First result of Facebook’s new design: its Relationship-based Semantic Ad
Category: How Products benefit users Add commentsHow are you with the new design so far?
Tech-savvy users, needless to say, you must have loved Facebook’s new design.
My non-tech Facebook friends, have you familiarized yourself with the new design? Do you still think Facebook makes it hard for you to navigate and locate things you like? Do you miss the old design? Well you know, I have seen the expected results from the new design already. Let me show you:
Have you noticed the change improvement of Facebook Ad?
First thing is in the Ad. I call new Facebook Ad Relationship-based Semantic.
There are two elements: Relationship-based and Semantic.
Relationship-based
The old ad is exactly a same-old vertical banner. No thing new.
The new add is in the form of “Friend A is a fan of Product P”. Wow! Facebook recognizes you and displays ads that feature your friends!
Semantic
Semantic is a little bit more abstract.
Facebook ad caters for relevance of information to you. Information they care about:
- Relationship: ads show faces of your friends
- Location: ads show products/services in your location
- Background: if you are doing or did your tertiary education in an Australian university, the ad might display a Master degree from Australia
- Interest: are you into Rock? ads show Rock performances
Do you have the impression that Facebook starts to understand you?
Why is this a result of the new design?
First thing first, I have to admit that saying “the new smart ad is a result from the new design” is an over-simplified statement.
Can Facebook ad be smart with the old design? Yes!
But it was much harder and would take longer with the old design.
Take a look at the new design:
- You can comment right on your friends’ statuses
- You have more spaces on the homepage as well as in your profile. Your profile is no longer crowded with all the applications but applications are separated thus create more spaces
- Your friends’ Walls are thrown up first so it’s much quicker for you to leave your message
- Your friend list is now more organized, increases the will to send them messages
- Photos are displayed in different views, you want to comment more as you see more photos
- In short, you write a lot more on Facebook’s new design
- In short, you create a lot more contents on Facebook’s new design
As you create more contents, Facebook understands you more, thus displays more relevant ads to you.
You may argue: ads benefit them (Facebook and its sponsors), not you. Well, to be honest, would you prefer to see a totally non-relevant ad or an ad that might interest you?
What do you think about this? Do you love it or hate it?
Other considerations
Of course, a service provider is a business. Many may have concern of privacy. Google has known MUCH about me, now Facebook does. There’s a chill in the air that there are always people who want to make money keep an eye on every step I take online.
Conclusion
The ad might be beneficial to all three parties: you, Facebook and sponsors. Like it or not, inter-dependence is the driving force that strengthen consumption.
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Tags of this article: advertising,data-mining,facebook,google,privacy,usability,web-2.0,web-3.0.
Last update October 6, 2008
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October 8th, 2008 at 1:41 am
I definitely have become a (huge) fan of new Facebook. Although - like (most?) others, I think, I disliked it at first, and particularly liked the way it was launched - I never knew why I needed a “new” version of something which already seemed pretty useful to me. But I agree, the new version does seem to encourage more creative input/output and interaction, rather than just using apps. And that, I like - a lot. My favourite benefit of new Facebook is commented stories - being able to comment on friends’ status updates. This is very gooey, and as far as I can see, a lot of my friends really like it and use it as well. Thanks for the post! MH
October 11th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Thanks Matt for your comment.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Hi Tai,
Thanks for your interesting analyst!
I also use Facebook and love it so much. I use it frequently more than anysite that I have registered for. The most interesting of Facebook that attract me is application feature, the approach of this feature is very creative and friendly that user cannot deny to use it
I really love Facebook, thanks for it founders