Google is now showing text that says “Ads related to” (and then whatever the search query was) when it displays AdWords ads at the top of search results pages. For example, here, you see “Ads related to shoes”: This was pointed out by Thomas Ballantyne at Dreams Systems Media on Friday, and confirmed by Search Engine Land as having rolled out (as opposed to being a test) today. Pamela Parker shares a quote from a Google spokesperson, saying, “As part of our ongoing efforts to show ads that are relevant and informative, we are including more information about why users are seeing certain search ads.” Additionally, Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reports that Google has removed arrows to scroll through AdSense ads, which were introduced in 2008. Last week, Google introduced some refinements to AdSense reporting, including the ability to view all-time reports, access reports from the My Ads tab and download CSVs in the correct local formatting.

To say that Yahoo has had its share of problems in the past few years is an understatement. The once highly regarded Internet giant has experienced all types of turmoil including numerous management changes, extensive layoffs, and the closing of multiple properties, all of which have resulted in ongoing speculations about whether or not Yahoo is, in fact, dead. The most recent news of the now former CEO Scott Thompson and his resume scandal has only added to the disorder surrounding Yahoo. Now, once again, the company’s future is being completely called into question. According Kevin Ryan, the CEO of Motivity Marketing, there are several instances that could be credited toward Yahoo’s demise, but he believes its Panama search ad platform played a large role in beginning the company’s downfall. Panama was Yahoo’s attempt to monetize search, as Google did, but instead, Ryan says it was an “abject failure” for Yahoo. “A lot of us that started… early on in the industry have a lot invested in it and, it pains us to see these companies that were doing so well just start to slowly die,” he said. Ryan compares Yahoo’s current situation to what happened with Ask. The former search engine pulled out of the search industry in 2010 and has now transformed itself into a questions and answers service with an emphasis on mobile. In 2009, Yahoo also made a transition in the search industry by reaching a 10-year search alliance with its long time rival Microsoft. The partnership gave Microsoft power over Yahoo Search. In addition, Yahoo became the exclusive search advertising provider for Bing. The companies began maintaining their own display advertising business and sales force independently, but Microsoft’s adCenter became the operator of self-service advertising for both companies. When the agreement was reached, Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan spoke with us about the impact of the deal on each company. “[A] big win for Microsoft, a lot of questions for Yahoo,” he summarized. “Yahoo effectively threw in the towel with search,” said Ryan of the alliance. Since that time, Yahoo too has said it is in the process of reinventing itself as a media company, but the company’s short-term leaders have had difficulty in making this transition. Ryan, however, doesn’t believe this particular attempt is the best option for Yahoo. As he explained, Yahoo’s endeavor to become a media company is another way of turning it into a content farm. Google has, of course, cracked down on content farms in recent years with its ongoing Panda updates. “Stop trying to reverse engineer HuffPo,” said Ryan, “and create something new.” Ryan tells us that Yahoo should reinvest in its core business, in which search plays a very big role. With a renewed focus in this area, he believes Yahoo could better serve consumers and also advertisers, which could help it get back on the right track. He went on to say that, based on rumors floating around in the industry, the search alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft might not make the projected 10-year tenure. Despite numerous reports on the struggling search alliance, David Pann, the General Manager of Search Networks at Microsoft, spoke with us last year and pointed out that the companies had already experienced success, even in its early stages. “It’s easy to say, ‘Okay, well, you didn’t do this, you didn’t that – it’s a failure,’” Pann explained. “I don’t think of that. I think that, given where we are, and given the complexity of the relationship… we’re actually making very good progress.” However, if the rumors are true and Yahoo does pull out of its agreement with Microsoft, the company will have to begin thinking about search again. The only other option would be to sell its search business completely. Provided the former happens, Ryan told us that it could present opportunities for Yahoo in terms of social development. Both Google and Bing have yet to completely succeed in social, which leaves an open door for Yahoo. He believes that a renewed focus on search combined with the opportunities in social could help to begin to turn Yahoo around. In addition, Ryan would like to see Yahoo make drastic changes internally in order to streamline its processes and improve its culture. “I hope that the change that Yahoo makes will be very internal,” he said. “I hope that the culture internally will become much more positive, but we’ll see.” At this point, Ross Levinsohn is Yahoo’s interim CEO. Although some people believe he will become the permanent CEO, Yahoo has not indicated any official word for who its next leader will be. It’s inevitable that changes will happen at Yahoo in the coming months, but what they will be and whether or not they will be effective in saving the company are both still in question. On the positive side, Yahoo was able to finally reach an agreement with Alibaba Group. The $7 billion deal will require Yahoo to sell back half its stake in the Chinese company, but it brings resolution to one of its many problems.

The kicks just keep coming when it comes to Facebook’s advertising value. Today’s entrant: the company’s international ad revenue is the pits. Business Insider took a look at how Facebook’s advertising model is working beyond the borders of the United States and found some rather pathetic results. Facebook users produced nearly $10 per person in ad revenue last year in the U.S., but those numbers clip off precipitously when you start to look at different regions. In Europe, the revenue is just under $5 while Asia is a meager $1.79 and in the rest of the world users are churning up a lowly $1.42 per person. The way each of those different regions trend, it’s a good thing there’s not more parts of the world or else those bar graphs would be inverted and Facebook would end up actually paying users to look at ads. Actually, I wouldn’t mind that at all, but I’m sure all those investors would mind considerably. So what’s a Zuckerberg to do? Really get to work on a strategy that actually makes some money off of Facebook’s mobile platform? Focus more on making advertising tools more effective? They should probably start at something soon, as today’s activity on the stock market doesn’t really inspire much excitement from Facebook.

This week could have been a better one for Facebook. An ominous constellation of events aligned that conjured up a palpable cloud of doubt over Facebook’s ability to lure and sustain advertisers. First, WordStream released the results of a study that shows Google leads Facebook in a number of advertising-related areas like ad targeting options and ad formats. Then, the week was capped off with an announcement from General Motors that it would be pulling all $10 million from its paid advertising campaign on Facebook because, in short, GM says they don’t work. Do you ever click on Facebook ads or do you pretty much ignore them as clutter? If you’ve purchased any Facebook ads, do you think they’re fairly useless or have you enjoyed some success with them? Share your experiences below. Not the best sentiments to have attached to your company if you’re Facebook considering the company is likely to make its initial public offering this coming Friday. Facebook wants people to spend and invest money with the site, not withdraw it. So were the last few days a dreary period of runic divination for Facebook or just unfortunate happenstance? The short-term ramifications will largely be nonexistent but such developments do cast a thin pall on what should be Facebook’s most glorious achievement yet: having the most lucrative IPO in the history of tech businesses. Going Places GM’s announcement to stop paying for ads is likely a lot of sound and fury signifying very little. What’s of greater import is which party, GM or Facebook, let the other down. As far as GM goes, there’s been some talk that it was handling its social media campaign poorly or simply had misguided expectations from advertising on Facebook. One of GM’s chief competitors didn’t shy away from highlighting this possibility. .ditto202523756571279360 {background: #052857 url(http://a0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/398413405/Ford_Twitter_Background.png) no-repeat;padding: 20px;}.ditto202523756571279360 a {color: #325685;}p.dittoTweet {background: #fff;padding: 10px 12px 10px 50px;margin: 0;min-height: 48px;color: #000;font-size: 22px !important;font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;line-height: 30px;-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;}span.metadata {display: block;width: 100%;clear: both;margin-top: 8px;padding-top: 12px;height: 65px;}span.metadata span.author {line-height: 20px;color: #333;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.tweet {font-size: 24px;}span.metadata span.author img {float: left;margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px;}a:hover {text-decoration: underline;}span.timestamp {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px;display: block;color: #999;margin: 10px 0 0 0;line-height: 25px;}span.timestamp a {color: #999;text-decoration: none;}span.timestamp a > span {display: inline-block;width: 16px;background-image: url(http://images.ientrymail.com/socialditto/everything-spritev2.png);background-repeat: no-repeat;}span.timestamp a.reply > span {background-position: 0px 3px;}span.timestamp a.reply:hover > span {background-position: -16px 3px;}span.timestamp a.favorite > span {background-position: -32px 2px;}span.timestamp a.favorite:hover > span {background-position: -48px 2px;}span.timestamp a.retweet > span {background-position: -80px 3px;}span.timestamp a.retweet:hover > span {background-position: -96px 3px;}p.indent {margin-left: 20px;}.at-name a, .at-name a:visited, .at-name a:hover {color: #999;text-decoration: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: normal;}.dittodownarrow {width: 0;height: 0;border-left: 20px solid transparent;border-right: 20px solid transparent;border-top: 20px solid #EEE;margin: 0 0 0 73px;} !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Follow @Ford Ford Motor Company @Ford It’s all about the execution. Our Facebook ads are effective when strategically combined with engaging content & innovation. 21 hours ago via SocialEngage · powered by @socialditto  Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite Zuh-zing. GM insists that its decision to stop with the paid Facebook ads was purely coincidental that it happened so soon before Facebook’s IPO and the Wall Street Journal, who broke the story yesterday, reports that GM had always intended to reassess how it’s spending money on the site. Regardless, whether you call it fate or call it intentional, it’s hard to dismiss this peculiar sequence of events. “A lot of people are probably suspicious of the timing of that announcement,” said Andrew Frank, a marketing analyst with Gartner, who spoke to WebProNews about GM’s decision. Although the timing may be curious, Frank doesn’t think GM’s withdrawal of advertising funds is a hostile decision nor should it be seen as a total freeze on Facebook’s potential to appeal to large companies. “Facebook very frequently updates its formats and releases new products, so it will have another chance to pitch to GM,” he said. GM’s cessation of paid ads on the site isn’t such a dark omen for Facebook’s future relationship with other high-profile advertisers, either, he adds. “It won’t have too much of an effect. $10 million is pretty small to the overall scheme of Facebook revenue.” He added, “It’s clearly a negative, but I think that advertisers will probably look beyond that one data point.” Still, others think there might be cause for some apprehension on the advertisers’ side of the street. Larry Kim, the CTO of WordStream, the company that produced the report yesterday that showed Facebook lagging behind Google, told WebProNews that he isn’t surprised GM dropped its paid ads on Facebook. “It’s not a great way of selling cars,” Kim said, “but if it truly isn’t a great way to sell cars, is there a risk that other brands need to figure out as well? Absolutely.” The potential certainly exists for Facebook to become a great place to sell cars, however, that would take a lot of big directional changes on the company’s part. Just don’t hold your breath on that happening anytime soon. Backseat Drivers Mark Zuckerberg (now) famously wrote to shareholders in Facebook’s official S-1 filing, “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.” A recent profile in New York portrays a Zuckerberg who was disdainful of advertising on Facebook in the early days, not wanting it to become the “ad-choked cesspool” that MySpace eventually melted into. It would appear that Zuckerberg’s disposition toward advertising has survived to this day and, riding into the company’s IPO lucre, he is content to relegate advertisers to the backseat. He claims that he’s sticking to the mission to make the internet more social, not more fertile for advertisers. Whether you’re a frustrated advertiser or just a studied speculator on the side, that may not exactly come as news to you. “Based on the very slow pace of ad innovation in the last six years, it’s clearly not Facebook’s top priority,” Kim said. “They’ve made significant advances with social networks, such as with Timeline, but not nearly anything of that scale on the advertising side. It’s ten year’s behind.” Facebook’s lack of prioritizing is what informs Kim’s lack of surprise that GM won’t pay for more ads on Facebook. “There’s no shortage of places that companies like GM can spend on advertising,” he said. “Why spend money on a website that’s not even doing their best to make the most out of advertising?” Aye, but if you’re looking to advertise, there’s the rub. Facebook has an unprecedented reach of users with so much information collected on each and every one of them. The built-in reach of ads on the site is one of the most alluring reasons companies choose to advertising on Facebook in the first place, even in spite of a glaring paucity of research that shows whether advertising on Facebook even works. With Facebook on track to register its 1 billionth user as soon as later this year, advertisers can’t ignore Facebook anymore than iron shavings can resist a magnet. The problem isn’t whether to advertise or not on Facebook – it’s a foregone conclusion at this point – but what to expect to get out of advertising on Facebook. One of the big problems that companies are having with Facebook advertising is measuring the efficacy of the ads, which may have been GM’s problem. “People are still trying to figure out the return on investment on Facebook,” Kim said. “The most effective thing you can do is drive fanpage “likes,” but the economics of a fanpage “likes” are really unknown. It isn’t clear if those are even worth anything.” Until such values get established, for now companies are banking on the extraordinary access that Facebook has to people as the best return on its ads. “A lot of advertising decisions are based on reach and frequencies and Facebook has pretty good metrics,” Frank said, “especially with engagement metrics, which are just off the chart.” He expects that the optimization and effectiveness of the ads will come in due time. Asleep at the Wheel? Facebook’s revenue ballooned on the strength of advertising sales to $3.7 billion in 2011, which makes the absence of GM’s $10 million a proverbial drop in the bucket for Facebook. Nevertheless, some spectators began prognosticating Facebook’s demise following GM’s announcement. And while it’s true that GM’s reduction of how much it spends on ads – it still plans to spend $30 million on maintaining a presence on the site – does mean that two of the top three advertisers in the United States have decided to spend less on Facebook this year, it’s hardly any indication that we should expect Facebook to start wheezing along after its IPO. After all, it’s got nearly a billion users’ worth of data it’s largely not using. “Facebook has yet to really tap into the value of the data they have for advertising,” Frank said. “From a targeting standpoint, most of the ads that Facebook sells are probably not really optimized for the platform.” While Facebook might monetize their audience at a lower rate than, say, Google, he doesn’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. “It’s just a question of whether they prioritize that side of the business.” Realistically, Facebook probably doesn’t need to take advertising too seriously for now because it would require a grand overhaul of the site’s advertising platform. The company seems to have a developed a ridiculously successful formula, so why mess with it? In the end, Facebook obviously doesn’t need to cater to advertisers in order to succeed – just watch the company’s stock blow up on Friday (or whenever the IPO happens). It probably wouldn’t even need to change up much, really, to enhance the way it makes money off of advertising. “Facebook has all these fan Pages for people that they’re just giving away for free,” Kim said. “Instead of charging for ads that are boring and nobody clicks on, start charging for Facebook Pages.” By making the brand Page as engaging as possible with pulls and such to engage an audience, Kim thinks that method of generating revenue through ads would be much more lucrative. And that’s the easy route of changing things, according to Kim. If Facebook really wanted to go for Vegas-level winnings with ads, it could easily retool its targeting options. “I don’t think Facebook is doing a great job in terms of ad targeting options,” he said. “It knows what demographic you belong to but it doesn’t know anything more specific, like if you’re looking to buy a flight to San Francisco.” By tapping into more specific data of its users, Facebook could easily maximize the value of its ads. “There’s no technical reason why Facebook can’t optimize its targeting options,” Kim added. Whether it’s stuffing a cookie in your browser that retargets ads on Facebook based on what you’ve been looking at elsewhere on the internet or making it easier for Facebookers to connect directly to a business via mobile ads, Facebook has an inventory of options when it comes to really maximizing the site’s advertising potential. The means exist. It’s just a matter of whether Facebook wants to go that route. Or, more dreadfully, if it ever needs to take that route. Regardless of where Facebook goes after this GM blemish, one thing’s for certain: nobody thinks that Facebook’s star isn’t done rising just yet. Frank doesn’t see the GM announcement really slowing Facebook’s ascent, either. “The Facebook story is so full of promise and impact and hype that it’s hard to see GM’s decision having that much of an impact.” Likewise, Kim is curious to see where that Facebook story continues to. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for what Facebook’s built and I’m optimistic about what they’re going to be doing in the future,” he said. Facebook didn’t get to where it is by following the rules and just because a company like General Motors withdrew a fractional amount of money from its advertising campaign is hardly enough to slow down Facebook’s momentum or people’s confidence in the site. More, it may signify that Facebook shares the driver’s seat with no one. What would you like to see Facebook do to improve the ads? Should the company make them more relevant and personal or will you continue to just ignore them either way? Does the GM withdrawal affect how you think Facebook’s upcoming IPO will be perceived by investors? Join the debate below.

Told ya! Following a Reuters report earlier today that revealed Facebook had actually encouraged General Motors to utilize the website’s free pages, thus lessening the import of GM’s announcement from earlier this week about no longer paying for Facebook ads. Now, someone from the Wall Street Journal has revealed that GM won’t be advertising at the next Super Bowl, either. Suzanne Vranica, an advertising and marketing reporter at the Journal, tweeted the news: .ditto203552913908432896 {background: #9AE4E8 url(http://a0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/3267746/mad_men_500.jpg) no-repeat;padding: 20px;}.ditto203552913908432896 a {color: #0084B4;}p.dittoTweet {background: #fff;padding: 10px 12px 10px 50px;margin: 0;min-height: 48px;color: #000;font-size: 22px !important;font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;line-height: 30px;-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;}span.metadata {display: block;width: 100%;clear: both;margin-top: 8px;padding: 12px 0px;height: 65px;}span.metadata span.author {line-height: 20px;color: #333;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.tweet {font-size: 24px;}span.metadata span.author img {float: left;margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px;}a:hover {text-decoration: underline;}span.timestamp {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px;display: block;color: #999;margin: 10px 0 0 0;line-height: 25px;}span.timestamp a {color: #999;text-decoration: none;}span.timestamp a > span {display: inline-block;width: 16px;background-image: url(http://images.ientrymail.com/socialditto/everything-spritev2.png);background-repeat: no-repeat;}span.timestamp a.twitreply > span {background-position: 0px 3px;}span.timestamp a.twitreply:hover > span {background-position: -16px 3px;}span.timestamp a.favorite > span {background-position: -32px 2px;}span.timestamp a.favorite:hover > span {background-position: -48px 2px;}span.timestamp a.retweet > span {background-position: -80px 3px;}span.timestamp a.retweet:hover > span {background-position: -96px 3px;}p.indent {margin-left: 20px;}.at-name a, .at-name a:visited, .at-name a:hover {color: #999;text-decoration: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: normal;}.dittodownarrow {width: 0;height: 0;border-left: 20px solid transparent;border-right: 20px solid transparent;border-top: 20px solid #EEE;margin: 0 0 0 73px;} !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Follow @VranicaWSJ VranicaWSJ @VranicaWSJ WSJ :GM to sits out Super Bowl w/@sharonterlep 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto  Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite According to the accompanying report, GM’s global marketing chief, Joel Ewanick, the same guy on Tuesday that said paid ads on Facebook don’t work (in so many words), has concluded that buying ads during the Super Bowl is too expensive to justify the cost. Given that GM’s the third largest advertiser during Super Bowls, today’s decision helps defuse any of the controversy that got blown up after the company decided it would no longer pay for ads on Facebook (GM’s still dedicating $30 million to using Facebook’s free services). All of this advertising reshuffling by GM is due to the company’s effort to optimize its advertising strategy and get the most out of its ad budget. And while this Facebook/GM story is starting to sound like it’s going to go out with a whimper, GM’s timing to announce its withdrawal from paid Facebook ads only a few days before Facebook’s IPO remains a little suspect.

Two years ago, we asked if Google’s AdSense could be in trouble because of Facebook. The premise of this article was essentially: What if Facebook launches its own AdSense-like ad network? Why wouldn’t it? It makes too much sense. Today, of course, Facebook finally went public, and there’s a whole lot of talk about what Facebook might do in the future. How can it bring in more revenue? It’s got a long way to go to get to Google-like revenue. Could an AdSense-like network be on the way? Are we getting closer to this being a reality? Some seem to think so. TechCrunch’s Josh Constine speculated about this, saying, “Facebook’s ad network [would] essentially turn ad real estate on any website into places to serve the campaigns that advertisers buy for display on Facebook.com. Anyone currently logged into Facebook who visits one of these sites would be shown ads targeted by their Facebook information, such as age, gender, location, work and education history, interests, app usage, and friends. Facebook and the site hosting an ad would then split the money made on clicks or impressions.” Again, it just makes too much sense. How could this possibly not happen? This seems even more likely than Facebook getting into search. It already has the ads and the massive amount of highly personalized data to make this a very attractive offering for publishers who already have various Facebook integrations on their sites. It could only help Facebook cement its place around the web at large even more (making it far less likely to become the next MySpace). Constine also points to an interesting nugget of information about Facebook’s privacy policy, which could make it easier for Facebook to launch such a network. “Facebook has denied this product is in the works whenever it’s been asked, but last week it revised its privacy policy to expand its ability to serve ads to its user[s] while they’re outside of Facebook.com,” says Constine. “There’d be little reason to do this if something wasn’t in the works. The march across the web of its other social plugins such as the Like button have also paved the way for an ad network plugin. It might need to develop or acquire a company with expertise in analyzing site content so it could serve somewhat relevant ads to site visitors who aren’t logged in to Facebook.” Sure, people will freak out about privacy like they always do, but ultimately, Facebook is already showing you things on other sites. It might as well monetize that. Would you participate in a Facebook-based AdSense-like program? Let us know in the comments.

While the world has its eyes and wallets trained on Facebook the Company for one reason or another, the people behind Facebook the Website aren’t getting a day off to eat cake. InsideFacebook reports that Facebook is testing a new format for its self-serve ads that links up users with other pages, apps, and other prime destinations for those ads. There’s been some question this week as to whether Facebook ads are advantageous to huge corporations or even if Facebook has been doing its part in making it easier for companies to advertise on the site. This update, as InsideFacebook describes it, may be more beneficial to small or mid-size businesses. Then again, if the feedback we’ve gotten from you, dear readers, about the effectiveness of Facebook ads is any indication, this new self-serve ad tool might be the equivalent of trying to shove a wine cork in the hole of the Titanic. At any rate, the update to the self-serve ad feature performs similarly to how the general search function on Facebook works. You’ll see the profile pic, basic info, and whatnot for whatever pages and apps are deemed to be valuable destinations to send your ads to. It remains to be seen if this improves the performance of ads or the good will among businesses who’ve already been burned on the Facebook advertising opportunity.

According to a report in Reuters today, General Motors’ decision to pull its paid advertising from Facebook was preceded by the social network trying to pitch the value of its free pages in the first place. On Tuesday, GM announced that it would be pulling the $10 million it spends on paid ads on Facebook because, as the automotive manufacturer said, the ads just didn’t work. It wasn’t the decision that conjured up the controversy so much as it was the reasoning behind the decision, especially given that GM announced the decision mere days before Facebook’s vaunted IPO (which is happening today). While GM says the timing wasn’t coordinated, its decision to cease paying for ads on Facebook ignited a storm of scrutiny over whether Facebook ads were even worth a damn. The report from Reuters today, though, seems to nullify any of that scrutiny – at least in the respect to this specific incidence – if in fact Facebook was trying to sell GM on the value of free brand pages. An undisclosed source told Reuters that Facebook’s effort to pitch the free brand pages “backfires on them in a funny way,” although the only backdraft that seems apparent might be artificial. Consider this formula: Facebook emphasizes the value of free brand pages, so then GM decides to stop paying for ads but says its going to maintain its Facebook page and just focus on the freely available content. How is that controversial? The true and perhaps only story in this saga then gets narrowed down to the fact that GM, although it was advised by Facebook to focus on the free pages, said that the website’s paid ads didn’t work. The pronouncement now appears to be a little more underhanded than originally perceived. A source of Reuters said of GM, “”They’re just going to try not doing it for a while and see how it goes; just make content and if it works, it works.” So now, if GM’s merely doing what Facebook advised it to do in the first place, where’s the controversy in this whole non-drama?

…It’s because they’re not on Facebook! Pretty easy math on that one, right? While much has been made this week about the legions of people on Facebook who have resisted clicking on ads, the Associated Press located the opposite pole of that news and dashed headlong into that direction to talk to some of the people who have managed to fend off the hype to join the social networking site that is steadily colonizing the world. Several of the reasons given for why these hold-outs haven’t gulped down the Facebook Kool-Aid recall a lot of the complaints that the 901 million Facebookers frequently make about their experience on the website: no desire to rekindle decade-dead relationships, kind of boring, it’s a distraction, email and cell phones work just fine for communication, and so on. Although most of the individuals profiled in the AP report might be described as the edge of Facebook’s bread and butter age demographic, it does highlight Facebook’s possible problem of appealing to a broader audience. MaLi Arwood, 47, said that she’s “absolutely in touch with everyone” she needs to be in touch with and therefore has no need for Facebook. Echoing a sentiment that nearly every Facebook member has bemoaned at least once, Arwood added, “I don’t need to share triviality with someone that I might have known for six months 12 years ago.” While it’s impressive that only 2 of every 5 Americans haven’t joined Facebook, the fact that Facebook is most attractive to the a notoriously capricious age demographic doesn’t exactly lend any credence to the company’s long-term sustainability. Just ask Zynga, who purchased the mobile app, Draw Something, about how easily people can lose interest in a product. Or maybe revisit Rupert Murdoch’s lament about the demise of the once-popular MySpace. Permanence is an illusion. That’s not to say that Facebook’s going to swerve off a cliff the way Draw Something appears to have done or be mismanaged the way MySpace was handled; far from it, really. Facebook’s got enough momentum to carry it for a while longer, but if the questions evoked this week about its inability to generate more revenue have any validity then the speculation that the company’s IPO will invite another disastrous tech bubble could have some substance. Unless, that is, Facebook figures out some way to supplant the utility of extant, reliable ways to stay in touch like phones, email, and text messaging in order to appeal to the huge chunk of the population that currently doesn’t see Facebook as necessary. More than that, Facebook will be required to achieve what no other tech company has been able to do so far: create a universal product that piques the interest of everybody across all demographic spectrums. In the absence of such innovation, there will continue to be more and more people who regard Facebook as an ephemeral commodity.

Look at what you did, General Motors. You pulled a measly amount of money (relatively speaking) from Facebook’s pocketbook and said it was because you don’t think Facebook’s ads do what they’re supposed to do. Now it’s a great big, steamy pile-on for everybody’s favorite website. Actually, that’s not exactly true. The reports coming out this week pointing out why ads on Facebook aren’t really that great have been in the works for a while, but it is monumentally bad timing for Facebook since that IPO of theirs is presumably set to crack off tomorrow. However, GM’s announcement, while having hardly any effect on Facebook’s overall value, (inadvertently?) caused a laser fury of scrutiny over the quality of performance of Facebook ads. Although tons of people can’t get enough Facebook action, many of them aren’t paying attention to any of those pesky ads hanging off to the side. In the same Greenlight report that revealed a Facebook search engine could be a formidable challenge to Google’s search dominance, a different metric shows that most people really pay no mind to ads on Facebook. When asked, “Do you click on advertisements or sponsored listings in Facebook?” an obstinate 44% said they never click on them. More, another 31% said they rarely click on Facebook ads. A middling 3% said they click them regularly and 10% said they often click the ads (13% haven’t gotten the memo to sign-up for Facebook). Curiously enough, Greenlight points out in the report that it’s enjoyed some success with Facebook ads. “We saw our Facebook investment (client media spend) overtake both Yahoo and Bing collectively at the start of 2011, hinting the channel had constant growth and was delivering a strong enough return to invest more,” the authors wrote. So… these ads are engaging at least some people out there in Facebooklands, right? Aside from the obvious finding that as many as 13% click the ads regularly, Greenlight isn’t the only company to admit that advertising on Facebook works for them. General Motors’ automotive rival, Ford, quickly tweeted a rebuke on Tuesday to the claim that Facebook advertising doesn’t work. Ford wasn’t the only one to offer a rebuttal to GM. Jan Rezab, the CEO of SocialBakers, penned an open letter to GM in Forbes that finely details what others have hinted at: GM didn’t understand how to do Facebook ads effectively, so they prematurely took its ball and went home. Despite Ford’s vote of confidence and Rezab’s compelling argument, Google’s Director of Product Management Jason Bigler couldn’t resist taking a poke or two at Facebook while the social networking site was still wearing some pie on its face: .ditto202471759029608449 {background: #FFFFFF url(http://a0.twimg.com/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) no-repeat;padding: 20px;}.ditto202471759029608449 a {color: #0084B4;}p.dittoTweet {background: #fff;padding: 10px 12px 10px 50px;margin: 0;min-height: 48px;color: #000;font-size: 22px !important;font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;line-height: 30px;-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;}span.metadata {display: block;width: 100%;clear: both;margin-top: 8px;padding: 12px 0px;height: 65px;}span.metadata span.author {line-height: 20px;color: #333;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.tweet {font-size: 24px;}span.metadata span.author img {float: left;margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px;}a:hover {text-decoration: underline;}span.timestamp {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px;display: block;color: #999;margin: 10px 0 0 0;line-height: 25px;}span.timestamp a {color: #999;text-decoration: none;}span.timestamp a > span {display: inline-block;width: 16px;background-image: url(http://images.ientrymail.com/socialditto/everything-spritev2.png);background-repeat: no-repeat;}span.timestamp a.twitreply > span {background-position: 0px 3px;}span.timestamp a.twitreply:hover > span {background-position: -16px 3px;}span.timestamp a.favorite > span {background-position: -32px 2px;}span.timestamp a.favorite:hover > span {background-position: -48px 2px;}span.timestamp a.retweet > span {background-position: -80px 3px;}span.timestamp a.retweet:hover > span {background-position: -96px 3px;}p.indent {margin-left: 20px;}.at-name a, .at-name a:visited, .at-name a:hover {color: #999;text-decoration: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: normal;}.dittodownarrow {width: 0;height: 0;border-left: 20px solid transparent;border-right: 20px solid transparent;border-top: 20px solid #EEE;margin: 0 0 0 73px;} !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Follow @jasonbigler Jason Bigler @jasonbigler Imagine, for a minute, what would happen if Facebook branded their data play like this: http://t.co/Nvq7z6AF 1 day ago via web · powered by @socialditto  Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite .ditto202508736030449664 {background: #FFFFFF url(http://a0.twimg.com/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) no-repeat;padding: 20px;}.ditto202508736030449664 a {color: #0084B4;}p.dittoTweet {background: #fff;padding: 10px 12px 10px 50px;margin: 0;min-height: 48px;color: #000;font-size: 22px !important;font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;line-height: 30px;-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;}span.metadata {display: block;width: 100%;clear: both;margin-top: 8px;padding: 12px 0px;height: 65px;}span.metadata span.author {line-height: 20px;color: #333;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.tweet {font-size: 24px;}span.metadata span.author img {float: left;margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px;}a:hover {text-decoration: underline;}span.timestamp {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px;display: block;color: #999;margin: 10px 0 0 0;line-height: 25px;}span.timestamp a {color: #999;text-decoration: none;}span.timestamp a > span {display: inline-block;width: 16px;background-image: url(http://images.ientrymail.com/socialditto/everything-spritev2.png);background-repeat: no-repeat;}span.timestamp a.twitreply > span {background-position: 0px 3px;}span.timestamp a.twitreply:hover > span {background-position: -16px 3px;}span.timestamp a.favorite > span {background-position: -32px 2px;}span.timestamp a.favorite:hover > span {background-position: -48px 2px;}span.timestamp a.retweet > span {background-position: -80px 3px;}span.timestamp a.retweet:hover > span {background-position: -96px 3px;}p.indent {margin-left: 20px;}.at-name a, .at-name a:visited, .at-name a:hover {color: #999;text-decoration: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: normal;}.dittodownarrow {width: 0;height: 0;border-left: 20px solid transparent;border-right: 20px solid transparent;border-top: 20px solid #EEE;margin: 0 0 0 73px;} !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Follow @jasonbigler Jason Bigler @jasonbigler Seriously folks, did you really expect consumers to be in transactional mindsets on Facebook? 1 day ago via web · powered by @socialditto  Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite The mystery of why Facebook ads work for some companies and perform atrociously for others may have something to do with the type of ad format these businesses are using. True, while the ad formats on Facebook are truly awful, according to a new study from WordStream, Greenlight found that the Sponsored Story format was the most popular and effective ad format. According to the authors, “the Sponsored Story format delivers, on average, a 32% decrease in cost per acquisitions (sales) and an increase in CTR (engagement).” Perhaps it’s just a case of companies putting all their faith in the wrong type of ad format? Or, going back to Rezab’s point, maybe companies just haven’t quite picked up on the winning formula to create engagement via Facebook? The disparity of success among businesses doesn’t appear to favor one over the other based on the size of the business, either. Yesterday, NPR reported on a marketing experiment it conducted recently where it followed the return on investment for a budding pizza restaurant in New Orleans. Ultimately, the restaurant owners earned $10 back on a $240 investment in Facebook ads and, perhaps worse, everybody they polled who visited the restaurant after the ads were deployed said they weren’t dining at the restaurant because they were persuaded by ads on Facebook. Oh, and the $10 was just a donation – it wasn’t even from somebody eating at the joint. So some ads work better than others, and ads on Facebook work better for some businesses than others. In other words, nobody exactly knows how Facebook ads work. Despite this confusion, people are still falling over themselves trying to get their hands on some Facebook shares despite the fact that there’s no clear sign how Facebook can or will pump up revenue through ad sales. In the meantime, Facebook’s sitting at the bottom of the advertising melee biting its tongue because the company’s in a quiet period until the IPO when it comes to talking about financial goings-on. Next week should prove to be a revealing week in the annals of Facebookdom when Zuckerberg and Co. can finally respond to this media mess.