Facebook can help you buy anything (except friends)

Facebook just announced that it is acquiring a personalized shopping search engine called TheFind, which has over 15 million current users.

TheFind touts its search engine as the only way to search everything available for sale on the internet, and can match even very vague terms like "white sweater" with a vast array of relevant options.

TheFind also has localization features, meaning that it can return relevant results within a specified geographic area in case the user prefers to buy in-person. Since TheFind aggregates prices across the universe of online and brick and mortar vendors, the user doesn't need to traverse multiple websites (or physical locations) to find the best deal.

Facebook plans on shutting down the search engine capabilities, but rest assured that they have some clever plans for monetizing this technology. Most likely, this will involve better contextualization of posts and messages that Facebook users generate to make advertisements even more hyper-targeted than they already are.

Perhaps in anticipation of this acquisition, Facebook recently launched an ad sales team with the express purpose of promoting specific items that advertisers are trying to push. There's no doubt that TheFind strengthens Facebook's ability to pitch this service to advertisers, as well as charge a significant premium versus

Although Facebook ads may now potentially become even more creepy than they already are, this acquisition should be a win-win-win. It's win for consumers, who should receive more relevant and better offers; win for advertisers, who can better match ads with the right consumers; and a HUGE win for Facebook, which should be able to further mark up its ad inventory.

Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-buys-shopping-search-engine-thefind-2015-3

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/13/to-boost-commerce-in-ads-facebook-buys-and-shuts-down-shopping-site-thefind/#lKyTXd:9NJM

Foursquare Launches First Advertising Campaign

Foursquare launched its first outdoor advertising campaign yesterday in hopes of educating non-users that the mobile application is more of a personalized local search and no longer a check-in service.  The main purpose of this campaign is to drive awareness of the new Foursquare.  A couple months ago, Foursquare splits its core business into two applications - Swarm, the application where users can check in to places and see where their friends are, and Foursquare, the application to discover new places.

This six-week campaign will appear in bus stops, train stations, and phone kiosks in Chicago and New York, and at bike share stations in Chicago.  The company was not allowed to advertise at bike share locations in New York because Citibank is the program's exclusive sponsor.  This is the company's first advertising campaign in an attempt to simultaneously rebrand Foursquare and jumpstart stagnant user growth.

Foursquare decided to launch this outdoor campaign after Seamless and Venmo reported that their outdoor campaigns were successful in driving app downloads. Foursquare COO Jeff Glueck said the company hopes the ads will display how Foursquare can be used by anyone. Each ad has two people with contrasting tastes having an encounter, Glueck said.

As an avid Foursquare user, it will be interesting to see the results of this branding campaign.  I am probably one of the top users of Swarm out of my entire community.  However, I mainly use Swarm to check in to places and rarely use the search function to find localized places.  I personally wouldn't use the Foursquare application so it will be interesting to see how the NYC/Chicago community responds to these outdoor advertisements, and whether the campaign will be successful.

Source: http://digiday.com/platforms/check-foursquares-first-advertising-campaign/