Although it has been said the opening of Facebook to the masses would somehow diminish it, advertising may have more of an impact than the knowledge that outside of the college network, others will be congregating under the Facebook banner.

So that brings us to this question. Will advertising send existing Facebook members scurrying away? Or worse, will someone come up with a new social networking site to lure students, especially new high school grads, to it instead of Facebook?

More...

I am a daily facebook user and to me, the advertising isn't going to be a big deal. Everywhere else on the Internet has advertising so why not Facebook? I (along with everyone else) did not like the changes they made with the newsfeeds, but I have got used to it, and esp. with the new privacy controls, I don't mind it as bad. I also like being able to ad non-school friends since a lot of my friends aren't in school anymore, it's a way for me to keep in touch with them. I think most students are going to get used to these advertising changes too. I'm sure someone will come up with a new site, but hey, that's going to happen sometime anyways more than likely.

__________________
~A bad day on vacation...Always beats a good day at work.~

So if the day comes when you login to Facebook, and you have to watch an ad first before hitting your profile, you'll be ok with that?

Depends on how long it last...if it was too long then no, I wouldn't be ok with that and I don't think anyone else would either. I'm sure if it happened, once again, all the facebook users will complain and petition again to get it back the way it was or leave the site.

__________________
~A bad day on vacation...Always beats a good day at work.~

I was outraged when IGN.com first started showing ads before you even arrived at their home page. Within a week, a happy little "Continue to home page" link was added and my outrage subsided.

That seems like a better idea. (The post from Jim about having a "continue to home page" link). I wouldn't mind the ads if I could just click and go to my login. That way, I at least see a glimpse of the ad and if it is something I am interested in, I can watch the whole thing.

__________________
~A bad day on vacation...Always beats a good day at work.~