If you try to buy an ad on Facebook, there are certain words that are taboo. Any ads that contain four-letter words are automatically blocked. So too are ads with the names of competing social networks “MySpace,” “Friendster,” “Hi5,” , or “Orkut.” (Curiously, “Bebo” and “OpenSocial” go through just fine, as does “Microsoft,” “Yahoo,” “Google,” and “AOL”).
Okay, so Facebook doesn’t want to run ads for some of its competitors. But why is 3Jam blocked? The startup offers an SMS service that lets people send multiple text messages at once, and it even has a Facebook app that does the same thing.
CEO Andy Jagoe was befuddled when he tried to create a Facebook ad to test a new product, only to find out that the term “3Jam” was also blocked. (The product actually sounds pretty cool: it will be a way to send and receive text messages for free while you are online, and then route them to your phone when you are offline). Says Jagoe:
It seems crazy to think that they consider us competitive. This is kind of weird. It is like censorship.
It does seem weird. What other startup names or products are blocked by Facebook?
Did you try to create an ad for FakeFacebook.com or NextFacebook.com or maybe BetterFacebook.com… how about FaceBookThatDoesntSuck.com…
Just some ideas
Hooray for Boobies!
Oh damn. That ad was blocked.
Who cares about ads on facebook, its a complete waste of money, useless impressions that no one clicks on, or clicks that don’t lead to anything. Save your money and advertise on google direclty.
Maybe facebook are preparing to launch something like 3jam
@Mik I agree – who the hell at FB thinks ads are a good idea. If I want to be social I am not in the mood to open my wallet of online advertised crap. I guess the desperation to find a business model drove them to think that’s a good idea. I can hear them for here up north ‘ahhhh the mass effect will do the trick, and by the time someone figures out that it doesn’t work Microsoft will have enough shares to save the day…’
@Mik. We generate almost twice the traffic for half the money using facebook ads compared to Google adwords. Also the amount of page views that these visitors generate are much higher than any other ad network so far. It might have something to do with the region (Hong Kong and China) we are targeting. I don’t have any experience using facebook ads for the US or other countries.
when you said that fb blocks all four letter words, did you meab really ALL four-letter words, or just certain ones that begin with f and end in uck?
because im pretty sure 3Jam is a four-letter word, if you count the number as a letter?
@PETE… FB gives me much better targeting and ROI for advertising than Google.. when i know my demographics.. I helped some friends doing a dating-event in NYC to do online marketing and i basically set up ads on both GOOG and FB.. I got pretty much equal traffic from both but then we asked folks to put down where they heard abt it.. and FB was the clear winner.. and the cool thing was the people got their friends and AD got forwarded manytimes..
So thats my story….
I have to agree with zeppelin222, 3Jam is a four character word. But good way of making it appear like some evil plan to hurt 3Jam…
I was going to say the same thing as zeppelin222 but they already wrote it.
Not really different that what Google has been doing for years.
Remember the Cruise ship fiasco a while back with Google? No? Google paid it to go away. Basically the big lines told Google to stop ads from the smaller ones to appear. And Google did.
Do no evil, unless it stops you from making money.
Maybe 3Jam is possibly kind of spammy.
yea, isn’t 3jam “four letters”…
Also, Erick, although this post wasn’t deserving of being online anyway, you need to get snagit. You always have the ghettoest looking screen caps.
No surprise, Facebook is trying to establish standards, and those other networks aren’t part of the Facebok standard. So they must be excluded from the Facebook experience for the benefit of users.
Perhaps next they will ban advertisers who try and place too many ads on their site. Excessive ad impressions need to be policed as well.
I can clearly see Bill gates like behavior from Mark
Facebook has a clear lack of confidence.
Mark is just a kid… ignore his mistakes!
Here’s a lil’ clarification on four-letter-words:
http://en.wikip...our-letter_word
Yes,
http://en.wikip...our-letter_word
Wikipedia has got a very definition. Must read if you are not sure what is a four letter word.
I don’t think that Facebook’s ads serve up quality website visitors. My experience has not been good with them. Further their time on site seems to not be good from reading other forums.
So I’m thinking MyFriendShirt ( http://www.myfriendshirt.com ) wouldn’t be welcome either … it works with all the social networks and I say so … oh well … never a fan of paying – much more a fan of being paid.
Cool, now I know what platform I’m not going to use for my advertising purposes.
How about a conspiracy theory… 3Jam founder has a friend at Facebook, allows the site’s name to be blocked, 3Jam fakes outrage, hype is generated (including a mention of a new product on tech crunch)
I just tested and 3Jam is blocked, but 2Jam, 4Jam, 5Jam etc are not blocked, so they are definately blocking 3Jam.
Isn’t this a repeat post?
@josh nice one!
Darn! Facebook Sucks!
You know, they didn’t allow me an account. Your email address is in the blocked list. Please contact us if this is a mistake.
Who Cares! I Have Google, Orkut Rules!
Fling, Scholarship, and Flirt are also blocked. Anyone else know of any other ones?
morena smile you?
I understand why Facebook is doing this. With the million and one new social sites on the market they likely are worried about losing users. However this is another example of control where it is not needed.
Companies like Facebook and even Google with its reaction to Microsoft’s attempted purchase of Yahoo shouldn’t be afraid of competition, they should welcome it and use it to make themselves better.
Facebook is good enough where it should be able to say, “advertise all you want, put money in our pockets Myspace, Hi5, Friendster…etc because no matter what you do, we will do it better.”
Facebook should trust and believe in what it is doing and not be afraid of what other people are doing. Facebooks new profile is an example of minimalist perfection. The bottom line is you can’t stop people from seeing these other websites. Evenchually they will go and try them out. Facebook should trust the users will comeback because Myspace and Bebo are both cluttered and painful to use. Why not make money on the click through to those sites. The real money online is how you connect users to the top sites on the web.
I am just curious does Google block its competition from using adsense?
Facebook is turning into the NAZI’s of social networking
seems like there a quite a few good experiences with buying ads on FB. I am surprised but willing to learn.
Erick,
Facebook deleted multiple of our groups, the accounts of some of our campus reps, and have also been ironically calling our office trying to sell ad space. Very aggressive, fruitless effort.
Jason
College Tonight
Maybe it has something to do with copyright / security?
Probably names like MYSPACE, GOOGLE, FRIENDSTER, HI5, etc. are only allowed from a certified account?!
I can imagine many people try to use GOOGLE (example) as the title and link to different sites?
Let’s say.. Title: TechCrunch and it links to ArringtonsCam.com
Anyone knows how to reach the CEO of Facebook directly? or their CMO? Sent e-mails from their website but no luck.
Just curious but doesn’t it make Facebook look better to have Myspace advertise on it. Wouldn’t it appear to the user that Facebook is the big dog seeing Myspace advertise on the site? If I see a Myspace ad on Facebook I think how far the mighty have fallen that they need to advertise on Facebook begging for users.
Truth is CEO’s have got to get rid of this idea of control. Openness and data portability are where the internet is headed. Those who embrace this and just focus on making a better interface to keep users happy will succeed and those who don’t will fail. You got to trust in yourself, in your product and believe if you offer something useful that is user friendly in a visually pleasing layout, a % of people will chose you over the competition.
I couldn’t pin down exactly what the issue was but it’s become quite a pain to get an approved ad running on FB now. They seem to have seriously tightened up the criteria around allowed wording, relevance and so on. Mostly that’s good – better quality, less spam – but I wish they’d make the rules more transparent!
Traffic from campaigns is ok, but click-through rates are definitely lower on FB than for the Google ads we run. Costs are roughly similar (depending on keywords/demographics).
I wonder Facebook might also block applications that allow users to use MySapce in Facebook like this one – http://www.face...mp;b&ref=pd
3jam does have a friend list but it really isn’t a social network so much as a communication tool — and a very useful communication tool it is. I used it last night to coordinate dinner with 4 people via SMS.
They’ve been adding new features to the core “group sms with reply-to-all” product. I find that it’s a good alternative to Twitter when I just want to chat with a set group of people instead of the whole world. Or when twitter is down.
FB must be really afraid.
Check this as well: http://www.read...er_messages.php
This move goes against the very principle of social networking – easy communication. It even goes against Mark Zuckerberg’s own words at South by Southwest Interactive, placing Facebook as a modern communication platform that could connect people in new and exciting ways.
The real worry is that Facebook will continue to practice censorship; blocking words, leads to blocking sentences, phrases, ideas, and eventually race, religion, culture and sexual orientation.
Facebook’s behavior is clearly anti-competitive and not an attempt to protect its users from spam messaging.
I’m not surprised… They are fearful of the competitive landscape that surrounds social networks… and they are data-thieves, they blocked my account and are refusing to delete it from their system…
What if any benefits of joining Facebook or any social networking sites? I find joining a social networking sites useless.
3Jam starts with a number… possibly that’s an issue?
facebook will be dead by friday
#42 i agree
Falafulu Fisi,
Are you kidding me?
Hi all, I followed the instructions to create the ads for MySpace in Facebook and all seems to wokr fine, without “censorship”, I wrote about that in my blog and I think this kind of block ads works only from ip that comes from countries with english lenguage, but is noly my opinion.
I explain that here
http://www.tech...o-dagli-usa.htm
Nerd fight
I’m wondering if Facebook is blocking 3Jam’s free online texting capabilities because it may cut into their revenues from Facebook Mobile Text?
Bell in Canada is charging 15 cents per Facebook text message:
http://www.bell...booktab.details
I wonder how much of the 15 cents per goes back to Facebook.
15 cents per text to Facebook? Man do we bend over and take it from these telephone companies. What does it actually cost per text? Maybe a penny.