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February 21, 2008

I logged into Facebook for the first time in about three weeks this morning and was confronted by a message telling me one of my friends has signed up as a fan of Marmite.

So I did much the same thing. I signed up to become a friend of Marmite - a commercial product that, under other circumstances would have had to pay a small fortune to gather information on its customers that it gets for free by virtue of Marmite.

And the brown gooey stuff isn’t the only commercial product I’ve become a fan of and given my personal details to either. In fact when signing up for Marmite I ticked a box that basically let them put adverts on my Facebook homepage.

So - not only have I given them my personal details but I’ve also given them a free advertising spot on my profile page. And I’m one of nearly 6000 people who have done the same thing.

Now I’m not a big Facebook user and I’m not really that popular - I’ve only got 68 friends in total and I’m not really that bothered either. But someone with a LOT of friends adding something like Marmite to their Facebook profile is a brilliant advertising tool - as is 5000 people with 100 or so friends doing the same thing.

In fact - not only have I added Marmite to my profile on Facebook - I’ve also just written a long article about Marmite, that mentions Marmite a dozen or so times on my blog - giving the brand yet more exposure for nothing.

Do the words sucker mean anything to me?

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