Skip to main content

Surprise! Facebook Home will have ads, eventually

Facebook, Facebook Exchange, Facebook Home, Facebook Cover Feed
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Facebook Home won’t come with ads when it launches April 12 … don’t get too comfortable though. When asked about advertising, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was quoted saying “there are no ads in this yet. I’m sure at some point there will be.”

Where exactly will Facebook Home run ads? On the Cover Feed, according to early reports. The Cover Feed, to jump start your memory, is the full blown picture and status feed that takes up the entire screen once you’ve installed Facebook Home. So if photos are a core feature on Facebook Home, you can expect that likewise full ads will probably be swipeable and take up the entire home screen. Of course there are many ways to be creative with advertising on Cover Feed, which Facebook is likely quite aware of already.

Recommended Videos

If you’re bold enough to download Home and have Facebook run on top of your Android device 24/7, expect to have Facebook pry into your every activity on your mobile device. It sounds creepy, we know. But if you’re willing to turn your phone into a fully-optimized Facebook system, then you probably deserve the targeted ads that Facebook serves you. 

Full screen ads or no, if Facebook sticks to its current design, this content could be photo-based and native to the browsing experience. The idea is to be as non-interrupting of the user as possible, although Facebook has struggled with mobile advertising in general.

There’s more reason for concern, too. News Feeds are started to feel devoted solely to Sponsored Posts, Suggested Pages, Mobile App Installs, and other types of sponsored ad units that didn’t require Facebook to drop a cookie in your browser and watch you surf the Web. These ad modules are actually independent of Facebook Exchange, which is what’s responsible for the banner ads on the right side of your Facebook profile.

But that’s about to change as for the first time Facebook Exchange ads will make it into the News Feed. And next … the Facebook Home ad units? It’s possible, dare we say likely?

Francis Bea
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Francis got his first taste of the tech industry in a failed attempt at a startup during his time as a student at the…
Bluesky finally adds a feature many had been waiting for
A blue sky with clouds.

Bluesky has been making a lot of progress in recent months by simplifying the process to sign up while at the same time rolling out a steady stream of new features.

As part of those continuing efforts, the social media app has just announced that users can now send direct messages (DMs).

Read more
Reddit just achieved something for the first time in its 20-year history
The Reddit logo.

Reddit’s on a roll. The social media platform has just turned a profit for the first time in its 20-year history, and now boasts a record 97.2 million daily active users, marking a year-over-year increase of 47%. A few times during the quarter, the figure topped 100 million, which Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said in a letter to shareholders had been a “long-standing milestone” for the site.

The company, which went public in March, announced the news in its third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.

Read more
Worried about the TikTok ban? This is how it might look on your phone
TikTok splash screen on an Android phone.

The US Supreme Court has decided to uphold a law that would see TikTok banned in the country on January 19. Now, the platform has issued an official statement, confirming that it will indeed shut down unless it gets some emergency relief from the outgoing president.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” said the company soon after the court’s verdict.
So, what does going dark mean?
So, far, there is no official statement on what exactly TikTok means by “going dark.” There is a lot of speculation out there on how exactly the app or website will look once TikTok shutters in the US.

Read more