neighbor-driven microsponsorships: the future of advertising?

The recent Facebook debacle of an individual's picture being used without permission for an advertisement brings up an interesting idea: the power of normal people to sell products is being leveraged by social advertising. It wasn't Michael Phelps or Britney Spears hawking a product: it was just a normal person, with a twist: it was someone you knew.

Accepting the premise that having your product promoted by friends to friends is powerful (and it is), imagine what the future could be like. Think about the average suburban block, and each person on that block connected to the same website (a social network like Facebook, or even a search engine like Google). John Smith logs on and sees an ad that indicates his neighbor and friend Joe likes Smuckers crunchy peanut butter. Or, he sees a video of another neighbor enthusiastically setting up his new HD TV.

Here's the kicker: the current (intimidating, insulting) current situation of advertisers hijacking peoples' pictures and personal information to do their advertising work can be turned on its head: we just need to pass along some of the profit to the normal people doing the advertising and be transparent in the way the deal is set up.

Imagine one more scenario: you're a Mac user. You love your computer. One day a message pops up from Apple saying that if you'd be willing to take a picture with your computer or make a video about how you feel about your product, they'll put it in relevant ads to people you're acquainted with and give you a cut of the profits!

In an era where people are becoming increasingly passionate about the products and brands that they use and associate with, it's only a matter of time before we see these kinds of microsponsorships appear.