Will Facebook Ads Soon Reflect 'What's On Your Mind?'

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Facebook is testing ads targeted in real-time based on users' status updates ("What's on your mind?") and wall posts. Theoretically, a user who posts near the end of his workday that "It's Miller time" could immediately be served a promotion from MillerCoors or another beer company.

AdAge.com first reported the development, and Facebook confirmed the test to ClickZ on Wednesday. [UPDATE: Peter Gould has posted screenshots from the targeting test on the Epiphany Solutions blog.]

Annie Ta, spokesperson for the Palo Alto, CA-based company, said, "Advertising on Facebook is more relevant for people because they have explicitly stated their interest in things. We are currently testing a feature that simply helps surface relevant advertising more quickly. This test only involves wall posts and status updates, not chat conversations. And the test is only out to less than 1% of Facebook users."

It's unclear at what speed the so-called real-time ads are appearing. The social site has for some time let marketers target Facebook users contextually based on their status updates and wall posts, but those ads have been delivered on a delay.