I agree with posters who note the lack of clarity in FB’s denial. They really only say this is not an advert effort, which it clearly does not need to be.

Market research is not about identifying individuals, nor is it about using/tagging every individual in a user base. It is about predicting from a sample what a population will do.

FB can super easily develop immensely rich user panels from users who will *volunteer* to participate based on any one of many currently used incentive schemes.

FB can then use aggregated user information from these results to both help companies buying its research (primary purpose), and to gain insights about response patterns of small, targetable aggregates of users across the entire FB population. Cross-analysis of sampled research data with FB’s current interests/groups data is likely to be hugely synergistic. TNS has real problems.

There is no significant threat to FB users in all this. WIth proper setup, many will view their participation as a benefit of being a FB user. FB will not operate at the user-specific level because companies cannot target products and messages so narrowly.

Longer-term, the predictive information FB gains will provide mechanisms to enhance many other key services such as search, product recommendations, and optimized ad placements at other sites (e.g. YouTube).

Google has a chink in its armor as of today. It can not currently generate this type of predictive information — which is distinctly different from links analyses.

I give FB a lot of credit for this. If they develop it right, they can get into a market with good monetization opportunities, and long-term significant strategic opportunities.

Written and posted very quickly so forgive me any typos and awkwardness.

anon

1) Advertising from Facebook impressions alone (Social Ads, Engagement Ads, Display, etc..), will hardly unlock but a fraction of the true economic value of all that targeting data.

2) Behavioral and audience networks have proven the viability of targeting users beyond the confines of a single domain and reach them when a specific ad message is more valuable to them.

3) Credit card companies and data aggregators such as Lexis-Nexis already own far more private and sensitive data about individual purchasing behavior, health and personal finances than Facebook and have built huge businesses of trading that data and selling it to corporations and the government.

Would I mind if my credit card processor knew to offer me deals on backpacking gear (Facebook “knows” I am into that) instead of Alaskan cruises I will never be interested in? Not a bit.