[galenward]

Adsense is a $10b a year segment not based on intent - it's based on advertising you see when you are on random pages on the internet (like the New York Times).

Facebook will know what you want better than Google: they track you across multiple retail sites, see what you are looking at and even get structured data volunteered to them about that stuff.

[tworats]

I think you're making my argument for me: if anyone has stats on the total number of adsense ads served vs adwords ads served, we can derive the value of adsense vs adwords ads.

There are many more adsense ads displayed than adwords - it's google searches vs. most of the rest of the web. Yet it only makes up 1/4 of google's revenue.

Last I checked there was an order of magnitude difference between the value of an adwords vs. adsense ad.

[dpearce]

1/4 of Google's revenue is a pretty big deal. The author is suggesting that's the worst case scenario for Facebook, that they take over that $10B in revenue from Google. Add that to whatever they can do with Facebook Credits (with acquisitions like Karma), and their future looks bright.

[jack-r-abbit]

But timing can be important. Facebook may know that I have "Liked" someone's post related to hamburgers/milkshakes... but serving me a McDonalds ad when I'm reading my news feed may not be as effective as serving me one when I've just searched online for something related to hamburgers or milkshakes or viewing a food blog or something along those lines.