In my book WoM is when the person makes the recommendation for a brand in his/her own words (this is why it is authentic and credible) and NOT when they get used as a carrier pigeon to deliver the brands message.

In FaceBook’s model people’s profiles are simply being co-opted to carry the brands advertising. It’s simply a clever way for brands to put their advert on your FaceBook profile

But – the advertisers with love it as it “seems like Word of Mouth” and YET they still get to control the message – and thus FaceBook will make lots more money.

Conclusion:
Is it a clever new way to advertise– yes.
Is it a good idea for brands to advertise this way – yes.
But, don’t see this as real word of mouth – my profile carrying your ad is not as effective as me telling my friends in my own words how good your product is.

Net net – do both, they work hand in had.

But frankly speaking, the implementation falls short given the potential of “social graphing” and “exposed connections”. The power of social networking is "matching" to the benefit and interest of both parties. In the case of advertisement, matching buyers and sellers.

The granularity of this match can be much greater given the inherent social network platform. The benefits to buyer and seller could be increased dramatically. "Buyers" ("Opt In" users) could define what info they want (or sales promotions) via their user selected profile. Sellers could have a much greater ROI and sales close.

Maybe this is the real distinction … targeted marketing can now be more closely aligned with targeted selling yielding targeted marketing to have a clearer ROI.

Yes, Popfly is a mashup maker, but it's also much more than that. Because you can build displays and share mashups out to Spaces, FaceBook, or anywhere you can embed some html — it's also a way for brands that want to connect and empower people to provide something unique, personal, and practical to consumers.

For example: Imagine a retailer lets people create a fun, engaging, and *branded* display of their holiday wishlist and embed it on their own personal FaceBook, Spaces, or web page… complete with links in the display so people can click back to purchase wishlist items, and also "rip and tweak" the gadget to put on their own page (for viral effect). Popfly is perfect for something like this, and it lets brand create a link between ads and action that empowers gift-receivers and gift-givers alike. Note: For more details on this particular scenario, see: http://blogs.msdn.com/johnmullinax/archive/2007/10/30/building-brand-and-transcending-walled-gardens.aspx.

This is just one example, of course. The key point is that we've now evolved our technology to a level where we can tie ads together with actions to engage and empower people — in the process driving loyalty and effectively replacing a chunk "traditional" online advertising. As Jim Stengel, CMO at P&G;, said at 4A this year: "The era of telling and selling is over".