Just when you thought your Facebook news feed was the one online outlet where you weren’t inundated by ads, Facebook is looking to change that.
The social network has confirmed that beginning next month, “Sponsored Stories” will start appearing in users’ feeds, which are supposed to only provide relevant information about what their friends are up to.
Of course, these messages will be distinguished as “sponsored,” and they will be at least somewhat relevant – ads for a company will appear on your feed only if one of your friends performed some social action related to that company, such as liking them or posting a message on the company’s fan page wall.
“The goal is to do this thoughtfully and slowly. Facebook hopes to show people no more than one Sponsored Story in their News Feeds per day and the story will be clearly labeled,” said a Facebook spokesperson in a message quoted by PCmag.com.
Sponsored messages will be able to include pictures, which will obviously make them stand out a bit more and garner more attention.
“Sponsored Stories” were first introduced early this year but were relegated to a side bar that many users don’t even interact with. By bringing them to the news feed, no doubt many more advertisers will now come on board.
