Facebook going to reduce permotional advertising from user's timeline

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Facebook on
Friday said it is making moves to
reduce the number of promotional
posts that pop up in timelines, in
response to users demands for
fewer advertisements.
Beginning in January, people should
start seeing fewer posts in news
feeds urging them to do things such
as buy products, download
applications or enter sweepstakes,
according to the leading social
media titan.
"People told us they wanted to see
more stories from friends and pages
they care about, and less
promotional content," the California-
based social network company said
in a blog post.
The change was prompted by a
survey that revealed Facebook users
think there are too many
advertisement-like posts in news
feeds.
The social media giant said it
discovered that a lot of pitches that
came across as advertising were
actually posts from pages people
had "liked," according to the blog
post.
"This may seem counter-intuitive,
but it actually makes sense,"
Facebook said.
"News feed has controls for the
number of ads a person sees and for
the quality of those ads... but those
same controls haven t been as
closely monitored for promotional
page posts."
New controls are being put in place
to filter overly ad-like posts,
according to the social network.
But the adjustment will not change
the number of ads served up to
users, according to Facebook.