What Is Facebook Thinking?

In Tuesday's class we learned about the newest application that Facebook is going to be adding to it's ever growing list of functions. The latest addition is going to be a part of "Facebook Beacon" which promotes ads on users actual news feeds. This new function is basically going to allow everyone who is a friend with you, be allowed to see exactly what you buy. (By putting a cookie on your computer that keeps track of what you bought with your credit card. If you are logged onto Facebook the same time you are buying products, than it will be added to your news feed).

At first I was like this is pretty cool. It would really help to keep people updated on what is new out there and what people are interested in, but as the class got further into discussion I remember thinking that this is a total invasion of privacy. We shared stories about how something as special as asking someone to marry them was ruined thanks to this new application. (After a person bought a ring the purchase showed up on his news feed and everyone from his girlfriend to his friends saw it, as well as the price!) This new application takes it just one step to far. This to me, just seems like Facebook is ready to start making some serious money. Think of all the companies that are going to pay them to advertise for them, when really they are doing no work at all. It seems like a win-win situation for Facebook. So many people are on Facebook and I am sure that when a new recently purchased item pops up on people's news feeds that people are going to go and check it out. They may not buy it but they will probably remember the website and use it to look for other products someday.

But this could cause a serious problem. What if people buy something that they do not want to share with the world? Facebooks PR team should get ready for a lot of complaints, and get ready to write a lot of new releases to explain why and how this could possibly be a good idea. I really do like Facebook (especially when it was more simple back in the day) but I don't like this new application. I hope that they don't end up messing up what I thought was a good social networking site.