Facebook is launching an initiative that makes it easier for the site to share what it knows about its users - and subsequently receive more information about them from other sites. The upshot for end users, according to Facebook, is a more personalized online experience.

For marketers the promise of this concept is better cross-site ad opportunities, more targeted information about users, hopefully better economies of scale. But as Facebook extends its brand beyond its own borders - or at least its users' information preferences - advertisers have to wonder if it will dilute Facebook's own ad brand.

Open Graph

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO called the concept the Open Graph at the company's F8 developer conference (via CNET).  "Yelp is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to small businesses. Pandora is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to music. "If we can take these separate maps of the graph and pull them all together, then we can create a Web that's smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware."

Zuckerberg's proposal is ambitious as it promises to remake the internet into a giant social web, assuming enough partners participate. For example, a visitor to a news site or a music-sharing site could have content tailored to his or her upon previously stated preferences on Facebook, PC World explains. The visitor could also see a list of Facebook friends who are already registered on the other site, and even what comments they have posted there.

To that end, Facebook launched its Open Graph API for Facebook and participating sites to mesh their users' "social graphs". It includes an Open Graph Protocol, which mark up objects using the same terms so they can be understood by Facebook and third-party sites. Plug-ins, such as the "like" button the company announced this week will also facilitate this intra-site personalization.

Blurring the Brand?

Should Facebook's ad appeal erode from Open Graph it could represent a serious loss to marketers that have come to use it. A new study by Nielsen found that earned media and social advocacy made Facebook users more likely to notice ads, absorb their content and make purchases. (via Mashable).

Nielsen looked at after analyzing over six months of responses from 800,000 users to more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns by 70 different brand advertisers, Essentially the more the user was exposed to paid and earned media - with a combination of both packing a powerful punch - the greater the ad recall, awareness and purchase intent.