Karma - 7:02 am on Nov 22, 2010 (gmt 0)

I think Wheel hit the nail on the head perfectly...

It's like a billboard ad

And that is exactly how I see ads when I am on Facebook. It would take something seriously cool for me to divert my mouse away from the main content area but that's not to say I wouldn't see it.

If you're interested, check out the film 'Social Network' which is based on the story of Facebook. They talk briefly about making money from Facebook but as they correctly point out, if you cover it in ads then you lose the 'cool'.

Some folks there have more than 500 "friends."

Facebook calls them 'friends' but I think the majority of people that use Facebook would use the term contacts/people I know or like.

They need, instead, to get a real life instead of virtual reality

I think you're massively out-of-touch. The Facebook users I know aren't sat in a darkened room wearing virtual reality headsets and motion sensitive gloves. They're watching TV, at a shopping mall, sat in a taxi even having a romantic dinner with their partner etc, which is why I think viggen is having success with FB...

FB is by far the most successful local advertising plattform, if you mix offline with online it really can work on FB

In its current form, FB simply isn't suited to the vast majority of products and services.