Facebook's Promoted Posts — Trick Or Treat?

Facebook's Promoted Posts feature lets users pay ($7 in the US, and about Rs 100 in India) to make their updates appear prominently in their friend's News Feeds. On 3rd October,Facebook announced that the feature had commenced testing among users in the US. You can get a bit more information about this offering through this link.

It's a smart monetising move, a convenient way to advertise, and perhaps, a degradation of the FB experience. But it's also the natural way forward, making the service a little less of a virtual social network — and a little more of a real-life space.

From the utility point of view, promoted posts are bang on target. People can now get through to an audience composed of friends on a priority basis. It's close to the ultimate in advertising: the cost is low, the medium popular, the audience knows you, and there's a high chance  they'll read what you have to say. On the cynical side though, the announcement is pretty nasty — it mixes business and friendship in a most unhealthy way. Not every update on Facebook is serious or important; paying to prioritise is like deciding for your friend \ reader \ audience that your post is worth more.

How will the "average" user's experience change? The circle of interest, in most cases, will move outward — from oneself to close friends to "FB friends" and so forth. From that point of view, I don’t see things differing much. If the trial works well for the company, the world's most popular site will be a happy combination of a social network and advertising space.