I make the argument on my blog that beacon is not only essentially harmless but will ultimately be a big part of Facebook’s success. Facebook’s brilliance is figuring out that people’s actions as recorded and broadcast in the news feed is what makes facebook so compelling - extending it to 3rd party sites is natural and a huge enhancement of the news feed. Beacon’s going to be huge mark my words.

http://www.sawickipedia.com/bl.....ve-it-too/

“Sean Lane’s purchase was supposed to be a surprise for his wife. Then it appeared as a news headline - “Sean Lane bought 14k White Gold 1/5 ct Diamond Eternity Flower Ring from overstock.com” - last week on the social networking Web site Facebook.

Without Lane’s knowledge, the headline was visible to everyone in his online network, including 500 classmates from Columbia University and 220 other friends, co-workers and acquaintances.

And his wife.”

Full text here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....RTLQAQ.DTL

I think Beacon will ultimately fail for Facebook.

Today Facebook announced new updates to Facebook Beacon, which you can read about here. However, the thing that struck me most was an answer from an interview by the New York Times with Facebook’s Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president of product …

ISPs already know everything we do online, browser history’s track our most recent moves there, our credit cards retain a record of everything we purchase, mobile phones track our very movements, and CCTV at our places of work and elsewhere capture everything else!

And now Facebook want to tell everyone we know the things we read and buy online? How long before someone decides to begin aggregating all or parts of this data swarm?

Did Facebook run out of ideas? There are many other ways to convey to a group the popularity of a purchase/company other than broadcasting a customer’s loyaty to all of their friends, family and employers.

Let’s just implant RFID chips at birth and be done with it. Madness.

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

I’m perfectly happy to have Facebook distribute reviews I write on Yelp. (I was using an application called Yelper to do this before Beacon existed.) But I wouldn’t want Facebook to automatically publish all my reservations on OpenTable (OT is not a partner, this is hypothetical).

If I sell an unwanted gift on eBay, I don’t want friends to know about it. Not only do I not want Facebook to publish that information, I don’t want them to get it in the first place.

The biggest problem with Beacon is that there isn’t a clear benefit to the user. It seems like a data grab primarily for marketing purposes. Jason Calacanis’ take on this is well worth reading:
http://www.calacanis.com/2007/.....r-data-or/

But, for Facebook’s sake, they have allowed me to run two of my ads on “evolve already” monkey merchandise.

It is strictly targeted to liberal women who like evolution and feminism.

Not a single sale.

Whoa is me.

sincerely,
angela hayden
art goddess

The better model:
1. Focus on selling high CPM ads based on precise targeting on site (already done)
2. Sell ads next to facebook messages based on targeting and message text (ala gmail) - this will also work through facebook mobile
3. Outbound search + keyword CPC (like google) - also bring stickiness to facebook mobile app.
4. Use social graph click-through data to better display higher performing CPC ads to members with similar profiles and within networks (beat google CPC) - coupled with beacon internal information to measure conversions.

The sending of data to facebook may be a violation of privacy policies of many sites (imagine if every purchase you made was sent back to google for example) or better yet, lets say your insurance company heard about every purchase of a dangerous product (like a jetski or motorcycle) a really slippery slope in my opinion. Regardless, facebook will grow organically for many years in targeted display ads, but will never reach high revenue numbers.

i support you, man! i hope you can feel the love through the matrix.

sincerely,
angela hayden
art goddess

I’ve got no problems with Duncan and think he’s a great writer - when he does get a story from another source he is great about citing it (some other large blogs are awful at this).

I see no problem with copying a chunk of a company release - certainly better than misquoting it!

No beef here, sorry for the confusion.

but I’m sure little ol’ innocent me can trust anything on the internet.

As far as this news goes, I don’t see any downfall for facebook. In a lot of respects, they are the leader, and as such they try to tap into every opportunity. Obviously, it’s much safer for other players to watch what these guys make a mark and then follow suit, but it’s not innovative. facebook is being innovative!

Facebook will do another round of financing at a 50% discount and sell out to Microsoft who is desperate for any traction.

Here’s a memo to Facebook.
1) We are in a rescession.
2) The buying power of your audience is hovering between zero and $23k. This equates to high school seniors and college students landing their “job”.

Happy New Year!

Facebook will do another round of financing at a 50% discount and sell out to Microsoft who is desperate for any traction.

Here’s a memo to Facebook.
1) We are in a rescession.
2) The buying power of your audience is hovering between zero and $23k. This equates to high school seniors and college students landing their “job”.

Happy New Year!