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More Beacon…

So Facebook caved in. Good riddance. Maybe we can move on to another topic now.

Only person to disagree seems to be Dave McClure (who also needs to learn how to capitalize his posts (and seems to have a tempter)):

so if you’re Facebook the real question is: do you want 90% of your users to use Beacon, or 90% of your users to NOT use Beacon?  i think the answer is pretty obvious. ultimately, News Feed / Beacon isn’t very useful for anyone (Facebook, users, advertisers) if a) there isn’t enough story inventory, and b) if people aren’t clicking on the stories.  while b) may still be up for discussion, if Beacon isn’t opt-out then a) is dead in the water from the get-go.

Problem is, Beacon was never meant to be useful for the users. It was always meant to fill Facebook’s coffers more than to be useful. What users wants his Fandango movie ticket sprees to show up in his mini-feed? How would that be useful?

The real question is: if you are a user, do you want your purchases on the web to show up on Facebook? Simple answer: no.

McClure also states:

people who are going bananas over Beacon should understand that most people on Facebook are used to the default being opt-out (ie, lifestyle transparency), not opt-in (selective sharing).

Really? Where’s the data for that? And hell, if the storm about it in the blogosphere and the involvement of MoveOn.org doesn’t mean that there are a lot of users having problems with this, then what does?

The problem here was pretty simple: Facebook did something the users didn’t like. It made adjustments. Shows you the power of the user. Good thing Facebook listened because otherwise,as Kara Swisher pointed out,

This kind of thing can turn into death by a thousand cuts for a company, if they are not careful and don’t put the right kind of leadership in place with enough judgment to avoid this kind of mess.

not sure i get your logic, but here’s mine:

if Facebook users are already sharing info about the music, videos, & books they like (via iLike, Flixster, and iRead / Virtual Bookshelf), why *WOULDN’T* they want to share the transaction info about that same set of info?

as to “the data” on Facebook users being used to lifestyle transparency… um, the data is the 50% of their 50M+ users who log in every day & share wall posts, relationship status changes, photo tagging, send gifts, & numerous other news feed stories to everyone else on facebook. don’t you think their regular use of FB is an endorsement of sharing a sh**load of personal data in an opt-out scenario?

seriously, wake up & smell the coffee. facebook users are used to sharing info about themselves with others. they may still need an education in privacy settings, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t used to that info being visible to other people.

and finally:
>>who also needs to learn how to capitalize his posts

thanks for the english lesson.

while you’re at it, the name is “McClure” or “mcclure”, but it’s not “McLure”.

Why wouldn’t they want to share those transactions? I would say, because they are transaction and because they might not even know they are sharing those transactions. The info is getting pulled in from outside facebook – users are not exactly expecting that.

Also, just because it seems a lot of Facebook users have lost any sense of privacy doesn’t mean all have. Those are the ones who hate Beacon.