Just curious how many of you kids are following Facebook’s apparently ever-widening scandal about Beacon advertising? Just read this article on Marketwatch and found the implications for social networking at large pretty fascinating.As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m not a Facebook user myself, but I definitely follow news about them simply because this site, along with MySpace and LinkedIn, are the big generalists in the social networking space. Just as they pioneered this larger trend, their next steps might have implications for what niche communities like ours might – or might not – choose to develop next.
In essence, the Beacon trouble began when Facebook partnered with various large merchants to show users’ recent purchases as part of their Facebook updates. In other words, if I bought my best friend a leather jacket from Overstock.com, Overstock.com would pass that info about my purchase back to Facebook. The next time my buddy checked what was up with me on Facebook, he’d see my purchase clear as day as part of a continuous feed Facebook offers about its users’ latest actions. So my buddy would basically have his holiday surprise ruined by Facebook – but that surprise was only the beginning.
I know advertising is the obvious way to monetize audiences that are collecting around various communities, large and small, but I’ve always felt it was shady to say the least. There’s an ever-thinning dotted line between clever advertising and privacy violations, and it’s not easy to negotiate that line successfully. Even if Facebook weathers this storm, their brand has grown so rapidly precisely because users trusted that they could share tons of personal information with their circle of friends this way. Damage that trust even a little bit, and Facebook’s phenomenal growth may decelerate just as fast as it first accelerated.
If your holiday shopping choices can be considered sensitive data, how much more sensitive are your trades and financial information? When it comes to niche communities for investors, we think community and advertising just don’t mix. It’s much cleaner and above-board to run a thriving community like ours as part of a brokerage firm, so that you have no doubt about how we’re making our money (hint: not at all from advertising). You can stop worrying and just get down to the business of communities: interacting, learning, and improving your trading and investing skills.
Let me know your thoughts on this, folks – I’m curious to hear what you think of all this!
[image: logo from Facebook homepage]
----------------------------------------------------
Follow the markets at the TradeKing Blog, or learn more about options strategies from the Options Guy.
