Facebook Inc. will be unveiling its new advertising product known as Atlas. Atlas’ main purpose is to create a better advertising platform to compete with Google, the digital advertising giant. It is supposed to help marketers target Facebook users by providing valuable information, so that the advertisements are specifically tailored to the consumer. The current method of obtaining consumer information and tracking its advertisement’s performance is through the use of cookies. However, this method has its major flaws, one of which is the inability to track the information of mobile device users. With Atlas, a consumer’s interactions with advertisements will be linked to his Facebook, whether it be on his desktop computer or his mobile device. This technology will also offer marketers to buy advertisements that will basically follow a Facebook user around the internet. The use of Atlas is an exciting innovation for advertising and marketing. The ability to retrieve a consumer’s preferences through their mobile device will result in more specific advertisements and will give Facebook a competitive advantage over Google since they will be tracking more information. However, with this new technology, many users may be very upset when they realize that they are having their information tracked and sold by Facebook and could result in negative publicity for Facebook. Nevertheless, some users may see this as a positive since they are being advertised products or services that they may actually use or need.
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Bureau, Gizbot. “Facebook in Plans to Buy Microsoft’s Atlas Ad Platform .” Gizbot. Greynium Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd. , 13 Dec. 2012. Web. 21 Sept. 2014. <http://www.gizbot.com/social-media/facebook-buy-microsofts-atlas-ad-platform-009352.html>.