4 ms·

This feature has rolled everyone, by default, into a dating service ("Single females in San Francisco who like Radiohead") and a marketing database ("People und

This feature has rolled everyone, by default, into a dating service ("Single females in San Francisco who like Radiohead") and a marketing database ("People under 25 who like Coca-Cola"). This assumes that the advertisers didn't have access to searches like this already. That seems very unlikely.

notahacker 14y ago
Marketers have certainly been able to do "people who added our app who are x and like x" queries for a while. The only difference is that ordinary people can do it with their friends and no obscure query syntax.
- user24 14y ago
  That's not the only difference. There's a big difference between "Hey facebook, show my ad to singles who like dogs" and "Hey facebook, show my the profiles of people who are singles and like dogs".
thirsteh 14y ago
That's how Facebook Ads worked/works.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Wilya 14y ago
Did they have access to this, or did they have access to "show my ad to everyone who matches this query" ? I don't see why Facebook would allow advertisers to build databases of people when they can just force them to go through their own tool and keep people anonymous, like Google does. Also, this is free, as opposed to advertising tools, which broadens the audience quite a lot.
- 0x0 14y ago
  I don't think they have access to that, and you are right, there's a big difference between getting search results with actual people links, and getting your ad anonymously delivered to people matching a given criteria. By the way, you can click through the "create an ad" process quite far on facebook before you have to actually pay for it, so for those curious, why not give it a go and see for yourself what the process looks like? :)
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Right, I just don't get why Facebook had a huge rollout for a feature that provides very little, if any value to users, and tons of value to advertisers. It really says a lot about where they are as a company IMO.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Maybe because they don't really have any exciting, innovative products on the horizon for consumers, and that's the best they could do right now.
  - ryguytilidie 14y ago
    Which would, as I said, say a lot about where they are as a company. Originally features were developed for the users. Now that they have enough users, features are developed for the advertisers. I wonder if people will start moving away from FB soon.

notahacker 14y ago

Marketers have certainly been able to do "people who added our app who are x and like x" queries for a while. The only difference is that ordinary people can do it with their friends and no obscure query syntax.

user24 14y ago
That's not the only difference. There's a big difference between "Hey facebook, show my ad to singles who like dogs" and "Hey facebook, show my the profiles of people who are singles and like dogs".

thirsteh 14y ago

That's how Facebook Ads worked/works.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Wilya 14y ago

Did they have access to this, or did they have access to "show my ad to everyone who matches this query" ? I don't see why Facebook would allow advertisers to build databases of people when they can just force them to go through their own tool and keep people anonymous, like Google does. Also, this is free, as opposed to advertising tools, which broadens the audience quite a lot.

0x0 14y ago
I don't think they have access to that, and you are right, there's a big difference between getting search results with actual people links, and getting your ad anonymously delivered to people matching a given criteria. By the way, you can click through the "create an ad" process quite far on facebook before you have to actually pay for it, so for those curious, why not give it a go and see for yourself what the process looks like? :)

ryguytilidie 14y ago

Right, I just don't get why Facebook had a huge rollout for a feature that provides very little, if any value to users, and tons of value to advertisers. It really says a lot about where they are as a company IMO.

mtgx 14y ago
Maybe because they don't really have any exciting, innovative products on the horizon for consumers, and that's the best they could do right now.
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  Which would, as I said, say a lot about where they are as a company. Originally features were developed for the users. Now that they have enough users, features are developed for the advertisers. I wonder if people will start moving away from FB soon.