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November 28, 2007

Report That Facebook May Cave on Beacon: Victory For Users May Be Nigh

Duncan Riley

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facebooklogo2.gifThe upswell of concern relating to Facebook’s Beacon advertising program, including a campaign from Moveon.org may have been successful ,with BusinessWeek reporting that Facebook is discussing changes to the program that could be announced as soon as tomorrow (Nov 29). Facebook executives are said to “deep talks over proposed changes late into the afternoon on Nov. 28.”

Despite its possible lack of concern to the wider community, Facebook’s Beacon program has become a major issue in the tech community, with TechCrunch readers voting strongly in our poll of November 25 that Facebook’s current practices worry them.

Moveon has previously reported that the ability to opt-out of the program was available in early tests of the program, but strangely dropped when it was fully released.

Facebook indicated earlier this week that it was “listening to feedback from its users and committed to evolving Beacon so users have even more control over the actions shared from participating sites with their friends on Facebook,” so the BusinessWeek story would seem likely to be true.

What form these changes will take is yet to be disclosed, but more importantly it will be interesting to see whether the changes go far enough to appease the growing chorus of anti-Facebook rhetoric.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Report That Facebook May Cave on Beacon: Victory For Users May Be Nigh  »TechAddress

    November 28th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

  2. Business News Research » Report That Facebook May Cave on Beacon: Victory For Users May Be Nigh

    November 28th, 2007 at 11:59 pm

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  1. Paul McEnany

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

    I’m telling you, they’re doing this on purpose. Classic PR move.

    http://heehawmarketing.typepad.....ok-ba.html

  2. Dubai Trader

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Facebook still rocks even with complaints (their will always be haters).

  3. Steve Spalding

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:34 pm

    Sounds right. In the techosphere, all press is good press. Especially when you get a nice big group of protesters out of it.

    I am sure that if Facebook learned anything from News Feed it is that there is no better way to get the word out (to the masses) about a major feature release than to whip up a privacy scare.

    Until about last week, everyone I asked (heavy Facebook users, mind you) had no idea what Beacon was. These days, well, it’s that “weird advertising thing that tells all your friends what you’re buying.”

    Mark should write a text book.

  4. Duncan Riley

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:35 pm

    Paul
    it does seem to me that they always seem to thrive off controversy, so there may be some element of truth to that.

  5. Jack

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:37 pm

    I’m currently blocking Beacon using Blocksite (the Firefox plugin). I hope they make it optional as I’m quite pissed with Facebook about it.

  6. Jack

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    Still don’t see the point of Facebook. I get less spam using email. Whats the point if you have 50 friends for example, one will send me a rubbish ‘if you send this to 12 people blah blah’ fine I play along. By the end of the week i come back and every single one of my 50 friends have sent the same stupid thing back (and the F7 key or whatever is still blissfully unaware of my secret admirer) So I have to scroll down through pages and pages of the same crap, not different crap the exact same crap message. It’s the same as sending a joke picture with email only worse.
    But we as human beings seem to crave this attention? otherwise I think most intelligent people would cotton on and quit not long after joining.

  7. Web Design in Australia

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    It’s hardly the worst thing Facebook could do… Sure, it’s not really the best way to treat users but Facebook is a relatively young company - it needs to make -some- mistakes :)

  8. Boris M. Silver

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:46 pm

    Jack, best I can say is de-friend those people. None of my friends ever post rubbish like that on my wall probably because I’d either delete their post or smack them next time I saw them.

  9. Kelli

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:48 pm

    I don’t doubt that Facebook thrives off controversy. However, this may be a game that if they play too much, they could lose and lose big. As much as people would love to see how much personal information Google has on us, let’s be realistic, no hacker no matter how good, is going to get it, their network is too strong and powerful. Facebook on the other hand seems to have little or no problem sharing users information without concern for its users. If that continues to be their policy, hackers and others would keep trying to get their hands on it and that would kill Facebook faster than you can say ‘Deadpool’.

  10. Duncan Riley

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:56 pm

    Kelli
    remember the ruckus over the friend feeds and the attention it got, Facebook went from strength to strength. What’s the saying: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger :-)

  11. Jeff T

    November 28th, 2007 at 11:16 pm

    Duncan,

    You are obviously a fan of FB and don’t mind Beacon, but in no way is the latest Beacon issue in anyway positive. If they issue an Opt-In no doubt it waters down the benefit to advertisers and they have definitely lost a few loyal users because of this.

  12. Duncan Riley

    November 28th, 2007 at 11:45 pm

    Jeff T
    I’d be lucky if I logged into Facebook once a week, and usually that’s due to multiple-friend requests. I appreciate that others like it, and that’s its wildly popular, but I’m not a big user nor a huge fan, but having said that I don’t dislike it either. On Beacon its not that I like it, it’s that I don’t really care because I’m not a passionate Facebook user, but I respect (mostly thanks to the TC poll) that others do. The machinations in terms of how this is playing out in public though do interest me: contrived drama or serious debate? Has Zuckerberg learnt a lesson etc etc…

  13. EH

    November 28th, 2007 at 11:59 pm

    I’m probably one of a zillion people who called this as “easier to ask forgiveness than permission” market research. Wow, so they can push around their users, now I’m curious what the next one’s going to be.

  14. Snyggast

    November 29th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    yakety yakety yak! Y’all should stop whining like a bunch of prepubescent girls. Facebook loves me, Facebook loves me not. No one’s forcing you to use Facebook.

  15. Duncan Riley

    November 29th, 2007 at 12:16 am

    Snyggast
    as I said in the earlier post: if you don’t like it you can always take your business elsewhere :-)

  16. Peter Corbett

    November 29th, 2007 at 3:09 am

    God I love TC readers for how savvy you are.

    Yes, this is a clasic PR move…zuck played it perfectly the first time with mini-feeds. He’ll do it again here.

    Look for a “we listened to the community and have adapted beacon to give you more control” line soon…

    Beacon, btw will become one of your favorite features 3-4 months from now. Promise. You’ll opt-in to be tracked and you’ll check off specific sites whose off site actions of yours you want broadcast within fb.

    FYI I talked to fb last week and they plan to sell beacon insertions in the mini-feed on a CPM basis($10cpm I think). I told them they’ll make more money on a CPA basis if their ctr is as high in the minifeed as they claim…this could be the next iteration of http://www.cj.com’s model.

    -Peter Corbett

    Http://www.twitter.com/corbett3000

  17. Jonathan Trenn

    November 29th, 2007 at 4:04 am

    Well, Facebook should be in meeting and they should switch Beacon to opt-in. Remember the concept of permission marketing? There could be a lot of disasters with this system as is. And soon there will be a backlash against the participants.

    I guess this is the Calvin Klein method. Put out a TV commercial that many deem offensive, get buzz, apologize. Buzz sells.

    But I think here, FB could be harmed if this isn’t changed before the holiday season really kicks in. Like in a week and a half.

  18. I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog

    November 29th, 2007 at 4:58 am

    I’m still clueless as to why Facebook users consider this a problem. It’s a site that exposes your private life to other people. Beacon just gives you more of the same.

    Going to a site who’s raison d’etre is collecting personal information and displaying it to people you don’t know, and then complaining that they’re starting to collect the wrong kind of personal information and to display it to the wrong kind of people you don’t know, is like sitting in the front row of the circus and expecting not to get wet.

  19. WTL

    November 29th, 2007 at 7:02 am

    The one point I have not seen raised yet is the lack of any substantial Beacon or Sponsored News Feed advertising. I’m on FB daily and have a sizeable friend list. However, the amount of advertising coming through my News Feed (which is what they are banking the entire company on) is insignificant. What’s more, they just announced the cancellation of the FB Flyer program.

    Could the controversy over Beacon and the questionable effectiveness of NewsFeed ads be leaving the major ad players on the sidelines while all this shakes out? If so, this might be a pretty expensive lesson for FB.

    I’m not at all convinced this company can become profitable without killing itself.

  20. grammar

    November 29th, 2007 at 9:16 am

    I love this blog, and interesting post Duncan, but do you guys reread what you write before you post?

    executives are said to “deep talks”…

    Sure I know what you mean, but come on.

  21. Alan Wilensky

    November 29th, 2007 at 10:43 am

    I’ve yet to find a ‘use critical case’ for Facebook in my business. Perhaps there will be a general evolution of personal interactions models over time. But if FB vanished overnight, I’m not sure I’d miss it.

    For certain B2B clients in the service industry, I can see how new White Box social networks and widget wrappers can be a big boon, with modification so that service specialists can elevate critical technical issues far better than forums.

    The Beacon thing could be re-tooled for just that purpose, i.e., broadcasting critical technical service and warranty issues in real time.

  22. Fabian Schonholz

    November 29th, 2007 at 11:54 am

    All of you that are pissed at Facebook … why don’t you move on from it? What’s the point of protesting if you are not going to really drop the service? Ahhh … PR .. oh yes!! We love to hate and hate to love!!

  23. Steve Ballmer

    November 29th, 2007 at 12:46 pm

    FaceBook will never, never ever cave on Beacon, NEVER!
    btw what’s beacon?

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  24. TheDuhMoment

    November 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Did somebody say bacon?

  25. Christopher Herot

    November 29th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

    I don’t see how this can be anything but good for Facebook. By overreaching and then dialing back, they will precise calibrate how far they can push their users. The controversy will generate awareness among advertisers and be forgotten by the users. (Notice how no one complains about the news feed any more.)

    Facebook will need to keep experimenting like this until they figure out some way to generate enough revenue to justify that $15B valuation.

  26. charles

    November 29th, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Use Firefox and download the “Block Site” add on [both are free]
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145

    Enter this url into the Block Site add on: http://facebook.com/beacon/*

    This will permanently block the beacon from ever functioning, anywhere.

    keep rockin it Mozilla dev community

    —–>

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