Is Facebook slowly becoming an Ad spam?

"More than three-quarters of Facebook users think that there is a problem with spam on the site." 

- SC Magazine UK.

Facebook, since it's debut in 2004 has been holding strong. With 500 million active users and 900 million objects people can interact with, it has become much more than just profile pages (a.k.a stalking tool), but a favorite pass time with games and applications. Companies in the recent years have joined this massive community by posting events, ads, promotions and what not, but when do all this cross the line?

Some basic statistics of Facebook as of 2011:

• More than 70 translations available on the site.

• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

• More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

• Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites.

•  There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. 

 This seems like a great marketing opportunity for companies no?


Statistics of social media use and e-commerce

• 61 percent of respondents indicated that they never visit a retailers Facebook page

• 86 percent of online retailers had a Facebook page

• 23 percent said they visit retailer pages less than once a month

• Among consumers who are fans of retailers on Facebook, 68 percent are fans of 3 or fewer retailers

Information from http://www.jeffbullas.com/

"How come you didn't show up on my event last week? I invited you on Facebook!"

This seems to be a line I hear very often lately. The truth is, I stopped checking my events, or event notifications for that matter. I am no longer addicted to updating all the time, but resort to it when I need to check birthdays, or catch up on a friend's life before I meet him/her (oh shush, I'm sure you do that too).

My question is:
On average how many times do you actually read the event invitations, (now that they've added "you've been invited to..." as notifications).

How often do you check your favorite companies' Facebook page for promotion updates?

And how many times have you clicked on the ads on the sidebars?

To my feeling, the advertising and marketing side of Facebook is slowly becoming like traditional advertising, like posters on the wall or flyers laying around the dinning hall table.  

We are tuning out of it. We barely see them anymore.

There are also bogus companies faking Facebook notification e-mails, that's slowly going out of the way. So unless companies/facebook come up with some innovative/interactive way for companies to reach out to their audience, the marketing is heading towards decay.