Facebook Users Suffer From ‘Fram’

About a year or so ago one of the “McMarketeers” decided it would be fun to run a campaign against “fram”–spam that friends send you. As you might guess, we in the Labs have no friends, so it was no problem for us to ridicule the idea.

However, around the coffee machine the other day I got involved in a quick discussion about spam on Facebook. A long-term social networker genuinely thought that Facebook spam did not exist and that all the noise was from Facebookers playing games or using annoying apps. So I offered to write up an example.
One of the most subversive forms of advertising on Facebook is (though I hate to admit it) fram.
You receive a post like this from a friend:

(Sorry Plum)
This page uses the FBML application to render content in a tab, and that tab is the default you see.
Step one is become a fan, so that you can see the next step.

This posts to your wall:

The fram quickly propagates from friend to friend–and spreads virally, to almost half a million fans.

Let’s return to step (continue reading...)