Behold the rate of change in the media. This afternoon’s breaking news from PRSA: blogs are now mainstream media (MSM). Meanwhile, Business Week this week posts a scenario projecting a possibility that Facebook.com’s open-source move could end up siphoning its ad revenues turning the site into a ghost town.
Blogs
Blogs now reach tens of millions in this country and both readers and creators are growing, says e-marketer.comannouncing its $695 report. “Currently, 96.6 million US Internet users read a blog at least once per month, representing 48.5% of the Internet population. By 2013, 128.2 million people, or 58% of all US users, will take part.” And bloggers, those posting at least monthly, will increase from 27.9 million to 37.6 million in the next five years, adds e-marketer.com.
BW’s The Tech Beat commentary suggests that in opening parts of its code to developers, the popular social marketing site could see revenues decline when the thousands of new apps allow users to tap into Facebook without going to its homepage where its ads now live.
Not so dark. “it appears that the company is planning to replace the revenues it will lose from banner ads with a new type of revenue: in-stream ads, which would appear alongside status updates and other ‘news stories’, even on third-party apps,” says BW writer Douglas MacMillan .
Banner ads on Facebook’s home page are really old fashioned “interruption marketing” whereas in-stream text ads are part of the search experience.
Both the mainlining of blogs and the possible in-stream ads in Facebook are much more than change. They’re enormous opportunity for marketers.
Photo: John Holm (foto 3116 Flickr.com)
Tags: blogs, Facebook, Social Media
The words “Facebook becomes a Ghostown” conjured up this instant image in my mind of profile after profile existing somewhere in cyberspace, with no way for users to get to them. It was oddly disconcerting, because right now Facebook does feel like a noisy, busy place. Your post makes me wonder if it’s really about marketers “placing ads” at all, or if what they have to do is really figure out how to talk to people. It will be fascinating to find out. Thanks for the cool facts and some theatre of the mind.