Facebook Turning Your Status Updates Into Ads

Are you ready to become an unpaid spokesman for all your favorite things? Facebook sure hopes so. The company has just rolled out a new advertising product called “sponsored stories” that will turn your posts into ads for companies you post about. In the example video, a user “checking in” at Starbucks generates a link to Starbucks’ fan page. And there’s no way to opt-out, according to CNN.

One report identifies Coca-Cola as one of the product’s first clients. Facebook’s last attempt at integrating ads with the newsfeed, Beacon, crashed and burned over privacy concerns, but Facebook promises that won’t be a concern this time. “Anything that one of your friends is seeing as a sponsored story … is actually something they would have already seen in their news feed,” the product manager says in the marketing video launching the product, adding that only friends can see sponsored stories. (More Facebook stories.)