FUBAR - A Story About Facebook
omFUBAR. Facebook Unleashes Beacon Advertising Rampage.
This week Facebook Unleashed its Beacon Advertising Rampage. Facebook violated its users. It treated them improperly. It abused them.
Facebook launched its new targeted advertising platform, Beacon, which uses information from users activities (both on the site AND on the rest of the Internet) to advertise to other users. One Facebook user reported a live-feed message that went out over facebook about a shoe purchase he made (Womens Easy Spirit shoes from Zappos), which were actually purchased by his mother, from the same computer he was on Facebook with earlier that day.
The idea behind Beacon probably isn't bad - create a platform where you can see what your friends are buying/watching/listening to as a way to make the advertising more relevant. Marketing can be beneficial for people, when they get the right message, in the right place, at the right time. At Blogworld a speaker (sorry can't remember who) used this example - If I go for a walk in the forest, I don't want billboards screaming at me, but after 30 min I would probably be pretty happy to have someone offer to sell me a bottle of water. Beacon would be like broadcasting the voice of my friend (without their knowledge) through the forest saying "I just bought Evian - you should too".
I love marketing. I think that if you do a great job as a marketer, consumers will want to hear your message (You'll be the guy with the water bottle). With the loyal user base and depth of user data that Facebook has, they could create breakthroughs in targeted advertising and permission based marketing.
Facebook violated their users privacy, and put the sweet cold cash from advertisers first. The worst part is that the traffic generated by these users is the only reason that Facebook can earn ad revenue. And most people like facebook because (unlike Myspace) it isn't full of obnoxious ads and sexual predators. Facebook should better understand their users and what they like about Facebook, and find a way to earn revenue within that framework. The users generate the advertising opportunity, and the user needs should come first.
Interestingly enough, TYPEPAD is listed on this blog post as an advertiser in Beacon.
