Zuckerberg Posts on Beacon SNAFU

Facebook | The Facebook Blog

Mark Zuckerberg has posted "Thoughts on Beacon" on the Facebook blog. A key statement:

"We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even
more with how we've handled them. We simply did a bad job with this
release, and I apologize for it."

In a carefully worded, but credible statement, he talks about trying to help users find their friends stuff wherever it resides on the Internet and of establishing a balance between functionality and simplicity.

As he knows, Beacon did not come out that way. But perhaps it is salvagable. The goal of Beacon inches toward my thematice Global Neighborhoods, in which no site is relevant.  What is relevant is your circle of friends, existing by topic, not URL.

I think Mark, skated Facebook onto thin ice before recuing it on this one. In the future, he might use the Facebook blog to tell his users what his compay is trying to do.  He might also start a Facebook Group that can become a focal point for valuable user input. He also should consider engaging in blog discussion a bit faster.

It will be interesting to see hw Facebook adjusts course on this one.






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Comments

[Laurel Papworth]

780,000 members out of 3 and 1/2 million registered their concerns (in a 48 hour period) about Newsfeed this time last year. Zuckerberg told them to take a chill pill and time has proved him right.

69,000 members out of 45 million registered their concerns (in a 2 week period) about Beacon in the group Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy! Is there a larger group that I haven't found?

Perhaps the Echo Chamber at work influencing mainstream media does not reflect the concerns of the members of Facebook?

[Rob La Gesse]

@Laurel - I didn't join a Facebook group to protest Beacon. I just quit using Facebook!

My investment in Facebook wasn't worth the effort for me to complain.

Rob

[shel israel]

Laurel,
I would argue that any organization that ignore 69,000 complaints in a 2 week period is a pretty arrogant and lame company. It's a good thing for Facebook that Mark Zuckerberg apparently disagrees with you as well.

[Laurel Papworth]

You seriously think that 69k complaints out of 45 million is a substantial number? o.O

There is ALWAYS a small percentage that don't like change. Any change. I'm disappointed that Zuckerberg gave in that vocal minority - a tiny percentage of his community and the usual suspects looking for linkbait. Oh and the anti-social media, mainstream media contingent that can always be relied on to pounce on negativity.

Do you think Zuckerberg should've listened to 1/3 of his community last year and turned off NewsFeed? One reason why he is successful and traditional companies are not, is because he has a clear vision of what can work and can steer the community -kicking and screaming. Not many other CEOs would have the cajones to ignore and carry on.

[Justin Thorp]

When they gave people the option to turn off the Facebook newsfeed a lot of folks did with out thinking about it. This really crippled or neutered the feature.

The whole point of the newsfeed was to be able to at a glance to a sense of what my "global neighborhood" is doing. Which is REALLY cool and useful!

I bet I only get 1/3 of the updates in my news feed because people disabled it right after they made the option available. It makes the feature A LOT less useful.

I hope and pray that people don't do the same with Beacon. If they freak out and shut it off without thinking about it, they'll kill the usefulness of what I think could be one of FB's best potential features.