Facebook goes from hangout to business

Facebook has long prided itself on guarding its users' privacy, but the walls have gradually lowered. A feature allowing users to track changes their friends make to profiles backfired when many users denounced it as stalking and threatened protests. Facebook quickly apologized and agreed to let users turn off the feature.

Facebook promises no information that could identify individual will be disclosed to advertisers. And Chris Kelly, the company's chief privacy officer, said users can complain again if they find the new targeting program intrusive.

Privacy concerns aside, many Facebook members may be reluctant to endorse an advertiser for fear of alienating friends who had bad experiences with the same company, said Chris Winfield, who runs 10e20, an online marketing specialist.

"They are relying a lot on their users to make this happen, and that's going to be tricky," Winfield said.

Zuckerberg said marketers must respond to the changing nature of communication.

"Pushing your message out to people is no longer good enough," Zuckerberg told about 200 advertising-industry executives, many already in New York for the ad:tech conference. "You have to get your message out to the conversations."

Search companies like Google Inc. have generated a lot of revenue from text-based ads targeted to a user's search terms. Those have been good at fulfilling demand — users often are already looking for a car or a travel package when searching and seeing those ads.

Zuckerberg said Facebook planned to go after the bigger opportunities in generating demand — something Google and other sites are also trying to do through display and other brand promotions. Seeing a friend buy a product or praise a band, he said, are good ways to generate demand.

Coca-Cola Co., General Motors Corp.'s Saturn and Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures are among leading brands contributing to the more than 100,000 company pages launching on Facebook.

The key difference between companies' pages and individuals' is that businesses won't have access to individuals' profiles the same way their friends do, even when users formally declare themselves "fans" of a company.

Facebook's announcement came a day after MySpace said it would expand its targeting program to include more categories and more advertisers. MySpace lets companies create profile pages but doesn't have Facebook's system of alerts and adjacent social ads.

Zuckerberg told reporters he wasn't worried users would consider Facebook too commercial. He said regular ads would stand out more because targeted ads can be better integrated with conversations users are already having with one another.

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