Something new and different will soon be greeting you when you open your Facebook messages… ads.  Be prepared for a whole new wave of Facebook Spam as Facebook “…tests the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance…” or, in layman’s terms, sells your email address to anyone for any reason.

In a move that seems like teaching a new dog old tricks Facebook opens up your Facebook inbox to unwanted advertisements.  Spammers who have long since been relegated to junk mail folders are jumping with joy at the opportunity to put their message exactly where you don’t want them – in between messages that actually have value to you.

As Google continues to refine their ad delivery to generate ads more relevant to you, the user, Facebook veers left and offers more ways for the advertiser to get in the way of what you were doing.  An interesting, albeit clumsy, move to further monetize the social media network.

Since their less-than-stellar IPO, Facebook has been scrambling to find new ways to generate revenue.  It doesn’t seem to be going well.  Their last endeavor to generate money – Facebook gifts – was at least focused on the user.  Including advertisements in Facebook messages stinks of desperation.   With the vast quantities of data and statistics that Facebook gathers about its users, it is worrisome that they can’t figure out a less intrusive way to capitalize on that information.  They could at least do us the courtesy of the illusion of privacy.

Facebook promises that business pages wont have the ability to send out unwarranted messages, but as this CIO points out messages will just come from a member of the company.  What possible reason could a real person have for wanting to pay money to message someone they aren’t even friends with (aside from being a super creepy stalker)?