Valleywag
Updated mockups reveal that Facebook has added a new tab to its soon-to-be-released user profiles. It's a small but telling detail that illustrates how the obsessively controlling Mark Zuckerberg has ceded power to independent Facebook-app developers. In his original plans for Facebook's redesign, Zuckerberg planned to integrate the Wall — the place where public messages from other users are displayed on user profiles — with Facebook's News Feed, which is where Facebook serves ads between "stories" about other users' activities. This integration was a way for Facebook to finally serve ads in the Wall, a placewhere users spend a great deal of their time on the site.
Developers, both small and large, told us they hated the idea. Still, since Facebook owns the platform, Zuckerberg should have been able to ignore their criticisms and protect Facebook's new moneymaking plan. Now, instead, there's a new tab on user profiles for just the News Feed. When he launched Facebook's platform, Zuckerberg drew comparisons to Bill Gates, the creator of another powerful platform. But Gates bullied developers, not the other way around.
Comments
wow, this is amazing! you mean a company would listen to its customer base and actually incorporate its feedback into the product? shocking, really!
@brandnew_yerretro: Not a Mac user, I see.
app developers != customer base.
-mike
If ads in the wall was really their big plan then they desperately need some new talent over there. Ads in the wall would be about on the same level as ads on a message board or in a chat room. Completely worthless.
@Mr. E.: I think it's more like serving ads against email, which Google, Microsoft and Yahoo do to their profit. A lot of college age and just older people spend a lot of time looking at their Facebook News Feeds and Walls.
college students don't engage banner ads. they've been taught that if they click on them, it sends you on a wild ride of porn, pop ups, free iPod scams and any other dogshit you can imagine.
@MrMedia: Banner ads aren't about engagement. Brand advertisers don't pay for clicks, they pay for impressions.
Good thing no one outside of 11th grade connects Zux with Gates.
Anyway, I agree with mrmedia in that our generation doesn't work the way the big cats want us to work.
Aha! Zuckerberg's secret mentor revealed:
+ Watch video
Facebook puts ads in the *Newsfeed* (displayed privately to each user on their homepage) not on people's *mini-feeds* (the ones on the profile). The only ad-resembling things I've ever seen on mini-feeds have been related to the independent applications...so it seems a little counterintuitive that the developers would want to separate it. Weird.
I'm so excited for the new changes though (pathetic, I know, haha :-/)
@sample032: [Yet another boring] Mac fanboy, I see.
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