Targeting evolves

Advertisers can now target Facebook members psychographically via the site's Flyers ad unit.

Flyers are sidebar ads that Facebook controls; the majority of the advertising on the site is now handled by Microsoft.

Though the psychographic features are still in beta, Flyers let advertisers target by country, city, gender, age range, political affiliation, relationship status, education level, workplace affiliation, or any keyword in a person’s stated interests, reports AllFacebook.

With boosted ad targeting in place, TechCrunch points out that a wedding planner in Salem, Oregon could advertise to the 100 Salemites on Facebook that happen to be engaged females between the ages of 20 and 40.

And that's not all. The drilled-down targeting can be utilized by Facebook app developers as well, meaning everyone can enjoy the fruits of Facebook's hard work.

After six months of testing, MySpace also announced it could target users by interest back in September.