How the Facebook redesign will impact marketers

In the past couple weeks, Facebook users have been getting acquainted with the site's new look and feel. Personally I like it so far, although I must admit I haven't explored every shiny new detail yet. I've heard a lot of positive feedback, but plenty of users who aren't happy with the placement of this or that. I'm sure it'll just take users a couple months to become accustomed to it.

From an online marketing standpoint, there are a number of interesting things to examine with the Facebook redesign -- even if you're not advertising on Facebook:

• The new placement of ads in the right column. They used to be on the left, underneath the application toolbar. So now they've risen to a higher position on the page and switched sides.
  
  The move higher on the page is a no-brainer. But the jump from the left to the right is an interesting one to think about. Many web page eyetracking studies show that generally the left and center of a page will get more attention than the right side. Of course, Google AdWords are featured along the right side of its search results. I'm sure both Google and Facebook have done usability testing and eyetracking studies to determine the best place to put their ads, and the right side must be quite successful.
  
  I suppose you could look at it a couple of different ways. If the right column has become a de facto standard for displaying contextually relevant ads, then other companies who are designing sites might want to follow -- since users will become accustomed to seeing them in that spot. Or you could argue that it'd be good NOT to display ads along the right, because over time users could develop "contextual ad blindness," the younger brother of banner blindness.
  

• Facebook's contextual ads now have light gray thumbs up and thumbs down buttons below them, where users can offer feedback on the ad. If you click the thumbs down, it asks why and gives you a list of choices: misleading, pornographic, uninteresting, irrelevant, repetitive, or other. Whenever I clicked thumbs down and gave a reason, I never saw that ad again.
  
  It's great to see Facebook incorporating user feedback into its advertising. I don't know what Facebook will do with the information -- if it'll be available for advertiser review so they can craft better campaigns in the future. But that would be my expectation.
  
  This is something other contextual advertising sites should be doing (including Google) to improve relevance. For that matter, any website that delivers customized information to the user should have this feature. Amazon sticks out in my mind as a site that has been doing this for years with its suggestions.
  
  
• A side note about Facebook's contextual ads: I keep getting ads that seem to be geographically targeted to Connecticut or Rhode Island, even though I live in Ohio. I don't know why that would be the case, since I'm part of the Cleveland, Ohio network. I even double-checked my city in my user info, to make sure it's entered properly.
  
  I'm not sure if there's something broken with Facebook's geotargeting system, or if it's just an isolated incident. I'd think Facebook would be using the geography that users specify, rather than simple IP-based geotargeting. But even so, banners on other sites can figure out what city I live in based on my IP address, so why doesn't Facebook know where I live -- with even more information?
  
  
• Facebook's new tabbed design could have a major impact on marketers who have developed Facebook applications (for example, Radio Shack and its MyMosaic app). Because applications are now given a new tab, rather than being placed on a single long page, I wonder if many of them could become forgotten.
  
  By default, applications are being moved to the Boxes tab. Whether users will frequently make new tabs for applications, or if they'll keep most/all applications on the Boxes tab -- that remains to be seen.
  
  While it's a threat for application developers, it's also an opportunity. Now they'll have a lot more page width to work with. It's the digital equivalent to moving to a rural area from a big city. Everything's a lot less cluttered and there's plenty of space to spread out, rather than needing to work with a small chunk of real estate.
  
  The redesign could change the potential value of a Facebook app. Because of the tabbed structure and the possibility that apps will get less attention, they might have less value to marketers. But my bet is they'll increase in overall marketing importance in the coming year, as companies look for new ways to engage their loyal users and target audience.