Friday, January 11, 2013

Want to send a Facebook message to Mark Zuckerberg? It'll cost you.

Facebook is experimenting with an innovative spam-filtering scheme.?

By Matthew Shaer / January 11, 2013

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Reuters

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Earlier this week, Mashable published a much-discussed report alleging that Facebook was charging users 100 bucks to message CEO Mark Zuckerberg.?

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"We knew?Facebook?was eager for new revenue streams," Mashable's Chris Taylor quipped at the time.?"We just didn't know they were?this?eager."?

Today comes news that Mashable was correct, in a sense: Facebook is in fact experimenting with a $100 messaging scheme, one not only involving Zuckerberg, but other high-profile Facebook users, including (according to CNN)?Facebook COO Sheryl Sandburg , CFO David Ebersman, and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg. The whole thing, Facebook tells CNN, is a kind of beta test for spam filtering measures.?

"We are testing some extreme price points to see what works to filter spam," a Facebook rep told CNN today.?

It's an interesting approach: a potential revenue generator for Facebook, and a way for the social network to allow the average user to actually reach someone like Zuckerberg, instead of seeing his or her missive drowned in a deluge of spam. Of course, it's worth noting that the $100 by no means guarantees your famous correspondent will actually answer?your email; the only guarantee is that it won't be categorized as junk.?

As we reported last month, Facebook is also trying out a lower-priced "pay-for-relevance" arrangement: Beginning in December, the social network began asking?some users to pay $1 to reach (non-celebrity) users outside of their circle.?

"This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with," Facebook announced?in a press release. "Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful."?

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/40u9icQwGlM/Want-to-send-a-Facebook-message-to-Mark-Zuckerberg-It-ll-cost-you.

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