Pick Me!!!: Your Profile Pic Could be in a Facebook Ad

     "Better go check your Facebook profile pic to make sure it's suitable for advertising—the company has begun using real users' postings in ads being shown to their friends. The effort is eerily similar to parts of the now-defunct Facebook Beacon, but Facebook is now calling them "sponsored stories," and users won't be able to opt out of their posts being used to advertise to friends.
     The new "feature" started showing up quietly on Wednesday morning without any kind of fanfare from Facebook, but users began to notice it right away. Things posted by their friends; check-ins at businesses and "Likes" clicked from other websites started being highlighted in the right-hand column with the other ads, under the headline of "Sponsored Story."
     Facebook says that the new ads are an effort to help marketers take advantage of what people are saying about them online. "Currently, marketers don't have the ability to know or plan word-of-mouth endorsements as part of their campaigns," Facebook's product marketing lead Jim Squires told the Wall Street Journal. "This gives a way for marketers to increase the visibility of stories about their organization… this is word-of-mouth marketing at scale."  Read Full Article - By Jacqui Cheng