The Telegraph is reporting that social networking giant Facebook has new plans for generating revenue; offering its 150 million user database as a market research tool to corporations.
Starting this spring, companies will be able to selectively target Facebook's members in order to research the appeal of new products through a polling system called Engagement Ads as demonstrated at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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The Evolution of Engagement Ads
Engagement Ads are not new to Facebook. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook had begun "quietly testing" the product in August and was hoping to roll it out by the end of November.
Engagement Ads, said the WSJ, would appear on the home page of Facebook when you first log on and prompt you to interact with an ad. If you did interact with the ad, Facebook would then attempt to share your action with your friends thus "getting the ad in front of more eyeballs."
At the time, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said that ads systems are "built over time through continual tweaking." She a