There's been lots of hype today on the Facebook blogs about the new design, which has gone live at http://new.facebook.com. Something no-one seems to have mentioned yet is the addition of a 'sponsored' section to the new homepage side bar:
At the moment this just contains a simple link to a Facebook page or application. This could just be another, more prominent, advertising link for companies wishing to promote pages or applications. However, given the more interactive and fluid nature of the new sidebar, which contains interactive parts of many of Facebook's own apps, it struck me that applications built on the platform may soon be able to add in homepage sections - just as they can on MySpace. This would make the Facebook homepage a kind of iGoogle, but far more social - and with apps which can be a direct part of whole canvas pages/websites within Facebook.
This sponsored section could then be used by companies to effectively pay Facebook to give branded functionality to all, or a targeted selection of, users.
Hopefully all will be revealed on Wednesday at F8! If you're in London, come along to our garage where we'll also have a live Q&A through a link-up to the main F8 conference.
0 comments:
Post a Comment