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Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Started by Nick O'Neill · 10 months ago

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 id ... Continue reading »

10 comments

  • Jacob Madison

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • One User a Day

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • Jerome Paradis

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • Hashim Warren

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • Maggy Young

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • Justin

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • william lai

    1 year ago

    best to retreat in public now, and relaunch when memory fades. attention spans are short, just name it something different at relaunch.
    reply
  • Search Engine Optimization Jou

    1 year ago

    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!
    reply
  • Scott Bradley

    1 year ago

    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.
    reply
  • Justin Thorp

    1 year ago

    Beacon is a fantastic idea. I hope they keep with it.
    reply

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