“Social” Interactive Web Banners from Digg & Facebook

by Gio Gutierrez

Facebook has a new feature that lets advertisers create special ads for their Pages and Events. The ads will appear just like other Facebook ads, but the users will be able to “Become a Fan” (if the ad is for a Page) or “RSVP” (if the ad is for an Event) directly from the ad. Furthermore, these ads also contain friend actions, which means that users will be able to see which friends are fans of the Page or attending the Event in question.

Digg also announced plans to roll out — Digg Ads. The sponsored content will look and feel similar to regular Digg content, but will be clearly marked as sponsored. It may link to stories, video trailers, independent product reviews – many of the same types of content you see on Digg every day. Digg Ads will give you more control over which advertisements are displayed on Digg. The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system. The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it’s relevant or not.

From a user perspective, I like the direction these companies are taking advertising. Digg and Facebook are making innovating ads like content on the site which makes it more meaningful to users. Here’s to digging and rsvp’ing in a web banner.