Facebook rolls out Timeline-linked ads Facebook has found a way to monetise its new Timeline feature less than five months after launching it, repackaging what people "listen" to, "watch," and "read" into ads and delivering them to their friends. The new advertising format, which will be rolled out this week, raises new privacy implications, as people who "opt-in" to use the features, offered by companies like Spotify, Warner Bros and The Washington Post, do not have the option of opting out of their activity being used for paid advertising. There will be a user hew and a cry. There will be further reminders that Facebook is using information about users and using their data to sell them to advertisers," said Rebecca Lieb, an analyst with the Altimeter Group. After the initial hew and cry, people settle down and accept this stuff. People care more about getting free media than they do about their privacy. The Timeline feature is part of Facebook's "frictionless sharing" features announced at its F8 conference last September. Once people sign up for the service, all of their actions are automatically uploaded to their Facebook profile. For example, if a user signs up for Spotify, all of the songs he or she listens to on the service automatically become part of a person's Facebook profile. At the time, Facebook said it was not working on marketing applications associated with the new features. Now Facebook is offering to marketers an opportunity to pay to feature these automatic posts more prominently to a user's friends. "As always, people may already see these stories in their news feeds, but a marketer may pay to feature the story to friends who are eligible to see it," the company said. Facebook did not provide details about the new ad roll out beyond the basics, as the company is limited in what it can say publicly now that it is in the quiet period before its initial public offering. With these ad features coming so soon after the launch of the Read, Listen, and Watch applications, it is safe to assume that Facebook will soon roll out marketing opportunities associated with its new Lifestyle Apps launched last month, which allow people to share what food they "want," what wine they are "tasting," and where they went for a "run." "Now the Facebook experience and the advertising and marketing experience are going to evolve in tandem," Ms Lieb said. I think these things were in the works simultaneously.