Weblo lets you sell ad space on your Facebook profile

Let me preface this post by pointing out that Weblo violates the Facebook Terms of Service. If you decide to try it on for size, I will point and laugh at you if Facebook disables your profile.

In Bits today Louise Story writes about Weblo’s growing presence on Facebook profiles:

More than 1,500 Facebook users have started placing advertisements on their own profile pages — despite the social networking site’s rule against such ads.

Visitors to Weblo’s site will see that they can “earn money from your popularity online.” Weblo estimates people’s advertising value based on variables like how many friends they have in their social networks, and, thus, how many people will likely see ads on their pages.

Facebook does not allow users to sell ads on their profile pages. Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, told me on Nov. 6 that is because Facebook does not want people’s profile pages to become cluttered.

Don’t want sites to become cluttered, eh? A likely story…

Although one of the things I *do* like about Facebook, especially over MySpace, is the way they’ve kept the interface clean and their conventions consistent, I have to admit that Weblo has a point.

My Facebook profile is something that I have created. Why shouldn’t I be given the option to monetize it?

Personally, I woulnd’t. I don’t have ads on my personal blog. If I could take the existing ads out of my Facebook profile I would do that too. I don’t like the look of it, and I don’t think my friends want to see ads on my profile (because let’s face it, that’s whose seeing the ads you put up — it’s the digital equivalent of having a sponsored birthday party with close friends and family).

But I don’t see why that shouldn’t be a choice.

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