How Facebook’s Beacon Misses the Monetary Message
by Ewan Spence
There’s a lot of discussion going at the moment in blogging and social network circles around Facebook and their advertising strategy, namely the Beacon project. This is where your purchases made in certain online stores are shared with other Facebook users in an almost “celebrity endorsement†style ‘Ewan just bought this’ river of news alert.
It’s fair to say that Facebook haven’t exactly taken the purest white route in this project. Yes you can opt out of it (on an advertiser by advertiser basis) and you do get an on screen option per purchase (but only for a short period of time before it vanishes and your consent is assumed); but this project seems designed with more in favour to the advertiser than the user of Facebook. There’s always a certain give and take in the balance a site maintains between the members and the revenue streams, and I’m confident over the next month Facebook are going to alter the Beacon project to bring this balance back. And there’ll probably be a pres release at some point about ‘how “user power†made them think twice and isn’t it great we listen to then?’
I still think that the easiest solution won’t be taken up. Whatever route Zuckerberg’s Behemoth goes down, I doubt it would be as simple as my route… a rev-share on the money that Facebook makes from each endorsement/Beacon advert.
After all, if they want to use my face to sell a pair of trainers, at least give me my percentage.
