Expect More Ads on Facebook

Facebook's big press event Thursday will likely mean changes to its news feed, including larger photos, music feeds and, of course, more ads.

A new photos feed will be introduced (mainly to make the $1 billion Instagram buy make sense), as well as a new music feed and image-based ads, according to TechCrunch. The news comes from an anonymous Facebook employee.

The idea is that Facebook users want more streams of news, photos, music and more in hopes that its users will spend more time online. But will they? Or will they find the new feeds just more Facebook noise -- or worse, find the whole change not worth the effort of logging on? We previously wrote about the Facebook backlash over the weekend, and how costs outweighing benefits could send users scurrying away and actually talking to friends and family again.

We don't quite see the importance of larger images in posts because already they take up the majority of a news stream and we're over the Grumpy Cat meme. Content-specific feeds only work for content-specific people. If most are general users, it's unlikely they will be bowled over by music or photos. 
 
The new image ads, also larger, will start appearing. While Techcrunch calls them "vivid and noticeable" as well as "glossy," they are still big ads clogging one's news feed. How can this be something anyone would like? I guess we will hear official word on Thursday, but we're willing to bet on more ads.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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