Facebook adds 60 leading advertisers to website

Leading social networking website Facebook has expanded its advertising offering with the addition of 60 new leading consumer and internet brands to its new ad system portfolio.

Company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hailed the launch of Facebook Ads in front of an audience of over 250 marketing and advertising executives in New York.

The system aims to connect businesses directly with users who are interested in their products through bespoke advertising.

Mr Zuckerberg commented: "Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online.

"For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they're going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do."

Over 100,000 new Facebook pages were launched in conjunction with the new system covering some of the world's largest brands and businesses.

He added: "It's no longer just about messages that are broadcasted out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. So we set out to use these social actions to build a new kind of ad system."