You might not know it, but ads are starting to show up in your Facebook news feed.

Here is a great example. We advertise on Facebook. We do it every day and one of the advertising units we buy is called Sponsored Stories.

A sponsored story will now appear in the news feed rather than on the right hand side:

• A page you like posts something new. According to Facebook on average only 16% of your fans will see a post. Using sponsored stories means more people will see your post to like it, comment and of course share it and help it go viral.
• One of your friends likes the Page or the Post
• A friend does something on the page like voting on a poll or saying you will RSVP to an event.
• One of your friends checks in at your place, plays one of your game or uses an application on your site.
• A friend, while off Facebook, likes or shares your website.

In typical Facebook fashion, it’s being done without the user really knowing it’s there. It’s great for a small business like ours to get more brand awareness, but as a consumer of free Facebook content, we have to wonder if it will really start to clutter the newsfeed a bit.