Is Facebook working on a new targeting system?

There is no word from Facebook, but a recent article in the Wall Street Journal says the social networking space could be revolutionizing the online ad market - by creating a platform that predicts how receptive users are to online ads.

by Kristina Knight

According to the report, rather than placing traditional banner ads on the pages, Facebook will target ads specifically to users and then place the ads in the news and content feeds on their profile pages.

Here is how the system would work for advertisers. They choose who should see their ads based on age, gender and location - all typical choices for online targeting - but the new system would also allow them to target based on users favorite activities or music. The ads would then be targeted within Facebook to appear to users who have similar likes/dislikes listed in their profile pages.

Personal information of specific users would not be given to marketers.

Once marketers have chosen the targeting criteria, ads would be displayed with items on users news or content feeds.

Those familiar with the plan have compared it to Google's AdWords platform, which displays ads news to search results. Adwords brought in more than $10 billion in 2006, that is the majority of revenue brought in by the search giant.