Thursday March 24, 2011

Facebook Mining Real-Time Conversations for Ad Targeting

I wonder how you can tell if you are part of the one percent (6 million people) they are testing this out on? I guess you could repeatedly type stuff like "boobies" over and over to see if your ads change. Mmmmm, boobies.

The closest Facebook has come to real-time advertising has been with its most recent ad offering, known as sponsored stories, which repost users' brand interactions as an ad on the side bar. But for the 6 million users involved in this test, any utterance will become fodder for real-time targeted ads. For example: Users who update their status with "Mmm, I could go for some pizza tonight," could get an ad or a coupon from Domino's, Papa John's or Pizza Hut.

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