Invisible Ads on Facebook

I'm looking at my Facebook page right now. There are ads on it, to the far left. Until I had a reason to look for the ads, I basically did not see them or pay attention to them. They've been pretty much invisible to me. The ads are static, tucked away from where your eye moves on the page, and seem incongruous with the reason you're on Facebook, which is to connect with friends.

Worse for advertisers, the ads aren't even close to being targeted. I'm not a college kid. The last two ads I saw on Facebook were for CareerBuilder (a job-hunting site, which, thankfully, is not something I need at the moment) and another for acne medication Proactiv (ditto about thankfully no longer needing).

Anyway, I say all that because there is quite a discussion about the failures of Facebook advertising on the UK's Reach Students blog.

It comes amid lots of discussion about whether -- and why -- Facebook is worth $6 billion. But I suppose the same kinds of questions could've been asked about Google in the days when its search traffic was booming but before it figured out its advertising model.

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