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Developers are leaving Facebook platform because people are sick of third party apps on Facebook. When I visited my dad, I spent an hour getting rid of all t

Developers are leaving Facebook platform because people are sick of third party apps on Facebook. When I visited my dad, I spent an hour getting rid of all the spammy apps that were clogging his newsfeed. There is little value provided by those apps to most people I know. And as for Facebook itself , I have spent thousands of dollars buying stuff online -- books, bags , h/w , s/w,etc., and yet when I login to Facebook, I am greeted with ads for match.com ads or other dating sites. Note to Facebook: there is no point showing dating ads to people who are searching for deals on Graco , Lego and miscellaneous school supplies.

Pxtl 14y ago
Yeah, that. It's utterly shocking how poorly-targeted Facebook's ads are. Also how poor-quality. This is one of the wealthiest webapps in the world, has a nightmarish amount of personal information about us... and yet the ads seem to be bad scams or generic hook-up stuff.
- mccolin 14y ago
  That the ads are poorly targeted largely depends on the entity buying the ad. When building an ad on Facebook, the customer sets their targets. Facebook will gladly sell an advertiser eyeballs, but it's up to the advertiser to choose the "right" eyeballs.
  - sergiosgc 14y ago
    That is a shallow dissection of the problem. It may be that advertisers are poorly targeting their ads, true. That, in turn, may be deliberate or a result of poor targeting tools. In any case, it is resulting in a problem for users (and maybe also for advertisers). If you argue that poor targeting is deliberate, then FB is prioritizing advertisers at the expense of users. If it is the result of poor targeting tools, then it is just bad for all parties (including, ultimately, Facebook itself). Anyhow, the problem is there and is clearly visible.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - jlarocco 14y ago
    If that's the case, then what's the benefit of advertising on Facebook? Isn't their main selling point that they can use their data about people to target ads? If they're just doing what the advertisers say, then what's the point? I guess it gets ads in front of people, but it seems they could charge more and have better results if they leveraged their data a bit.
    - TylerE 14y ago
      The point is it's on the ad publisher to target intelligently. If they run their ad to "Males 18-35" that's their problem.
      - zabuni 14y ago
        The issue is that they have to have more data than rough demographics. They could take the likes a person has, break them down in rough categories and do something like males 18-35 who like heavy metal and extreme sports. Then they'd get ads accordingly. Google gets this. If I start to search for things, they will follow me around. I would think that access to the majority of a person's communication with other people would give even more targeted ads.
        omarchowdhury 14y ago
        From what I understand, it's not possible to target with the AND operator for multiple interests/likes, only the default BOOLEAN OR. SO, you can't target males 18-35 who like heavy metal and extreme sports. You can only target males 18-35 who like heavy metal OR extreme sports. Subtle, but very results changing difference. I hope I'm wrong on this point. Does anyone know how to do it?
      - jlarocco 14y ago
        And my point is that it makes no sense for the ad publisher to target intelligently because Facebook has all the user data that can be used for targeting. In other words, I think Facebook should be selling advertisers a higher level service than broad demographics. Theoretically, I should be able to go to Facebook and say, "Here's my product, help me target my advertisements." Then Facebook looks through its data to see who "Likes" similar products or has searched for similar things or whatever, then figures out a target group based on that, and lets me advertise to them. To be honest, though, I block the ads on Facebook anyway, so I'm not too concerned about it
  - ryguytilidie 14y ago
    But having poorly targeted ads very certainly delutes the brand value of Facebook ads. I feel like Facebook should be involved in making sure their ads are well targeted, because frankly, the more spammy ads I get (I got an ad for a bail bonds company last week?) the less I want to use FB and the less I admire their brand.
  - notahacker 14y ago
    If poorly-targeted, low quality ads predominate, it's an indication of insufficient demand from advertisers whose precise targeting, high-value product and/or big brand budget would enable them to pay more per impression or click than ad-funded dating sites and games.
dionidium 14y ago
It took you an hour to click "Remove App" n times?
- Xylakant 14y ago
  Depends largely on "n" I guess. And maybe the process involves understanding what the apps do, so he doesn't remove apps that his dad wants.
  - lotharbot 14y ago
    It also depends on the quality of his dad's internet connection, and how far he had to scroll to get all the apps he wanted to. Various FaceBook pages, such as the news feed, are amazing resource hogs.
tomjen3 14y ago
Most ads are bad, even google doesn't get it most of the time. But the single worst thing about facebooks ads is that you can't dislike them. I don't get why as marketeers would love that kind of feedback, as would facebook. But I suspect the real reason is that any really good offer wouldn't need to be send out as and ad but would be shared organically.

Pxtl 14y ago

Yeah, that. It's utterly shocking how poorly-targeted Facebook's ads are. Also how poor-quality. This is one of the wealthiest webapps in the world, has a nightmarish amount of personal information about us... and yet the ads seem to be bad scams or generic hook-up stuff.

mccolin 14y ago
That the ads are poorly targeted largely depends on the entity buying the ad. When building an ad on Facebook, the customer sets their targets. Facebook will gladly sell an advertiser eyeballs, but it's up to the advertiser to choose the "right" eyeballs.
- sergiosgc 14y ago
  That is a shallow dissection of the problem. It may be that advertisers are poorly targeting their ads, true. That, in turn, may be deliberate or a result of poor targeting tools. In any case, it is resulting in a problem for users (and maybe also for advertisers). If you argue that poor targeting is deliberate, then FB is prioritizing advertisers at the expense of users. If it is the result of poor targeting tools, then it is just bad for all parties (including, ultimately, Facebook itself). Anyhow, the problem is there and is clearly visible.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- jlarocco 14y ago
  If that's the case, then what's the benefit of advertising on Facebook? Isn't their main selling point that they can use their data about people to target ads? If they're just doing what the advertisers say, then what's the point? I guess it gets ads in front of people, but it seems they could charge more and have better results if they leveraged their data a bit.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    The point is it's on the ad publisher to target intelligently. If they run their ad to "Males 18-35" that's their problem.
    - zabuni 14y ago
      The issue is that they have to have more data than rough demographics. They could take the likes a person has, break them down in rough categories and do something like males 18-35 who like heavy metal and extreme sports. Then they'd get ads accordingly. Google gets this. If I start to search for things, they will follow me around. I would think that access to the majority of a person's communication with other people would give even more targeted ads.
      - omarchowdhury 14y ago
        From what I understand, it's not possible to target with the AND operator for multiple interests/likes, only the default BOOLEAN OR. SO, you can't target males 18-35 who like heavy metal and extreme sports. You can only target males 18-35 who like heavy metal OR extreme sports. Subtle, but very results changing difference. I hope I'm wrong on this point. Does anyone know how to do it?
    - jlarocco 14y ago
      And my point is that it makes no sense for the ad publisher to target intelligently because Facebook has all the user data that can be used for targeting. In other words, I think Facebook should be selling advertisers a higher level service than broad demographics. Theoretically, I should be able to go to Facebook and say, "Here's my product, help me target my advertisements." Then Facebook looks through its data to see who "Likes" similar products or has searched for similar things or whatever, then figures out a target group based on that, and lets me advertise to them. To be honest, though, I block the ads on Facebook anyway, so I'm not too concerned about it
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  But having poorly targeted ads very certainly delutes the brand value of Facebook ads. I feel like Facebook should be involved in making sure their ads are well targeted, because frankly, the more spammy ads I get (I got an ad for a bail bonds company last week?) the less I want to use FB and the less I admire their brand.
- notahacker 14y ago
  If poorly-targeted, low quality ads predominate, it's an indication of insufficient demand from advertisers whose precise targeting, high-value product and/or big brand budget would enable them to pay more per impression or click than ad-funded dating sites and games.

dionidium 14y ago

It took you an hour to click "Remove App" n times?

Xylakant 14y ago
Depends largely on "n" I guess. And maybe the process involves understanding what the apps do, so he doesn't remove apps that his dad wants.
- lotharbot 14y ago
  It also depends on the quality of his dad's internet connection, and how far he had to scroll to get all the apps he wanted to. Various FaceBook pages, such as the news feed, are amazing resource hogs.

tomjen3 14y ago

Most ads are bad, even google doesn't get it most of the time. But the single worst thing about facebooks ads is that you can't dislike them. I don't get why as marketeers would love that kind of feedback, as would facebook. But I suspect the real reason is that any really good offer wouldn't need to be send out as and ad but would be shared organically.