No Apology from Zuckerberg
There’s this thread (Bits and TechCrunch are good examples) going around the blogosphere that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg apologized for Beacon’s flawed launch into the world, which led to a wave of privacy concerns and public retreats from high-profile advertisers who had been Beacon supporters.
Truth be told, Zuckerberg did not apologize; not even close. In fact, you could argue he and Facebook are unrepentant about what was/is a major strategic mistake. All Zuckerberg will admit is “we missed the right balance” by not giving people enough flexibility to opt out of Beacon.
Ha! It’s like Facebook introduced a car with three wheels, and then concedes there wouldn’t have as many accidents if it had thought it through and offered a fourth wheel.
Truth be told, there’s a lot of people missing the boat when it comes to Facebook’s economic potential. Sure, it attracts a lot of users but the business model is still unproven, especially for a company worth $15-billion. If Beacon is any indication, Facebook needs to do a serious strategic re-load.
December 6th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Hmm, I read in Zuckerberg’s message:
“We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.”
December 6th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Surprise! He’s practicing for when he winds up a billionaire.
December 7th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Brusselsblogger,
You’re right, he did you use the “apologize”. But I didn’t get the sense he really meant it. It came across like what a child does when they’re forced to apologize for spilling their juice; they do it but they’re really just going through the motions.