Internet advertising

That chart, from Derek Thompson's blog, shows opportunity for building mobile advertising. But blasting advertising at users on their mobile devices - or their Facebook pages - may not be the best approach. According to this post at the Harvard Business Review's blog, it's a myth to think that consumers want relationships with brands, and another myth to assume that more interactions are better. I certainly don't want to keep hearing from merchants - I have a separate email account that sits and collects emails from various merchants; I dump them out occasionally but almost never read them. As HBR puts it,

[the] relationship flattens much more quickly than most marketers think; soon, helpful interactions become an overwhelming torrent. Without realizing it, many marketers are only adding to the information bombardment consumers feel as they shop a category, reducing stickiness rather than enhancing it.

Perhaps that's why this article in the NY Times, about someone who, as a joke, liked a product on Facebook only to find that his joke had been turned into an ad, resonated so much. The article is on the front page of the print edition.

You can actually limit some of the use Facebook makes of your information. If you don't "like" products or commercial pages, you will never be used in an ad. Second, you can edit your third party ad settings and your social ad settings so that "no one," rather than, "only my friends," can see your name or picture in ads if, as Facebook delicately puts it, "we allow this in the future." To do so, go to Account Settings >Facebook Ads >Ads shown by third parties > Edit third party ad settings, choose "no one" and save changes. Do the same thing with "Ads and Friends."

Oh, and read the full Derek Thompson post. It has a link to a very interesting slideshow discussing Internet trends.