Facebook Cashing in on Friends? Not True

An article that ran in the UK's Telegraph had this to say over the weekend:

Facebook is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150m members by creating one of the world's largest market research databases.

In an attempt to finally [monetize] the social networking site, once valued at $15bn (£10.4bn), it will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products. Companies will be able to pose questions to specially selected members based on such intimate details as whether they are single or married and even whether they are gay or straight.

The company, which has struggled to make money from advertising, has been demonstrating the benefits of its new instant polling tool to some of the most influential business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

There's just one problem. The article is not entirely accurate, according to TechCrunch.

The article was based on an interview with Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Global Markets Director and Mark Zuckerberg’s sister.

AllFacebook’s Nick O’Neill, who also wrote a piece based on the Telegraph article, has since gotten in touch with the company’s communications department and cites Facebook representatives claiming that the piece is factually incorrect in its entirety and based on misinterpreted statements from Randi Zuckerberg.

Facebook has, in fact, been testing real-time polls in Davos this year and have also been experimenting with the Engagement Ads system that is designed to leverage Facebook’s vast amount of data on users to improve targeted advertising.  It does seem, however, that these claims that they will be morphing the social networking website into one of the “world’s largest market research databases” have been greatly exaggerated.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Facebook begins testing ad-driven polls (venturebeat.com)

It's nice to see you again! Thanks for reading Blippitt. What do you think of this story? Be sure to leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook Polls, TechCrunch

Related Stories on Blippitt:

• Celebrity Deathmatch: Facebook vs. MySpace in ‘09
• Dupont Circle Snowball Fight Goes Viral in Blizzard (PHOTOS)