AllFacebook - Latest Comments in Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Justin Thorp — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:36:20 -0000

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

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Scott Bradley — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:03:40 -0000

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.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Search Engine Optimization Jou — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:47:37 -0000

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!

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

william lai — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:09:05 -0000

best to retreat in public now, and relaunch when memory fades. attention spans are short, just name it something different at relaunch.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Justin — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:50:31 -0000

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.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Maggy Young — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:21:01 -0000

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.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Hashim Warren — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:19:18 -0000

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.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Jerome Paradis — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:44:10 -0000

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.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

One User a Day — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:38:38 -0000

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.

Re: Why Did Facebook Give Up on Beacon?

Jacob Madison — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:09:13 -0000

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.