Tired of all those “promoted” posts popping up on your Facebook news feed and sidebars? Want to get rid of “Sponsored” posts? Pretty soon, you might have the ability to do that, if an article published this morning at Mashable is to be believed. As users of Facebook’s “Pages” service already know, Zuckerberg and Co. love money. That’s why you can’t see all the posts from your favorite Pages anymore! The love of money typically breeds love for MORE money, though, and it seems that soon you’ll be able to spend money to remove ads from your News Feed and Profile and replace those with more desirable bits of information.
In a 2011 patent filed by Mark Zuckerberg himself, called the “Paid Profile Personalization” patent, wording indicates that Facebook could offer the option to user to get rid of ads on their Profile by paying a fee. It’s not known if the fee is upfront or monthly, but either way, the service is moving toward having you spend money. Just read the some of the language used in the patent application and see what you think:
“The user may select one or more social networking objects to replace advertisements or other elements that are normally displayed to visitors of the user’s profile page that are otherwise controlled by the social networking system.”
Payment would allow users to rid their profiles of ads on the right side and replace them with moments from their timeline, photo galleries, videos, or more. The patent goes on to claim that the feature would “improve the overall user experience while maximizing revenue to the social network system.” Let’s just get right down to it. Facebook knows we hate the ads. It knows that we hate the promoted and sponsored posts. That’s whats so particularly odious about this idea: it knows you hate them, and it knows that it can make people pay to get rid of something they hate. And, if they charge you to get rid of ads on your Profile, it won’t be long until they charge you to get rid of other stuff, too. Whether we see this come to pass or not, only time will tell. Until then, go check us out over at our page on Facebook, like us, and keeping checking back here for more news!
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