your friends, we want to be able to provide you with the tools you need to do that."

Read more

But the best news of this whole story for me is that Google has launched an alternative to PayPal, Google Checkout -are South African's going to be banned from being payed via that as well for products and services?