Facebook is to ditch Microsoft’s banner ads in favour of its own, but is now using Bing to power its site search engine, as the two companies overhaul their 2007 search ad deal.The move comes as Facebook has made a number of changes to its social network to mark its 6th birthday, with a new […]
Facebook is to ditch Microsoft’s banner ads in favour of its own, but is now using Bing to power its site search engine, as the two companies overhaul their 2007 search ad deal.The move comes as Facebook has made a number of changes to its social network to mark its 6th birthday, with a new homepage layout that focuses on status updates, games and chat.
Microsoft acquired a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007, valuing the social network at $15bn. As part of the restucture, Microsoft will no longer be responsible for display ads on Facebook. Facebook claimed that its own display adverts – which can target viewers based on personal information – are better suited to the site than Microsoft’s alternative.
08/02/2010
“Ad formats that feature social actions perform better and provide a better user experience since they are more consistent with the look and feel of Facebook,” the company said in a statement. “This combination of targeting and social relevance is the primary driver behind the shift in strategy.”
Search ads
However, Microsoft will continue to sell text-based search ads on the website. The companies have also announced that they will expand their search partnership worldwide – the previous deal limited their activities to the US.
“Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy,” says Microsoft Bing general manager Jon Tinter.
“Our two companies will soon provide Facebook users with a more complete search experience by providing full access to great Bing features beyond a set of links, including richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions,” the post concludes.
The changes will take place over the next 30 days.
Site revamp
Meanwhile, Facebook has unveiled a raft of new features, with added emphasis on status updates, chat tools and such as the popular Farmville and Mafia Wars apps.
The redesign puts some of Facebook’s more commonly used areas, such as pages, status updates, and links, in a more prominent location.
“Over the past few months, we’ve been testing several different designs of the home page to improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features,” said Facebook engineer Jing Chen, in a post on the company’s official blog. “Today we started rolling out the most recent navigation updates to help you find what you are looking for on Facebook. Now from the top left menus you can quickly get to what’s new and important,” said Chen.
Also, Facebook moved the Home and Profile links to the top right corner of the home page.
Additionally, Facebook made the Chat tool “more prominent by showing you a list of some of your online friends, and the Events dashboard lists your upcoming events along with events your friends are attending,” said Chen.
The site is also making it easier for users to keep track of popular game applications, like Farmville and Mafia Wars.
“You will also start to see counters next to the applications you have bookmarked on your home page,” wrote Chen.
“Counters will notify you when you have a specific action to take, so that you never miss your turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application,” said the blogger.
Cheng said the changes are all about making it easier for individuals to access and use what’s become the world’s most popular social networking platform.
“We hope the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications, and activities that matter most to you,” Cheng wrote.
Analytics for Fan pages
In addition, Facebook has launched a new feature for administrators of authentic pages, per post insights. This feature gives administrators a look at how many raw impressions an administrator initiated post on the Page received, as well as the overall feedback rate.
These insights are aiming to help Page administrators understand more about the time of day, day of week, and type of content is most effective for delivering information to a fan base.
This feature is only available to authenticated Pages, where the minimum barrier is a Page with 10,000 fans. Once a Page reaches 10,000 fans, the administrator is provided instructions on how to authenticate the Page.
To mark its 6th birthday, Facebook are also hosting an all-night “hackathon”, during which Facebook engineers worked on a number of new projects that may someday become part of the Facebook experience.
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?blog_id=company
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=287542162130
