Epic post by Dennis Yu on the shady side of Facebook advertising. The one thing that is “wrong” about his post is this:
I finally came to this realization: People on Facebook won’t pay for anything.
That’s not endemic to the Facebook network. That’s pretty much the entire internet. The three tricks work outside of Facebook too:
They don’t have credit cards, they don’t want credit cards, and they are not interested in shopping. But you can trick them into doing one of three things:
* Download a toolbar: It could be spyware (such as Zango) or something more legitimate, such as Webfetti or Zwinkys.
* Give up their email address: You’ve won a “free” camera or perhaps you’ve been selected as a tester for a new Macbook Pro (which you get to keep at the end of the test). Just tell us where you want us to ship it.
* Give up their phone number: You took the IQ Quiz, so give us your phone number and we’ll tell you your score. Never mind that you’ll get billed $20 a month or perhaps be tricked into inviting 10 other friends to beat your score.
via How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession.
I wonder how many shady players are pissed off now that Dennis basically shined the mainstream blog media flashlight into this corner of the industry. Publishers will be more careful and newbs will make things more competitive, making it harder to turn a profit on this platform.
In the longrun is he better off putting his name on that post, or would it have been better published anonymously? Potential legit business partners might be afraid of that, and the more he invests in getting his name out there the more detractors will link at that post…which is now part of his brand.
I think he played his cards right. I think he’s given himself an opportunity to clean up his brand. Right now, he has the public’s attention and if he can use it to push out more content that the masses will link to, that stuff might crowd out the first post that put him on the map.