Just saw this, interesting development. - Erik Magraken

The only thing would be to let us comment on it :D - Johnny Worthington

Yes it just did, and see people are already talking...these form of ads will be more interactive on FF - Asankhaya Sharma

Hide is the only option. I can't even like it. - Louis Gray

this is right above your post in my home feed - interesting - Nathan Chase

Nathan, we operate in real time. - Louis Gray

Neat. But agree we'd love to comment. - Paola Bonomo

it is too bad we can't like it, or comment on it - interactive ads might not be a bad idea - Nathan Chase

@Louis - right! - Nathan Chase

If it were an ad, would the tendency be to provide negative feedback? Should it be one giant conversation FriendFeed wide? Should you only see comments from your friends? - Louis Gray

Louis, you're slacking :P http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

ditto about comments, seemed strange not being able to...even if I wasn't going to - Rick Bucich

Good work, Mike. :) - Louis Gray

I like that you can't comment or like it. Otherwise, it'd keep getting bumped up. I'm not sure we'd want ads to keep being bumped up. - Rochelle

haha - "Your news is 4 minutes old. FAIL!" :) - Nathan Chase

What if the ad permanently held the third position from the top in your stream, Rochelle? - Louis Gray

just saw it. - Laura Norvig

Pff, beat ya Slayer :) Though didn't include a pic, Mo Fail! - Mo Kargas

It's not a terrible idea for monetization - if you don't like the ad, just Hide it. - Nathan Chase

Bleh. - Derrick

Louis, for how long? If an ad stayed there forever, I'd have a problem with that. I'd want a premium/paid membership to get rid of it. - Rochelle

@Nathan, can you do 'hide all like this' Or is that something we may end up paying for? Hmm - Mo Kargas

I don't know, Rochelle. I'm not in charge. :) - Louis Gray

@Rochelle - some ads people want to see. Super Bowl commericals for example. - Nathan Chase

It's a great idea and you can hide them. - Michael Fidler

Nathan, if people want to see the ads on FriendFeed, then they can opt to not pay for a premium membership and can see all of the ads. :) - Rochelle

I have no problem with this, it's the slickest implementation of ads I think I've ever seen (besides Google AdWords), as long as they stay away from ad companies that don't screen their ads and through popups and malware on everyone's computer. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Borrowed from Facebook "sponsored stories." Turnabout is fair play - Christian Anderson

I understand this is the direction Facebook is taking also - Michael Fidler

The potential of this just prepares me to yearn for a paid option. - Akiva Moskovitz

Yeah. I could see FriendFeed power users paying to keep the ads off as a premium service. Although some people might just leave FriendFeed entirely - or some enterprisiing Greasemonkey/Stylish hacker would discover a way to hide them all via scripting - Nathan Chase

I wonder what sort of targeting will they use for ads within feeds, when someone is bashing twitter it may seem a good time to show ad for a competitive service (say ff) - Asankhaya Sharma

The new logon has been very successful so far. This just ensures that more people will see it. They should feature this on every individual item/post page when someone views it who's not logged in - Michael Fidler

It is really strange not to be able to like or comment on it, but now that it shows up on the subscription management page, I guess it's really just more along the lines of an alert. I *do* like it, and the timing is sure 'nuff good. - Kathy Fitch

They probably don't want people to comment on it because most of the comments would be complaints (not now, maybe, but later). - Her Lindsay-ness

True, Lindsay--but all the more reason to let 'er rip, I always think. Never know what ideas will be gleaned. Anyway, I'm sure they knew we'd discuss and examine elsewhere. - Kathy Fitch

Confirmed. http://ff.im/2Qb7k - Jay Cuthrell

They should add 'like' to ads if this is the monetisation strategy. Similar to the way you can up vote ads in reddit. Hide counts as a down vote - Glenn Slaven

Nice--very nice--it updates. Keeps tabs on new twitter friends not yet added here. Handy. (But yes, of course, an ad could be pushed in just the same way. One of the perks/temptations of being the one with the keys to the system. Can't deny it's efficient for bulletins, though.) - Kathy Fitch

Jay, what are you saying is "confirmed"? - Rochelle

it had a hide option...I hid it. :) - dafire

Also had the permalink so the feature could easily be located for future reference. - Kathy Fitch

I don't mind the unit per se, but not being able to comment on it seems antithetical to what FriendFeed has been working towards. And ... wouldn't you want a Like or Share option too? - AJ Kohn

Thanks to your post (and all the similar ones) it's becoming part of a viral self-promotion campaign :-) - gib

The disturbing thing to me would be if future ads were very sticky, and also from unscrupulous advertisers. (like the ones on Facebook) - Sitcky: I just don't have the screen realestate to spare for ad space like that ad had. Evil advertisers on Facebook: the damn IQ quizzes and Make Money Fast Online crap. I see enough on Facebook and twitter of all that. Liking ads is key. Commenting would be even better. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

ON another Note: I WOULD like to see Important FriendFeed announcements take this format: Planned outages, Known feed issues (i.e. AOL mail not going, Faceook status not importing, Twitter link down etc). And These should be sticky until acknowledged. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I wouldn't consider this a "shameless ad". It is informative and helps one to use the product better. I benefited from it. - Roebot

I saw it when it happened. At least they labeled it appropriately. - Martha

Yeah. Hid it immediately. Hrmph. - Ladybug Heather

I just added 128 more Twitter friends to my Twitter Clone list. They just keep coming! - Louis Gray

With like, commenting and clickthroughs, you can compute relevancy of the ad and use that to improve targeting. Furthermore, provide "feeds" for discussing products and services that are in the ads. This has so much potential. In fact, let me search for ads and create a new category of ads called "coupons"! - Peng-Toh

Just saw this,is this FF's ad business model? - Steve Chou

At least these guys have a potential business model! I won't mind *a few* such "shameless self promotions" or ads per day. - Vijay

it's much too early still for FriendFeed to advertise, but probably in the end offering an ad free paid account and a free ad supported account make sense. - Thomas Hawk

Saw this yesterday. I don't mind it but I think Thomas' idea is the best option. - Al Stevens

@Nathan Chase I put this out on day zero of this new entry type http://friendfeed.com/micahwi... - Micah Wittman

This thread was discussed on the FFundercats (http://www.ffundercats.com/2009...) - Josh Haley