Facebook announced the other day that they're going to let advertisers target their users based on personal information, and they're working on a system that will predict what a user wants before they want it.

This is a pretty sweet deal if you're an advertiser, and as TechCrunch says, "Orwellian" if you're a user. Hm, but wait a second. It's the internet. Orwellian? You can turn off Facebook's thought policing machine by leaving your computer and going outside, but common sense is no match for alarmist douchebaggery.

I'm the CEO, Brought To You By Carl's Jr.

Hey, at least they're trying. Valleywag reported a while ago that Facebook's clickthrough rate sucks, which should come as no surprise, considering their audience is broke ass college students. In fact, let's carry that thought through one more step. If I were an ads engineer at Facebook, how would I preempt a user's desires?

• Male College Students: some combination of Old English malt liquor and porn to compensate for all the pussy they're not getting because they spend all their time "poking" girls on Facebook ; being too chickenshit to talk to them in person
• Female College Students: wide-angle digital cameras to take pictures of themselves for MySpace that hide the fact that they are heffers and overpriced handbags, to pretend like they're rich despite being $11,000 in credit card debt

I think that covers about 90% of Facebook users. All the others, you can just show them ads for Threadless t-shirts and they will be satisfied.

Delusions of Grandeur, Also Brought To You By Carl's Jr.

They're competing against Google for advertising dollars, and Markey Z really thinks that he can make it. Facebook has orders of magnitude fewer users than the big G, and even if they make a kickass advertising system, it won't draw more users. Google makes so much cash from advertising by bending the free market economy over the hood of a Camaro and ramming it in. The free market economy will never admit it, but it likes to be dominated like this. Facebook, with their $10 CPM, is going to have a hard time attracting small advertisers. If they go with the Google style model, they're gonna have to face the hard fact that they don't have enough users. Moar socialnets, indeed.