• Ad Age, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 11:16 AM

Facebook has sent out invitations to the media promising to unveil "a new way of advertising online." The date is Nov. 6, and the entire business community waits with baited breath to see what, exactly, the company plans to offer advertisers--because right now, simple banners with limited targeting isn't cutting it. Not when its 45 million-plus members voluntarily cough up detailed information about where they live, who they date, who they know and what they like and dislike.

It's no secret that Facebook wants to take advantage of that data, too, but how they plan to do so without upsetting users is a delicate question. The company has struggled with unveiling and later ditching new services that were rebuffed by its users. The new program could leverage the so-called "social graph" which plots exactly how its users are connected.

The new system could be called "SocialAds," a term the company trademarked on Sept. 24. The system is vaguely described in its filing documents as "advertising and information distribution services, namely, providing advertising space via the global computer network [and] promoting the goods and services of others over the Internet."

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