We all work for Facebook

According to The New York Times, 1,500 Facebook users have decided to take matters into their own hands and run ads on their personal Facebook pages. Weblo, an ad network that sells ads onto people's blogs and social networking profile pages is helping people run these ads.

Truthfully, I'm not surprised. This seems like the next logical step in social networking. People spend hours, days and even weeks updating their profiles, adding pictures, searching their friend's pages, etc. All of this sharing of personal information is what makes Facebook, Facebook.

Zuckerberg and his team created the shell, the users created the content, and now Facebook is valued at $15 billion. It makes total sense that users should be compensated in some way.

The fact of the matter is we all work for Facebook. There's no contract, and we're not employees, but that $15 billion valuation has not only come from the thousands of hours put in by Facebook employees, but by the millions of hours put in by Facebook users.

It seems that the biggest issue Facebook faces is determining how to capitalize on all of the personal information they have. Last month's Beacon program was greeted with some serious backlash. Zuckerberg eventually trashed the original program and wrote an apology blog post.

However, they're obviously on to something. I have no problem promoting a product or service if I believe in it. Look at the jobs page of Employee Evolution for example. We had no contact with The Motley Fool, Best Buy or W.L. Gore, yet we still advised all of our readers to apply to those companies. I would have no problem telling my friends on Facebook that my new pair of Nikes are amazing and everyone should buy a pair.

Our generation grew up in an age of corporate branding like no other. Just look at college football, we've got the Allstate National Championship game, The AT&T Cotton Bowl and The AutoZone Liberty Bowl. I see these names and it doesn't bother me at all, that's just the way things are. But I'm fully conscious of the money and branding involved on both sides.

Thanks to Myspace, Facebook and blogging, we're entering the age of personal branding, and there is money to be made on all sides. Facebook can undoubtedly stay enormously wealthy by selling access to millions of people. Companies can continue to sell ads to boost sales and increase brand awareness. But what hasn't been accounted for is the generation of entrepreneurs that Facebook has helped create who will not and should not sit back and let the corporations make all the money.

As far as I'm concerned, Facebook is totally right to think that young people will not mind advertising brands to their friends, but they're wrong to think that we won't start demanding a cut.