Facebook has always shied away from adult stuff -- both in terms of content and advertising -- for an obvious reason: Its core audience of college and high school kids includes lots of underage users. But an update to their platform, which allows application makers to restrict who can see their apps (by age and location), means that will start changing.
The first step: Facebook will start allowing booze ads.
Technically, that means the social network is revising its Platform Application Guidelines to allow developers to have grown-up content on their apps -- as long as they're only allowing people 21 and older to see it. In the real world, it means Facebook developers can now tap into a huge ad market. According to AdAge, Anheuser-Busch alone spent $1.35 billion on advertising last year.
And how does Facebook know how old its users are? Because they tell them.
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