Facebook Gains Strength

Facebook Gains Strength

One of the biggest names in social media has managed to obtain the Atlas serving system from Microsoft. Facebook, who is not known for their superior advertising campaigns, is now in position for an enormous advertising platform in order to enhance its ad-serving capabilities. This purchase will allow marketers to better track the value of ads on the social network. Terms of the deal were not released, but a report by Ad Age stated that Facebook would acquire Atlas for under $100 million. (Rey) Microsoft purchased the Atlas ad-serving system as part of package deal back in 2007 when they obtained the aQuantive system. Some are saying that Facebook may be aiming to control the private information it possesses of its users. This is the same stance that Google took when they acquired DoubleClick in April of 2007. Facebook will use the ad server and turn it into a multibillion-dollar ad network and ad exchange giant. In 2012 Google led the display market at 15.4% with Facebook coming in a close second at 14.4%. Now with Atlas in their arsenal, Facebook holds the means to dash ahead of Google and take a more significant share of advertisers in the market. The thought of taking Facebook's paramount asset and scattering it across the internet causes expectations that may be hard to manage. Forecasters that have been observing Microsoft have generally been calling the deal a clear-cut resource transaction.

I see positive outcomes to this transaction as well as negative. As advertisers continually try to gain an edge into the needs and wants of their customers, the Atlas server system will now give them this advantage. When users log into Facebook, browsing habits that are stored on the users computer will trigger the Atlas program. Consequently, ads will be shown to users that match the information stored on their computers. For example; if I were browsing for a new pair of shoes, the brands of shoes that I have been looking at on the web would...