20 Comments »When speaking at the D6 Conference out in Carlsbad California, Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that Beacon was a big mistake. While I was personally a big critic of the system due to the inability to opt-in and the default setting of opt-out, I don’t think that Beacon was a horrendous idea. People want to let others know about some of the activities that they are up to online. Mark Zuckerberg tends to dismiss the entire program though and I think that it is a poor cop-out.
Little was said about Beacon as Kara Swisher moved on to the next question. As far as I’m concerned, Beacon wasn’t really a complete disaster. While it was a disaster among blogs, if you ask the average person what Beacon is, they probably can’t tell you. One person I spoke with last night mentioned that the difference between Microsoft and Google is that Google simply gives up on projects after trying to see what sticks whereas Microsoft remains persistent with their projects.
Facebook appears to fall into the Google category (in my broad generalization) in that they were not persistent when trying to develop Beacon. The system still works though and if you go to a few third-party sites, a notification will show up in your newsfeed. I’m not quite sure if Facebook has decided to kill Beacon or if they have quietly gone back to the drawing boards to work up a new strategy. Whatever is going on, simply dismissing the project just doesn’t seem like a good solution. Do you think Facebook should have just killed Beacon or is there potential in the project?
Beacon isn’t an idea to totally scrap. The concept is good, execution was bad.
Zuckerberg and friends need to return to the drawing table and redesign the product but keep the idea.
Beacon isn’t an idea to totally scrap. The concept is good, execution was bad.
Zuckerberg and friends need to return to the drawing table and redesign the product but keep the idea.
I don’t think that they are abandoning Beacon because advertising is the bread and butter for any social site. Facebook Beacon is still in its infant stage but when it can leverage the demographic and behavioral data and the word of mouth quality in their user base, it will be a powerful form of advertising medium. I just hope they can get there before people give up on them.
I mentioned this in a recent post that compared facebook ad vs google adwords.
Instead you can now automatically feed items in the mini-feed from other sites in Facebook through the “import” link. They are regularly adding support for other sites.
The wording is strange, but it does what you want to do. However, you have to know to click the “import” link and it’s not really well publicized.
One of my friends on Facebook changed his status message to “I hate Blockbuster for hacking into my account and posting what I rented!”
So, no, the average user doesn’t know about Beacon, but trust me - those that were affected hate it.
Agree with Jacob. I think they rushed it out in a bad format & misjudged user reaction. Then in a hurried attempt to avoid embarrassment & complaints, dropped it. But I think it may reappear in another form.
It might be a good idea to introduce certain new stuff as a trial run. This way, they don’t get the same outcry if it isn’t popular, & can amend or drop the idea without embarrassment. Helps promote user democracy as well.
I don’t think that they are abandoning Beacon because advertising is the bread and butter for any social site. Facebook Beacon is still in its infant stage but when it can leverage the demographic and behavioral data and the word of mouth quality in their user base, it will be a powerful form of advertising medium. I just hope they can get there before people give up on them.
I mentioned this in a recent post that compared facebook ad vs google adwords.
Instead you can now automatically feed items in the mini-feed from other sites in Facebook through the “import” link. They are regularly adding support for other sites.
The wording is strange, but it does what you want to do. However, you have to know to click the “import” link and it’s not really well publicized.
They’ve already paid the price for it. It’s a magnified version of the reaction they got from the friend feed to start with. If they keep improving, it could be a valuable feature. If they abandon it, the long-term PR hit is actually worse since they never demonstrate that there was any value there to begin with.
best to retreat in public now, and relaunch when memory fades. attention spans are short, just name it something different at relaunch.
One of my friends on Facebook changed his status message to “I hate Blockbuster for hacking into my account and posting what I rented!”
So, no, the average user doesn’t know about Beacon, but trust me - those that were affected hate it.
Agree with Jacob. I think they rushed it out in a bad format & misjudged user reaction. Then in a hurried attempt to avoid embarrassment & complaints, dropped it. But I think it may reappear in another form.
It might be a good idea to introduce certain new stuff as a trial run. This way, they don’t get the same outcry if it isn’t popular, & can amend or drop the idea without embarrassment. Helps promote user democracy as well.
They’ve already paid the price for it. It’s a magnified version of the reaction they got from the friend feed to start with. If they keep improving, it could be a valuable feature. If they abandon it, the long-term PR hit is actually worse since they never demonstrate that there was any value there to begin with.
best to retreat in public now, and relaunch when memory fades. attention spans are short, just name it something different at relaunch.
We agree with the other posters. We believe they had pissed so many people off, that dropping it seemed to be the only suitable idea for them to just forgive and forget. It was simply executed poorly - shame, it could have been a good thing!
We agree with the other posters. We believe they had pissed so many people off, that dropping it seemed to be the only suitable idea for them to just forgive and forget. It was simply executed poorly - shame, it could have been a good thing!
I liked the idea of beacon…but agree with you that they would probably have to put some features in to have people opt out.
I liked the idea of beacon…but agree with you that they would probably have to put some features in to have people opt out.
Beacon is a fantastic idea. I hope they keep with it.
Beacon is a fantastic idea. I hope they keep with it.