The Washington Post Company has launched Social Code, a subsidiary that will help brands build and monetize their presence on Facebook, according to Clickz.
While it may seem odd that SocialCode is laser-focused on Facebook, there is some history there: Washington Post Chairman Don Graham has been on the board of Facebook since December 2008, and the Post was one of the first publishers to become active on Facebook.
Nick O’Neill at All Facebook lays out the connections in greater detail:
Want to connect the dots further to figure out how this came to be? Laura Graham O’Shaugnessy is married to Tim O’Shaughnessy, the Chief Executive Officer of LivingSocial, the company which was once the largest application developer on the Facebook platform.
With a powerful network of influencers in the space, an existing portfolio of big brand advertisers, and a very long history of selling advertising, I think SocialCode is going to completely crush it.
When you consider an all FB agency, it might also help to consider that FB’s ad service brought in close to $1.4 billion in 2010, according to Seeking Alpha.
In just two years, Facebook’s ad service has gone from bringing in around $180 million annually to nearly 10 times that amount. That’s due to detailed Facebook member profiles, which allow advertisers to target a specific demographic with laser focus – something Google can’t offer.
