New Photo Viewer Benefits Facebook and Marketers

If Facebook’s sponsored “stories” were not annoying enough, now you can occasionally see them in the new Facebook photo viewer. The new feature mimics a photo viweing experience that is alarming similar with the photo viewing experience in Google+, but adds a bit of green for Facebook, in that that it features sponsored links.

Users who open images in Facebook may also see “Sponsored Stories” featured under the name of the photo owner and comments.

Claims that Facebook has tweaked its photos feature to make it easier for users to view images are overrated. With its recent IPO, Facebook needed a tweak that appealed shareholders. Selling ad space on every single Facebook property made sense – the photo viewer is one of the most popular, if not the most popular of all.

For common users, this new feature doesn’t mean much. For marketers, on the other hand, this equals opportunity: a new channel to push sponsored stories on Facebook. This means that Facebook will make more revenue in selling sponsored stories space – and that’s the bottom line.

The debate whether the new photo viewer resembles Google+ viewer (and it does) becomes redundant and irrelevant.

In the meanwhile,the Associated Press reports that Facebook will make its stock market debut in three or four months, hoping to raise $5 billion that would surpass the $1.9 billion raised by Google Inc. in 2004.