December 9th, 2007

Did I Invent Facebook Beacon?

by Scott Karp

I came across a post I wrote last summer about Facebook monetization and was horrified to read the following:

What if there were a way for companies to identify which Facebook users were actually using their products, and then create a mechanism for the users to highlight their use of the product to their friends — and then put those users into the economic value chain.

I checked Google Analytics, and sure enough, this post received 3 visits from the thefacebook.com domain on July 12 when it was published, and again on July 24.

facebook-ga.jpg

Facebook Beacon was announced on November 6 — that would be nearly four months of development time, and considering what a mess they made of it…

You don’t think…

This is absurd, of course, but on the 0.000001% chance it’s not — I’M SO SORRY.

(The horror, the horror)

Topics: Facebook

  • That must be worth about, oh I dunno, $250m? You should expect a bottle of whisky in the post from fb. And a number of bricks through windows from everyone else.

  • Murray

    I have been saying for some time that Facebook seem to get their product strategies from blogs like publishing 2.0, techcrunch, read/write web, mashable etc

    I guess now it's proven.

    Why dont you invent another product strategy for them and see if they pick it up.

  • No matter what, from now on, I'm referring to you as Scott Karp, the guy who invented Facebook Beacon.

  • Hashim

    it's not a stretch at all

  • > Did I Invent Facebook Beacon?

    Apparently you did -- isn't that already quite obvious?

    :-)
    /ac.

  • Now that's funny Scott. The funniest thing I've ever read by you. In fact, who knows...stranger things have happened. Guess we'll have to name you in teh class action suit?? :D

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