The Feed Ad

Next to the article (1833), between the programmes (1922), at the moment of searching (2000) — and then in among your friends' updates. The history of advertising's address is the history of where attention gathers. Facebook began «Sponsored Stories» in 2011, moved them inside the News Feed in January 2012, and in March ran its first mobile ads. The same shape as a friend's post; the only difference, a small word: Sponsored. The charming detail is that at first the company capped them at one per day — a restraint unimaginable from today's feed. Dressing advertising as editorial is not new, though. In 1886 the New York Times took $1,200 from the Bell Telephone Company for an advertisement wearing the face of an article, and the hundred-and-fifty-year battle over the little label «this is an ad» has run ever since.