• The New York Times , Friday, November 9, 2007 11 AM

In another New York Times piece on the advertising developments at Facebook, Laura Holson raises a good point about the potential for backlash when "friends" broadcast their favorite brands and purchases: it could very easily lead to people deleting friends, which by extension means fewer page views for Facebook.

There's a big difference between hardcore Facebook users--those who spend three to four hours per day on the site--and regular users, or those who check their accounts once a day or four to five times per week. We're not gonna talk about the tens of thousands who hardly check the site--because they'll continue to hardly check the site.

Nearly everyone who regularly uses Facebook has a hardcore user or two in their friends' list, along with a ton of acquaintances. This could be a deadly combination for Mark Zuckerberg and co.--Holson's story suggests as much--because the hardcores are most likely to recommend products and services via the news feed. If the hardcores are acquaintances, it could lead to Facebook users dropping them as friends. This isn't to say that word-of-mouth isn't effective--rather, it's to say that among casual acquaintances--and there are many on Facebook--recommendations that smatter of advertising amount to little more than, well, ads--and if they're annoying enough, it could cause Facebook users to cut back on their number of friends.

Read the whole story at The New York Times »