Josh Benner

Tag: news

  • Facebook ads, starring y-o-u

    Facebook announced a new feature called ”sponsored” stories today. Advertisers will have the opportunity to sponsor certain types of responses, such as ”likes” or check-ins from users, and from those responses, they will be able to put these in the right margin as ads.

    As an example, let’s say that Target wants to have ads based off of who checks in to Target on Facebook and you check-in at your local Target. That’s something that can be a possible ad.

    These ads will only be posted to people who are already your Facebook friends, but they’re doing this without your permission. Many of these same types of posts could just as easily wind up on your Facebook newsfeed and all of the information is information which you have already chosen to put on your Facebook. The company is trying to depict this as being no different from what would post to the news feed, but it IS different. You’re involuntarily going to be put into advertisements that Facebook is getting paid for.

    Facebook is trying to make this seem like it is ultimately going to benefit you, the user, however given their history, I’m pretty sure this is actually being done to benefit them. Facebook’s advertising platform does not work. Companies pump money into Facebook and the results are horrible. They are doing whatever they can to spark interest through advertisers, and apparently this includes pimpin out users as unofficial spokesmen for products.

    jrb

  • What headlines are missing about new Google CEO

    According to Google’s blog, it was announced earlier this afternoon that Eric Schmidt is stepping down from his role as CEO of Google. This is true, but Schmidt is not leaving Google. He is still going to be heavily involved with the company and is simply assuming a different role.

    Larry Page who is the co founder of Google will become CEO on April 4 while Schmidt will become Executive Chairman. Page was the original CEO of Google until 2001 when Schmidt took the helm. Page has remained heavily involved with the company and serves as Google’s products president.

    Google’s other founder (Sergey Brin) is currently the company’s president of technology. His role seems like it will be much the same, and he will focus much of his time to working on new products, according to Schmidt’s post this afternoon on the Official Google Blog.

    So what will Schmidt do in his new role as Executive Director? In his own words:

    “As Executive Chairman, I will focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach; and internally as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.”

    To the average person, this will have a largely unnoticeable impact. I get the sense that a big part of the reason was to make shareholders happy. It’s not that they were unhappy with Schmidt, but the change will more clearly define who is responsible for what and the hope of Google is that this will lead to increased accountability.

    jrb