Facebook ads and trust

My thoughts: This could be huge if done right, but it could also backfire badly for Facebook. If I start to think that my friends are advertising to me, I may no longer trust them (and, in fact, try to avoid them . .. by not logging into Facebook anymore). So the the trick is to make these appear to be genuine recommendations, and not ads. I am not sure how many people will be fooled by this, though. It risks turning something useful—the feed of my friends’ activities—into something spammy.

… this is exactly what has to happen once you start to mess up with a very fine fabric of social trust. Enginnered (read-algorithm bases) approach is trust (value) destroyer, not creator.  I am glad it has turned out that way. You are not gonna outsmart us, Mark.

In fact, I like Nick’s take on this dynamics much better: the medium is the message from our sponsor. The irony is so deep it’s subterranean.

Cudos to Umair for inspiration.