The Beaconization of the Web

A lot of ink and pixels have been spent on Facebook's Beacon feature.  Most of the concern has been about Facebook's clumsy implementation of privacy controls and backlash among users that don't want to share what they're doing on the web with others.  I've heard the story about how Facebook was ruining holiday gift giving probably 10 times in the past 2 weeks.

I'm going to come out and say that I'm a big fan of Beacon and what it represents.  With the right privacy controls and affilates, I think Beacon represents a paradigm shift in the way people share information about themselves online.  A recent article by Sandy Pentland at MIT describes the concept of using "reality mining" to monitor actions on a cell phone to develop a representation of a person and their web of connections online.  With all due credit to Erving Goffman and his assessment of behavior in a specific context, our online identity is a new framing of representation of the self. 

The key concept for me from this and other research is that aggregating actions on a cell phone, on the web, or in the real world can speak volumes about who you are.  Just knowing that I spend a night on Mercer Island and a day in downtown Seattle speaks volumes.

I believe that Beacon will work through the kinks and privacy issues to enable users to share what they want from the web on their profiles.  Services like Six Apart (the platform that runs this blog) have introduced features to enable comments to post through Beacon on Facebook.   The difference at Six Apart is that their solution is completely opt-in.  Though details are murky, Pluck recently announced features to allow users to share activity on Pluck-enabled services with Facebook and OpenSocial.

There are lots of potential ways that Beacon-like services can extend, connecting actions on any service to any other service, and potentially any device, as long as users are in control.  In a Beaconized world, applications will create lots of value for users if they can require very little if any work to extend identity on the web.

Comments

[Alan]

I agree the Beaconization of the web could be a great thing if done right - there is no more powerful endorsement of a product or service than someone telling their friends about a purchase. And it's something people willingly do all the time (see review/recommendation sites, etc.)

But Facebook has a bigger problem than just needing to tweak their privacy settings - their whole model for how Beacon works is cruddy, and I think other players are going to come along with a better model (and a more trusted brand for privacy) and carry forward the Beaconization of the web in a superior way to what Facebook is doing today.

[Joan London]

Very interesting point of view by Brian Goffman. He gives food for thought regarding this new use of the Web.

[Dave Schappell]

Hey Brian,

I'm slow to post on this topic, but as I said the other day, we're in total agreement on this one. The Facebook App that I mentioned was the 'Amazing Wishlist' app, which you can find by searching on Facebook (I tried to embed the link to it, but TypePad gave me a stiff-arm!)

When I first installed Amazing Wishlist, I didn't think anything of it -- then a few weeks later I was shocked to see some items in my Profile/mini-feed that I had added while on Amazon. LOVED that they flowed right thru to Facebook, but ideally would have liked to be alerted, just in case they were items for loved ones, embarrassing items, etc.

Voila! Beacon... think it's going to be really big... and, love the interaction with sites like Yelp, Flixster, TeachStreet, and more...

Dave