TMW Ideas

Facebook is reaching out to the wider world with its Beacon programme (http://www.facebook.com/business/?beacon). A really interesting idea in extending their users' interactions beyond facebook and out into the wider web world. Where sites incorporate some script from Facebook, then any action which a facebook user takes on that site can be sent back as an update onto their facebook profile (as long as they dont opt out!). This in turn of course, is notified to their wider contacts in the style of “Ross is buying a book “Marketing for beginners” on Amazon.co.uk.

So far, so good. A nice way of extending facebook as your personal diary of activity, enabling users to share ever increasing detail on their lives with their friends.

However, their must be a real risk of a backlash against this. How much detail are you willing to share with your friends on your online browsing habits, and surely the opt-out should really be an opt-in?

But, in what is becoming the hottest web area since search, it is an interesting way of creating greater user commitment to sharing their lives online with friends and colleagues. Google has taken notice, and through the Open Social initiative, is hoping to reduce the dominance of Faceboook and lower the barriers to entry in the market, tying themselves neatly into the social advertisers slot in the process. Let battle commence.