TechCrunch is running a story claiming that Google’s FriendConnect is being referred to as FriendSense internally. In other words, FriendConnect isn’t just a way to feed better ads to Google users, it’s another way to target ads to people on third party sites. No doubt, this is exactly what Facebook is thinking with Facebook Connect as well.
What’s really interesting about these moves is that they add an entirely new technology to help everyone monetize online content. Today, Adsense chooses ads largely based on the text content of a page. This works in some situations, but fails in many others. Adding demographic / social network targeting creates another set of correlation points to weight against.
Of course there are other data sets that can increase the effectiveness of ad serving as well. As Google, Facebook and others create new legs for ad networks over the next couple of years, targeting will continue to improve. As this happens, the value of online content and online applications will increase as well. In the same way that Google and Adsense reinvigorated the entire Internet sector after the dot.com crash, these new ad technologies may help reinvigorate the sector after the 2008 crash. Think of it as a stimulus package for the web.
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