Barb Wired

I was giving a seminar at WPI as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week when one of the attendees asked about the value of advertising on Facebook. Since this was the third time in one week this question was posed to me, I had some thoughts lined up. However, since my experience is limited (personally and anecdotal), I thought I’d ask a wider audience: are the ads you receive on Facebook just a new form of SPAM?

Some points that have come out of the conversations are listed below. Submit yours as a “PRO” or “CON”.

PROS

1. You can target your ads by profile fairly easily. That includes geography, age, gender, education level and other profile info provided to FB when you registered.
2. Ads are fairly inexpensive: great for startups and small businesses.
3. You only pay for what is served up.
4. FB asks for usefulness of ads it serves to individuals
5. There are a heck of a lot of people on FB
6. It’s fairly easy to create a following.
7. There are tools to help find conversations on FB, Twitter, etc. These can provide insight to your industry/ profession for free.

CONS

1. Since ads are fairly inexpensive, the barrier is low as is the screening. Are the companies real and above board?
2. Most folks don’t click on the ads.
3. The definition of ‘Friend’ is very broad so are you really reaching people that care/ are of the demographic you intended?
4. How meaningful is a link sent by a Friend you hardly know? Does it add to a company’s brand/ credibility?
5. Clicking often downloads an application… virus fears.

Barb Finer

barbwiredblog.blogger.com

blog.quivivity.com

www.quivivity.com

I don’t have enough time in the day to pursue (and peruse) all of the wonderful content available to me on the Web. There are so many interesting and important topics available.

Am I the only one? I doubt it. Some one needs to develop a search engine-like tool that lets me enter topics of interest and then gathers the best of the best within each… I think.  Better than Google Alerts.

For me, I try to set aside a few hours a day to read about topics related to my professional world. For example:

• – keeping up on trends in marketing (my field of expertise)
• – learning about best practices
• – engaging with others in discussions

Then, I need to be aware of general business trends and topics:

• – new companies making an impact, especially in the tech arena
• – business and players in my region
• – the economy

And this doesn’t even include fun things like music, video, movies and games.  Or keeping up on what friends and colleagues are up to on FB, Twitter or LI.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the (lack of) business model for viable online content with content being posted ‘for free’. While there is an appeal to thousands of contributors to various topics, how do people choose their sources? How do I know who to trust?

Is it time for consolidation of information sources?

How about ranking systems with ratings that (like those that assure us an ecommerce site is ‘trusted’)?

Will we need to pay for a personalized filter?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped its print version. The Boston Globe is considering doing the same. And yet, these publications are not making enough money, typically from advertisers, from their online versions to survive in the form they exist today.

I am a news glutten — especially industry and business news, as well as some local. There are so many aspects of every topic, company, technology, .. that I rely on many sources. Do you?

How would you get trusted information should your primary news sources dry up? Will the myriad blogs, by non-credentialled sources, replace media as we know it today? Or is there another way of paying for professional reporting, editting and (e-)publishing?

What about the Cable TV model??