Apparently some folks who were visiting Wikipedia saw some annoying banner ads. Not the requests for donations from its founder Jimmy Wales, mind you, but real banner ads promoting things to buy from third-party sites.

Today, the company has stepped out to make its users aware that not only will Wikipedia never run ads, but if you do see ads, then your computer might be infected with some sort of malware. Here’s what the team had to say today about it:

We never run ads on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is funded by more than a million donors, who give an average donation of less than 30 dollars. We run fundraising appeals, usually at the end of the year. If you’re seeing advertisements for a for-profit industry (see screenshot below for an example) or anything but our fundraiser, then your web browser has likely been infected with malware.

Wikipedia also added some instructions on how to remove malware or wayward extensions from your browser and suggested that this could also be something that an Internet cafe or free internet provider is injecting into your web experience.

Have no fear, Wikipedia will be remaining ad-free, thanks to the donations of its users;

But rest assured: you won’t be seeing legitimate advertisements on Wikipedia.

We’re here to distribute the sum of human knowledge to everyone on the planet — ad-free, forever.

If you think that your computer has been infected by some type of malware, check out this list of spyware removal tools and give one a try.

I’m here at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco and one thing is certain; as hard as Silicon Valley is working to create new social products, the advertising industry is working that much harder to keep up with the innovation.

Monetization is a dirty word when it comes to social services on the web, however, most of us forget that to create a sustainable product and business, making money from users is the only way to survive. Sure, you can raise gobs of money like Twitter, but even it has introduced its own ad model to rake in some cash to stay afloat.

In an era where everyone expects something for free, asking someone to pay a monthly fee for their Facebook account seems absolutely absurd. How can Facebook make money then? Advertising, of course. The problem is that the advertising model that has kept the web making money is old and isn’t performing as well as it has in the past. We’re all trained to skip over certain types of ads, and at some point our eyes simply won’t “see” them anymore.

How are these social services going to make the ads more relevant and interesting to us? Our data, of course. All of the things that you “Like” on Facebook and retweet on Twitter will be factored into the type of advertising that you see. The closer the ad is to your actual interests, the better chance there is that you’ll click. Makes sense, but it’s starting to kick up dust when it comes to privacy.

Recently, Senator Al Franken gave a speech where he delivered the line:

…accumulating data about you isn’t just a strange hobby for these corporations. It’s their whole business model. And you are not their client. You are their product.

We don’t mind telling Facebook who our friends are and what TV shows that we like to watch, but now that it wants to make money, people are starting to fuss about it and now realize how important their privacy online may be. It’s a fine line, and when it comes to social services that we pour private data into, it’s all fun and games until they try to make a buck off of us.

That leads us to the ad:tech conference, advertisers and companies who display ads are trying to come up with the right way to get us to “pay the bills” without creeping us out or turning us off completely.

Just how many companies are working on solving this problem? Take a look at a report compiled by a company called LUMA Partners, called the LUMAscape:

If you click through and see how all of the parts fit together, there are companies that sit as middle men between social networks and ad networks, middle men for those middle men, and more. I spent about a half hour last night digging through this mapping and it made my eyes cross.

At the end of the day, we’re going to be shown advertising whether we like it or not. Take “on demand” television for example. When I watch a TV show or Movie on Comcast, they don’t let me skip through the commercials. That’s my way of paying to see the content. Sure, if I wanted to see it ad-free, I could go to a service like iTunes and pay for it, but I enjoy “free”. Free comes with a cost, and that cost is our eyeballs and data.

There are companies here at ad:tech who are trying to make the advertising model more interactive though, while keeping our privacy safe. Companies like Google track our activity as we surf the web and display ads to us based on those preferences. It’s getting them into a bit of trouble though, and that behavioral tracking and ad display is starting to freak people out.

One company that’s paying attention to this space is called TRUSTe, and it launched an advertising platform at the conference that allows consumers to opt out of specific types of ads and give some feedback to advertisers on what they’d rather see. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we have today. Here’s an interview that my good friend Jake Ludington did with TRUSTe’s VP of Product, Kevin Trilli:

What Trilli keys in on is the fact that users are starting to think about their privacy and the best way to handle those concerns is to give consumers choice in return. Again, ads aren’t going away no matter what, so is this type of “choice” good enough? It’s the best option that I see right now, simply because users are already behaving in a social way on platforms like Facebook. Giving its users a choice on what they’d like to see, and how they’re targeted, is the best way to interact.

The more transparent the industry is, the quicker it can grow and monetize. Yes, thinking about being a “product” is a bit scary as a user, but as long as we have control over how our information is shared and with who, we can settle into the idea that this is nothing more than having to watch ads when you fire up On Demand on your TV.

We’re a Googling nation and along with getting our wonderful search results, we’re shown a bunch of context-relevant ads. It’s how Google makes its money and it’s not going to change anytime soon.

In a post entitled “Making our ads better for everyone“, Google discusses the process that advertisers must go through to make sure that the ads displayed on the search engine results and other Google properties are legit and not spammy or harmful.

The company says that all ads go through a diligent technological review as well as a manual one to remove ads that have malware and spam-like functionality. In fact, Google says that it has pumped “millions of dollars” into making this system the best-of-class.

Here are some improvements that Google has made to its ad system recently:

- Improved “query watch” for counterfeit ads: While anyone can report counterfeit ads, we’ve widened our proactive monitoring of sensitive keywords and queries related to counterfeit goods which allows us to catch more counterfeit ads before they ever appear on Google
- New “risk model” to detect violations: Our computer scanning depends on detailed risk models to determine whether a particular ad may violate our policies, and we recently upgraded our engineering system with a new “risk model” that is even more precise in detecting advertisers who violate our policies
- Faster manual review process: Some ads need to be reviewed manually. To increase our response time in preventing ads from policy-violating advertisers, we sped up our internal processes and systems for manual reviews, enabling our specialists to be more precise and fast
- Twenty-four hour response time: We aim to respond within 24 hours upon receiving a reliable complaint about an ad to ensure that we’re reviewing ads in a timely fashion

The fact that Google says its safe to click on ads should be taken with a grain of salt. Of course it wants to make sure they’re safe and that you’re not worried, the company makes money every single time you click on one.

Google also says that “bad ads” on its system had declined over 50% in 2011 from 2010, disabling over 130 million nasties. The company also shared the handy video below to explain its ad system to consumers and why it’s OK to click away:

Creating a sticky game that keeps players coming back for more is trick in and of itself. Once you’ve made the app and released it into the wild, finding a way to make money with it is even trickier. That’s where Kiip saw a need and came to the rescue with its genius real-world rewards platform.

The premise is simple, developers can create unlockable achievements in their games, and Kiip will reward those players with physical items from its advertising partners. With about 100 games using Kiip’s platform, its CEO Brian Wong told me on the phone today that is has opened up over 500 million new inventory spots for advertisers.

There is no shortage of advertisers looking to spend money, only shortage of spots to insert advertising. By building a relationship with top-tier advertisers like Disney, Pepsi, Popchips, and Sears, Kiip provides a way for game developers to make their players happy and rewarded with really cool stuff that they can even pass on to their friends.

Today, Kiip has announced that its platform is open for all developers to use, lifting its selective beta-like gates. The company has been selective in choosing developers to use its platform so that it could control growth and properly scale the product for this public launch. The time is here and now any developer can start including Kiip rewards with just a single line of code.

It’s a win, win, win situation

Kiip has found itself a fantastic niche for providing advertisers with new real estate, developers with a way to make money from their games, and take a cut of the action for itself. Wong told me that out of its 100 games using Kiip, 10 of them are in the top 100 games on Apple’s App Store. That means that the games themselves are sticky and Kiip is rewarding those gamers for coming back. In fact, Kiip currently displays 4 rewards every second in the apps where it is included.

To make it easy for developers to get started with Kiip, Wong says that the company worked really hard to create an onboarding experience that “walks the talk” when it comes to easy:

You can literally type in your app name or game and we’ll automatically pull in all of the details about your app and prepopulate everything.

Here’s a taste of what developers can expect when they sign up for Kiip:

The walkthrough takes developers through every step of the process including setting up their achievements and spitting out the necessary code for their app.

Rewarding the developers

While Kiip is building a huge niche for itself with its rewards platform, the company wants to give back even more to developers and reward them for using its offerings. In that vein, the company is also announcing a new $100,000 developers fund called “Build”, which will provide $5k to 20 app developers that the company will announce on April 20th. Developers can register for the Build program now in hopes of being one of the lucky $5k recipients.

Wong tells me that this fund is for developers who don’t have the capital to keep a game going after seeing success when it launches:

Some developers are really good at generating a lot of downloads on the first day of launch, but what about the days after? All of these developers have incredible passion for what they do and the indies are finally getting their chance.

Games that use Kiip are happy to use the platform, as Mega Jump developer Derek Van Vliet shares:

Kiip has helped us add a consistent incremental five-figure revenue stream to Mega Jump that was extremely easy to integrate without affecting our existing user experience and our game design canvas, while providing a genuine opportunity to thank our players.

By providing advertising opportunities that gamers see as welcomed rewards, Kiip has cracked open a new opportunity for brands to build relationships with consumers in a way that they haven’t been able to before. Now that the platform is open to all developers, expect more and more popular games to incorporate rewards like a free bag of chips for beating a boss at the end of a level.

➤ Kiip registration for developers

Facebook is planning to make a bulk of its money from advertising, that’s no secret. When you’re logged into the social network you’ll see display ads on the right-hand side of your Newsfeed that loosely fit your interests. The company is also dropping “Sponsored Stories” directly into your Newsfeed as well, so it seems like nothing is off-limits at this point.

In the past, the company has used your web history for ad targeting and with the whole Beacon debacle, turned your purchasing and liking into “social ads” that freaked everyone out. It seems like we’ve come full circle since Beacon, as one user has explained how he became an unexpected spokesperson for an item that would make some people blush.

Nick Bergus is like any other Internet user, he found something funny online and posted it without thinking twice. If it’s funny it’s worth posting on Twitter or Facebook to get a laugh or two from your friends. You might even get a bunch of likes.

Little did Bergus know, his funny post would be turned into an advertisement paid for by Amazon.

55 gallons of what?

If you’ve ever spent some extra time surfing around on Amazon, you know that there are some really odd things you can buy on the site. Up until a year ago I didn’t know that you could buy toilet paper in bulk on Amazon, but alas you can. Bergus found something else I didn’t know you could buy on Amazon, personal lubricant. But not just a little tube of personal lubricant, a 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant. I’m not sure how he found it, but obviously he was stoked that he did.

On Valentine’s Day he thought this would make a great tweet and Facebook post along with a link to the item:

A 55-gallon drum of lube on Amazon. For Valentine’s Day. And every day. For the rest of your life.

A week went by and then one of his friends noticed that his post made a return visit as a Sponsored Story next to his Newsfeed:

This isn’t just a one time showing though, as his friends are telling him that they see the ad every single time that they log into Facebook. Oops. Facebook clearly saw the post by Bergus as a popular piece of data when it came to this product, so Amazon is now paying to have it featured. There’s no telling how many people have seen this ad and recognized him in the photo, but it must be pretty embarrassing for him.

So be careful of what you post on Facebook, or you just might become the next spokesperson for it.

Bonus material – This review for the product on Amazon is too funny not to share:

A little over a decade ago, I bought my 55 gallon drum of lube. I never thought I’d use it all but a few days ago the pump finally ran dry. I’ve had a lot of good times with it. My wife, too. And not just what you’d think. One day I just hosed down our hardwood-floored hallway so I could use it as a slip-n-slide. You shouldn’t think of this as a ‘purchase.’ It’s an ‘investment.’ An investment sure to pay off in spades.

What’s the latest news from Facebook right now? TNW Facebook has the answer.

In the tradition of themed ads from Apple, such as the ones for FaceTime that featured grandparents seeing their grandkids for the first time, the company has been whipping up TV ads for the most notable feature on the iPhone 4S, Siri.

The last ad for Siri, which was holiday themed, showed Santa Claus using Siri to help him make deliveries. These latest installments appeal to two very distinct sets of potential users; musicians and travelers.

In the first ad, called “Rock God”, a budding musician uses the device to find a new guitar, play a new song, and contact bandmates via text message. The kid even tells Siri what to call him from now on:

In this ad, called “Road Trip”, a series of vignettes show the GPS capability of the iPhone 4S as travelers look for things to do in their area, as well as find gas when they’ve run out:

Apple does a fantastic job at humanizing its technology, and these new ads continue that tradition. Whether you’re on a bike trying to read a text message or stranded in the middle of nowhere, Apple hopes that its device is the one you turn to.

If you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday you caught a pretty good show. From a football perspective, it was a pretty exciting game in the fourth quarter. The ads during the big game? Not so super if you ask me.

In one of the biggest yearly opportunities to catch a large audience staring at a screen for hours on end, big brands spent an estimated $3.5M each on Super Bowl ads. It’s the perfect time for innovation and interaction, especially using the Internet, Twitter, and Facebook, right? Wrong, big brands spending major money for ads aren’t so sold on using social media just yet.

According to analysis from Altimeter Group, 32% of the eighty seven ads displayed yesterday made no online reference whatsoever:

In what I’ll call “playing it safe”, it appears that most companies who did make reference to a presence on the Internet, chose to use their own URL rather than a hashtag or Facebook URL. Why is this? It has to do with controlling the message, obviously.

If I’m company and I’m spending a lot of money on the biggest television stage in the United States, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to ask millions of people to use a hashtag. There’s just no context to be had there and nothing to be gained. As we’ve seen with a recent McDonalds hashtag gaffe, it might actually cost you more money and brand integrity to defend something gone awry.

I’ve seen hashtags pop up on the screen a lot during television shows, and that’s the context that makes sense for me. If I’m watching a show that I’m really into, there’s a good chance that I’ll tweet something using its hashtag as a reference point and as a way to become a part of a larger conversation. For Super Bowl ads that cost so much money, there’s only one conversation to be had: did it suck or not? That’s not a question these brands want to ask, therefore they kept the social out of the ad.

In fact, the Altimeter Group points out that hashtags were only a part of 7% of the Super Bowl ads yesterday, and that doesn’t surprise me a bit. You can’t have a conversation without context, and I think that brands restraining themselves from using social media hooks and tricks as a way to seem cool is a good thing. These are “display” ads after all, and not interactive ones.

In a comScore study posted today, we are reminded of what we already knew; Facebook is an absolute beast when it comes to cornering people’s time online.

For example, this stat seemed so insane, I thought it was fake at first:

Social networking accounts for nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online in October 2011

Social networking is a hobby of 82 percent of the global Internet population, which sits at around 1.2 billion users. Just a reminder, Facebook has over 800 million users. Facebook most definitely owns social networking.

Stats and Thoughts

In October, Facebook reached more than half (55 percent) of the world’s global audience and accounted for 1 in every 7 minutes spent online around the world and 3 in every 4 social networking minutes.

Facebook’s users aren’t just loyal, they’re obsessed. These types of numbers show that the features that social network is building have one goal; to keep you on Facebook, and not let you leave. If you take a look at the most recent changes on the site, such as the Ticker and Timeline, they’re built to keep you digging into someone’s profile and content.

In October, Twitter reached 1 in 10 Internet users worldwide, growing 59 percent in the past year.

Facebook’s game is engagement, while Twitter is surging to touch as many people as possible. It’s safe to say that Twitter will never get anywhere close to the engagement numbers that Facebook has, and it doesn’t want them. With its latest redesign, the site is becoming easier to use, as Facebook is becoming more complicated. Twitter is betting that simplicity will win out, and eyeballs for any amount of time is key. The company actually has a shot to get more eyeballs in 2012 than Facebook if it stays focused and keeps being integrated into every mainstream property possible.

People age 55 and older represented the fastest-growing age segment in global social networking usage, increasing nearly 10 percentage points since July 2010 to 80 percent in October 2011.

Have you noticed that it’s not just your friends and college buddies on Facebook anymore? Mom’s using it, grandma’s using it, cousins, uncles, everyone. This will be an interesting trend to watch, because I think that this particular age group will be the one that gets Facebook to 1 billion users.

Survey says? We’re obsessed. Seriously, and in some cases unhealthily, obsessed with social networking.

Will the obsession turn into dollars?

2011 was the year of data collection. Facebook and Twitter have made its services easier to use so you can share more. The sites know a lot about you based on the things you’ve told them, so 2012 will be the year of capitalizing on it.

Facebook will be placing ads in the News Feed next year, and is hoping to collect your clicks and crank up those ad dollars before it goes public. Twitter is planning similar advertising approaches, hoping to capitalize on your obsessive use of the service, with an ad that fits your likes.

We know that ads are coming, but “will they work?” is the true question. Seeing as Google AdWords have done quite well for the company, they probably will.

Why? Because Google was the first online service that people got obsessed with. “Facebooking” is the next “Googling”, and the money will follow. We’re obsessed with TV, too. Advertising on television isn’t what it used to be though, mainly because of the Internet. What are we doing instead of watching TV? We’re on Facebook.

Get the picture? Obsession = $$$.

If you operate or work for a nonprofit organization, you know that the road to donations to keep you afloat is a bumpy one. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have made it easier than ever to spread the word about the cause that you work so hard to support.

Twitter specifically has helped pair up celebrities and charities to build a megaphone of social good, giving free advertising to cash-strapped nonprofits who are on the service to get support for cleaner water, those dealing with cancer, and everything else in between.

Up until now, Twitter has helped some of those organizations get attention, although not officially. The company says that it has given over $300,000 worth of pro-bono advertising to 50 organizations to date by way of promoted accounts and tweets.

Twitter is now making this service official, calling it “Ads for Good”.

Here’s what the company had to say on its advertising blog today:

Today we’re expanding our pro-bono ads program – now called Twitter Ads for Good – and unveiling a new fund designated for non-profits in our hometown of San Francisco. By providing grants for San Francisco organizations, we’re extending a hand to the non-profits that work hard to make our city a better place to live.

To apply for a Twitter Ads for Good campaign, complete this contact form and detail how your organization would benefit from one of these grants. For FAQ on these programs, please see here and follow @twittergood for the global highlights.

The company is now accepting applications from properly setup 501c3 organizations, via its Hope140 site.

In addition to pro-bono advertising, Twitter has given 21 lucky organizations an enhanced profile page, which launched last week.

These organizations include @kiva, @jobsforusa, @roomtoread, @globalcitizenyr, @redcross, and @gaffta.

Who said ads were evil? Here’s a way to make advertising more relevant to users, by making them care about what they’re clicking on. That’s donation by action, folks.

It’s always nice to see a platform use its power for social good, and Twitter has been doing it in one way or another since launching. Now it’s official.

There’s no doubt about it, marketing on Facebook is something businesses are doing more and more as the social network grows closer to one billion members. The Facebook ad team has actually done a wonderful job working with engineers at the company to build an easy to use, self-service ad product that makes Google AdWords targeting seem silly and incomplete.

You can target Facebook ads to people of a certain age, location, or area of interest. You can get really focused with your marketing.

This infographic from Flowtown shows survey results the company collected about who is marketing on Facebook. Impressively, 69% of the businesses they spoke with are utilizing Facebook for this very purpose. The infographic also shows that Health Care is the most expensive industry to market on Facebook, and it would cost you upwards of $320,000 to get 300,000 likes on your Facebook page. Wowser.

Click here to see it in its full glory: