Video ads coming to Facebook: report

Soon Facebook users' news feeds will be peppered with 15-second marketing clips, according to unnamed sources quoted by Bloomberg.

Soon Facebook users' news feeds will be peppered with 15-second marketing clips, according to unnamed sources quoted by Bloomberg.

The TV-commercial style ads that will appear in feeds will be based on age and gender and will play a maximum of three times in a given day, the report states.

However, Facebook is also aware of the polarizing effect of advertising and the negative impact it can have on its 1.1 billion users. Therefore, the article goes on to claim, the new feature won't start rolling out until quality and form of delivery have been finalized.

A number of analysts and investors have suggested that the only way that the social network can guarantee its long-term survival is to saturate the site with advertising and then offer users the chance to pay to upgrade to an ad-free version of the site.

No doubt a number of Facebook members will be less than happy with this latest development, but as long as consumers use Facebook free of charge, the site will need to look to other ways of turning a profit.