Inside Facebook

Well, we knew someone was going to give it a try. It looks like Scott Rafer, founder of Feedster, MyBlogLog, and Mashery, and David Cancel, co-founder of Compete.com, have teamed up to launch the first buy-sell ad marketplace for inventory on Facebook apps. They’re calling it Lookery, and they’re already selling and plan on launching next week.

In one sense, a gutsy call by Rafer and Cancel. Facebook should extend access to their ad platform to application developers soon, but even if they don’t block third parties it will be hard to compete.

That being said, the minimum spend on Facebook direct (Microsoft handles the sales through an agreement reached last year) is $25,000 a month, so some of the new guys could serve an untapped part of the demand curve and snap up accounts with smaller spend until that policy changes.

Additionally, the guys at 30Boxes have launched a link exchange network for Facebook apps called fbExchange. They’ve gained some early traction, already signing up Slide, who should devour most of the inventory they can bring on board.

Coincidentally, Ali Partovi, the founder of the Internet LinkExchange (for those who are old enough to remember such things) who later sold it to Microsoft for $250 million, is the CEO of popular Facebook app maker iLike.

What all this means for Facebook entrepreneurs and marketers is that there are new channels emerging to reach the Facebook audience that are more accessible and affordable than buying ads through Microsoft and potentially more effective and scalable than buying flyers.

[tags]facebook,marketing,advertising,links,linkery,fbexchange,adnetwork[/tags]