Friendster FAds Quirks

Frienster again wrote me informing that “some statistical information” of my first free ad was lost. To make up for it, I get a hefty P1,000 coupon (or E-pin), allowing me to make a new ad that will show up 30,000 times over a 7-day period. How’s that?

Clearly Friendster’s advertising platform is still in the testing stage. It looks promising — perhaps even better than their other type of advertising that I found too distracting and invasive. Text advertising is the way to go these days. It’s easier to look at, faster to load and not as cumbersome as traditional banner ads. Friendster Ads takes on a similar form as Google Adsense’s Adlinks, wherein a user is taken to a page of relevant ads instead of directing them to an advertiser’s website. I particularly dislike Adlinks because I found them ineffective. But the main difference is that Friendster Ads presents a whole page ad that’s composed by the advertiser, which is a lot better. I do wish that they can make their ads contextual based on the user’s hobbies and interests rather than displaying random ads that’ll just go to waste. They should also let advertisers choose which demographic their ads would cater to.

Friendster Ads looks like a promising revenue stream in the offing. With a 5 million-strong Filipino user base, I think many will find this a convenient and very cheap way of promotion.

Yet again, I’ll report on how my second ad does.