Facebook Wants to Be Google and TV

Facebook collects less than the 5 percent of the $500 billion spent on advertising each year. For Facebook to achieve the deepest, darkest dreams of Mark Zuckerberg, the company must become the first one that dominates both the kind of precision ads that built Google and the emotional ads that made TV the world's dominant marketing force.

Facebook has so far cracked the first half of that equation, following in the footsteps of Google by locking down what's called "direct response" advertising. If I own a store in Brooklyn that sells running shoes, I naturally want to find people who are in the market for what I'm selling. If someone types "running shoes Brooklyn" into Google, the company has a pretty good clue that is a person I want. My store can pay to show a link to my website to this probable Brooklyn runner.