Facebook To Twitter: Back Off, We Own People's Interests

Be careful what you “like”.

Whoever knows what your interests are right now and can package them up for advertisers has the chance to make a lot of money. Of course, Google does this right now every time you declare your interests in a search box and it offers up matching ads on the side of results. But Facebook and Twitter are trying to capitalize on the shift from search to sharing. Your interests are expressed by what you follow and react to (“like,” “retweet,” etc.), not only what you explicitly seek out through search.

With the Facebook Community Pages, when you “like” an interest you start getting updates from that page inserted into your stream, making it a more dynamic relationship. The same thing could happen once Facebook’s like buttons appear on other Websites. It is very easy to click a “like” button, but if that automatically subscribes you to a particular feed, it could also become a social marketing opportunity.

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