Game Over

The launch of Facebook Exchange or FBX is hailed as a new and innovative way to access the inventory in Facebook, real time. There the story ends. There is nothing new here- this is potentially a backwards step in that it brings online advertising back at least five years(or in the case of Irish online advertising, 5 days) to a time, in another contiuum, when ad networks cookie bomb inordinate amounts of 'loose' inventory to their benefit, at the expense of brands and publishers. 
This along with the evolution of ad networks into Agency Trading Desks and Demand Side Platforms (they're all ad networks anyway,right?) will lead to consequences of some publishers, not to mention agencies, going out of business .

Sure, Facebook doing this will reduce the cost to advertise overall (whilst bringing in a few dollars for Mr. Mark), but it will lead to a level of arbitrage not seen since Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd in Trading Places. Facebook will really benefit as they will have the ability to retarget, although up to 15% of it's base is not authentic (that's my article for next week).
But the problem is if  brands and agencies have the perception of there being little or no value on a banner that’s barely in seldom in view on a spurious websites site, what value will a brand place on retargeting a little social box? (Slightly north of zero I saw someone comment today).

This could be a risky move for Facebook, as if by claiming they can attribute actual page impressions to behaviour, they had better deliver , as trading desks will actually see that it may not deliver the value as previously stated on the ad reports. This is a risk all publishers take when they move to an auction basis, but few have the scale that Facebook has and that's the problem. With Facebook's vast amount of inventory, it is in danger of sucking up all the cash in an already tight market and before anyone realises, brands might see that the emperor has no clothes.
By that time ( and it will be a short time too), it will be too late for many indigenous publishers.


Then it will be game over.