I always thought Beacon would work, it was just a bit too soon for some of the older bloggers, who kicked up a stink that Beacon couldn’t be turned off and the default option was “on”.  Facebook, for a long time, didn’t remove it completely, they reset the default to private. Anyway, what was Beacon? Well, it put in your newsfeed when you bought something at eBay or Amazon or whatever. Superb if you did a great deal on a Louis Vuitton classic handbag on eBay, less good if you are buying “Herpes and You” on Amazon or porn at Blockbuster Video. But whether you like the concept of “shared shopping” or not, a type of social network is springing up where the members share what they have bought and how much and so on…

Facebook Beacon

In good ol’ business fashion, Mark Zuckerberg dealt with the fuss by saying:

About a month ago, we released a new feature called Beacon to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web. We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. While I am disappointed with our mistakes, we appreciate all the feedback we have received from our users. I’d like to discuss what we have learned and how we have improved Beacon.

and kept on going, at least for a while. A while? Well, two years. Until it got shut down by a class action lawsuit that included: Facebook, Blockbuster Inc., Overstock.com, Fandango, Hotwire.com, GameFly, Zappos.com, –  Facebook set up  BeaconClassSettlement.com. Oops.

A small blip. Publishing where we shop, what we buy is only a matter of time. Nearly two years ago I said about social networks and shopping:

So I expect to see in the future, other unSocial Ads:

www.pottspointbooze.com.au Buy the same cheap-ass beer as Laurel Papworth
www.carsales.com.au Buy the same crapheap car as Laurel Papworth
www.woolworths.com.au Buy the same toilet roll/tampons as Laurel Papworth

Quick quick promote Facebook Beacon, at least we can turn it off on certain purchases. There’s worse coming, seriously. Go on, Google your name. What are you selling now?

When you buy, you sell. Welcome to peer to peer shopping testimonials. Live to a store near you.

Enter Blippy.com

So it’s now time to say “I told ya so”. Heh. Or not.

Anyway, I reckon, opt in/signup/join –  it gives you the illusion you ever had a choice. Here comes Blippy.com…

PS what’s the name of the Australian service where you publish your travel ticket purchases/receipts? I’ve forgotten – nice chaps on Twitter?