Backlash Against Facebook’s “Beacon” Begins
November 27, 2007
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It’s the holiday’s right? A time for merrily buying Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts, Kwanzaa gifts (and, if you’re wondering, time for buying MY birthday present–the 29th of December, write it down…).
Imagine this scenario. A Facebook member, you buy a nice pair of leather gloves from Overstock.com for your boyfriend for Hanukkah. A while later, **poof**, your choice is sent out in your news feed–a feed that broadcasts to all your friends, including er, um, that boyfriend. Dang!
That’s exactly what happened to Matthew Helfgott’s girlfriend, he says. Another couple had their choice of movie broadcast on their feed because they bought the tickets at Fandango. This was ok, they said, because they were seeing “No Country for Old Men.” But here’s the best line of the article:
“What if I was seeing ‘Fred Claus‘? That would have been much more embarrassing. At least this was a prestigious movie.”
While his reaction is funny, people are starting to see why Facebook’s new advertising platform is named “Beacon” (see definition of beacon if you don’t get that). Many bloggers are unhappy about it. Link 1. Link 2. Link 3. And it can send news about things you do away from Facebook to your Facebook friends.
“Add 3 lines of code and reach millions of users,” Facebook says.
As someone who runs a social media agency, I love this idea. What an opportunity to market on a social media platform. What a great way to let the confidence of a friend influence buying decisions. This should be powerful stuff.
But as someone who believes that social media marketing is more than being about a new place to run ads, I think this solution was a little too easy for Facebook. I believe they rushed it out to capitalize on their otherwise great momentum and to prove to people that they could monetize their success.
What this backlash may be showing, however, is just how hard it will be for Facebook to ever monetize their success to the point that they can justify their current valuation. They may yet figure it out, as they’ve done a lot right. But if the Beacon backlash continues, it could be seriously brand damaging for Facebook. I think this is the first of many mainstream articles about unintended consequences.
Here’s a prediction: A boss somewhere is going to notice on a news feed some purchases by his co-worker that align with times he was supposed to be working. Watch for that article. Just like that intern who got Facebook-busted for the Halloween party, and he didn’t have a Beacon shouting about it…
What do you think? Is Beacon the opening that social media agencies and social media marketers have been looking for? Or is a fairly significant mistake by Facebook that needs to be tweaked?
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3 Responses to “Backlash Against Facebook’s “Beacon” Begins”
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Facebook has definatly lost some points with me. When I first joined what I loved about Facebook over Myspace and other similiar sites was NO ADS and the better privacy than myspace. Now more and more each day we are seeing ADS not only for other applications on facebook but for other sites, products and more. Now with the whole Beacon thing it is making me want to seriously consider finding another social networking site but without the ADS and Beacon like feature. Facebook can’t be stupid they have got to been reading the many articles and emails telling them how stupid of an idea and how wrong the Beacon and ADS are and how they are such a BIG violation of our privacy. Isn’t there some laws they are breaking by violating our privacy with this Beacon and ADs thing? They better hurry up and get rid of this Beacon thing and all ADS that are not talking about applications on Facebook or they will see much bigger numbers of ppl leaving facebook to either go back to myspace or to go to some other social networking site. Shame on you facebook and Shame on you for letting some big major company have a 1.6% share of Facebook. Its like you sold out. Boo Facebook BOO!
UPDATE: Now someone has had their engagement ruined by Facebook Beacon. Bad for them. Brand damaging for Facebook: engagement surprise ruined by Facebook
[…] ignores, however, is the brand damage that could do to Facebook, which is already reeling from a backlash over their Beacon program, which they recently […]