Angry Users Leave Facebook Ads in Limbo

Site would profit from News Feed spam, but members hate it
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2008 9:11 PM CST
Angry Users Leave Facebook Ads in Limbo
Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks to press and advertising partners at a Facebook announcement in New York, Monday, November 6, 2007.   (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Facebook is in a bind, Owen Thomas writes on Valleywag. The social network has boosted its membership to 120 million, partly by keeping spam to a minimum. But to make money, Facebook needs advertising—which means allowing app developers to bug users with spam on Facebook's News Feed. Yet when the site allowed it, users got upset and dropped off.

Now app developers are wary of Facebook, which seemed to censor them arbitrarily. Some apps, like iLike and Causes, were allowed to continue, while others were yanked for privacy or spam violations. Thomas suggests Facebook clarify its policy by handing out a rate card to companies to let them run spam on News Feed. "There's no easy answer," he admits. "If there were, Mark Zuckerberg might be more than a paper billionaire by now."
(More Mark Zuckerberg stories.)

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