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Facebook is a monster. Despite its unpopular new user interface, and lots of niche social networking competition, there’s no stopping Facebook’s phenomenal growth. The ultimate social net continues to expand across the globe at a staggering 3% per week growth rate, according to GoLoco Blog. Last year the network consumed North America, and this year the website’s growth has been highest in Europe. In August 2008 it was reported that there are already 17 countries that have more than one million users, with Belgium set to become #18.

Awed by these amazing numbers, its no wonder that so many innovative social marketers are dreaming up new ways to advertise to friends and family in this immense network. There are pages, groups, applications and photo galleries to game. My favourite innovation is by a Canadian cell phone company Solo Mobile that has built a cool photo bubbling application called Blabble – the free service produces a text bubble that is very similar to their brand, so essentially they are allowing people to brand photos with the essence of their logo. Its a useful application – good marketing.

The Beacon of Protest on Facebook

Microsoft’s 240 million dollar cash injection (for 1.6% ownership) in October last year helped Facebook launch a smart ad delivery program called Beacon, which debuted on November 6th 2007. When first debuted, this software would search and compile details about your profile with information gleaned from several assorted Facebook partners including LiveJournal, NYTimes (NYT), Sony Online, Blockbuster (BBI), Bluefly.com, STA Travel, The Knot, TripAdvisor, Travel Ticker, TypePad, viagogo, Vox, Yelp, WeddingChannel.com and Zappos.com. Although users had the ability to opt of the program, there was a storm of protest. Facebook argued that the harvested information helped Beacon target ads to be relevant and provide the very best experience, but it had internet privacy watchdogs wagging their fingers. Thirty days later Facebook changed Beacon’s mandate, and now this ad delivery program is far less aggressive.

Facebook Ad Logic Became Unfathomable

In the summer of 2008, Rob Campbell (that’s me) found his profile carried advertisements for teeth whitening dentists located near his home in Toronto Ontario. This made me wonder what piece of media did I author that would prompt such an initiative? Or is it simply my age, single status, and proximity to the retailer?

Andrea Dickson wrote an insightful piece about how poorly the Facebook Advertising machine was marketing to her profile, in an interesting piece published on Wise Bread titled, Why Does Facebook Ads Hate Single Hetero Sexual Women?

In this post she states, If Facebook cared to dig any deeper in my profile, they would notice that I belong to a fair number of liberal groups on through their site, and might start pushing Obama stickers towards me in great fistfuls. Or maybe they would see how often I am listening to music on Pandora, and casually throw the occasional concert tickets ad my way. They might notice from my status update references and fan club memberships that I have a very serious crush on Hiro Nakamura. Couldn’t one of the dating ads at least point me towards a site filled with nerdy Japanese guys who can bend time and space?

In September 2008, Billie Mintz rented his friend’s Facebook status bar:

Corporate Social Responsibility expert Billie Mintz, on behalf of Artists Raising Consciousness crossed an important social media advertising boundary by agreeing to rent his popular friends Facebook status bar for marketing purposes. Billie’s Facebook Status video documents this transaction, and hints at the true diameter of this moral can of worms . Would you sell your Facebook status bar updates? Would you allow 3rd party advertising to be sent to your friends, in your name?”

Fortunately CSR expert Billie Mintz is an innovator in new media production pertaining to philanthropy with a vision to create awareness and passion for social change. Artists Raising Consciousness was created to advance the awareness of social issues through the creation of films tailored to a specific cause. Billie used his friends status bar to promote The Message in a Bottle Facebook group.

The Message in a Bottle web video initiative, which is sponsored in part by Molsons, studies the social responsibility of breweries with regards to the proliferation of a responsible drinking message in Canada.

In a related press release Billie is quoted saying, what a great idea to reach a different group of people,” and he continues, We negotiated a price based on the size of his network, and then I immediately started broadcasting my messages – kind of like renting ad space.

This activity was actually predicted by Jens Berget, in his Sly Marketing blog. In the spring of 2008 he wrote that if you use the status updates too much as a way to promote yourself and your business, you might end up getting banned. “Be aware, you can get banned for having too many contacts , or if you publish breastfeeding images or if you use a name that is not your legal first and last name . And here are 13 other reasons why you can get banned by Facebook.” classic.

Would You Sell Ads to your Friends on Facebook?

Today, Billie Mintz has successfully used his friend’s Facebook status to market his Message in a Bottle project, but this is a slippery slope that other social marketing firms will no doubt follow to the bottom. The real danger is that artificial friend messaging systems will become so intelligent, it will soon be impossible to recognize your real friends from machines that emulate their diction and behaviour. Just as Beacon was initially designed to harvest data to better focus ads on Facebook members in November 2007, and countless new 3rd party applications harvest data today, what new technology will pervert the integrity of your friends’ profiles tomorrow?