Beacon

The Beacon facility allows you to decide what actions of a visitor to your site are worthy of reporting to other site followers. So, this could be something like making a product purchase from your store, adding an item to a wish list or maybe signing up for some free service. Basically, you decide what levels or types of engagement a site visitor needs to undertake or achieve for this information to be published to your whole user group.

Now, when Facebook first introduced the Beacon resource or toll, it caused national Press outrage, as Facebook had not included any way that the user could control the information that was sent out about them (and perhaps their purchase, for example) to a network of people, many of whom they had never met or even heard of!

Introducing the Beacon service in this format was, not surprisingly, a hugely controversial step by Facebook, as most users whose details were spread all over the Facebook site without their knowledge quite sensibly saw this as a gross violation of their right to online privacy. It should therefore be little surprise that the adverse national Press (and international online) coverage that it received soon had Facebook changing the ‘Beacon’ operating rules! Now, the user receives a notification that certain information about their actions is to be disseminated, and they have the power of veto over such actions.

Given Facebook’s undoubted faux pas and the attendant adverse coverage that it received, it is perhaps no shock to know that the Beacon service is still not all that popular! Nevertheless, once the hullabaloo has died down, there is no reason to assume that the Beacon service cannot form a valid and valuable addition to your efforts to spread your message. Try to ignore the fact that Beacon is not that popular at the moment, and take a longer term view. Begin to embrace the service sooner rather than later would be my advice!