Facebook Attacks SocialHour and SocialReach
SocialHour and SocialReach are two ad networks where Facebook and MySpace application owners can just add an iframe and get paid on a CPM while SocialHour and SocialReach bank off of running CPA offers from affiliate networks.
Facebook is now attacking these networks and forcing them to swap out their offers and run less-competitive ads. Attached is an email that SocialHour sent to all of their publishers:
Monday, June 8th, 2009
Facebook Publishers:
Due to circumstances beyond our control we are being forced to temporarily pause our advertisements on the Facebook platform.
Please remove our ad tags from all of your Facebook applications by 9pm PST tonight.
We apologize for the short notice however this is beyond our control and we hope to continue Facebook operations again in the near future.
Note: We will still be accepting traffic from all other sites.
–
Phillip H
Director of Sales & Business Development
SocialReach, LP
I am on the side of SocialHour, SocialReach the other ad networks and any application that is running offers on their own. So what that people are stupid enough to click on an ad that says “Someone has a crush on you” and think if they give a website their cellphone number that they will find out who their true love is.
Second — Facebook, seriously? Is this really about the ads or is this because you know SocialHour does a better job monetizing traffic than you do? I remember going into Facebook and meeting with their team to talk about monetization — everyone there is clueless. I laid out the framework on what to do and they still can’t get it right.
Third — the Self-Service Ads go back and forth every week on whether they should allow ringtones and weightloss ads to show — I am not going to hold my breath on the application network standing ground given Facebook’s history.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I just noticed that I said the email was from SocialHour — it was from SocialReach — whoops!
June 13th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I applaud Facebook for keeping their pages clean of trash ads and misleading offers. If they allowed everything, they would turn into MySpace with it’s visual trash and their desire to allow everything under the sun on the site.
But, then most facebook apps are thinly veiled attempts at attention hoarding to try and monetize eyeballs and facebook is just social leverage in that attempt. It’s become so noisy, there’s very little signal left. Eventually people will have much more lightweight social networks where people will have more fine-grained control over what they present to others. Google will probably run the whole thing for free or with minimal, well focused text ads and the social network won’t be in one place but, will probably be more like a widget that you put on each page.
Applications will exist as well and the best ones won’t use ugly, manipulative advertising because as they grow better and more important to people, your friends will start to talk about which app you use.
Open Source apps and platforms will eventually pop up and the low hanging fruit of the social apps world will be swallowed up. Simple calendars, birthday reminders, “Virtual Gifting” apps will either disappear or become part of some sub-network and commoditized.