Is Facebook Shutting Down Beacon?

September 20th, 2008

By Justin Smith

Last week, there was a little stir in the blogosphere when some users and developers discovered that Facebook’s Beacon service (designed to easily share information about your off-Facebook activity with friends inside Facebook) still exists.

In response to questions, Facebook said: “Since late 2007, Beacon has been available on dozens of participating sites after we made a series of improvements to ensure that users have control over what information is shared to their friends on Facebook. We are not accepting new developers into the program, and this is not using Facebook Connect.”

Since the PR challenges Facebook experienced after it launched Beacon last year at the same time it launched Social Ads, the company has not been talking about Beacon much at all. And although many thought Beacon went away, it never did. Rather, Facebook has simply stopped pushing the program with partners.

However, as of today, Facebook has removed Beacon from its Business Solutions page, and the old Beacon home page no longer exists.

Does removing any mention of Beacon from the company’s website mean Facebook is planning on shutting the whole program down? Or does Facebook just want to reposition Beacon (or some derivative of it) as a developer program (instead of an advertiser program) after some time?

For now at least, Facebook doesn’t want to promote Beacon to businesses any longer.

Check out the old Beacon FAQ:

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5 Responses to “Is Facebook Shutting Down Beacon?”

Todd Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 4:57 am
I have an urge to be snarky which I’m trying to suppress…

You should try going to FB URLs without “new” in them. For example:

http://www.facebook.com/business/?beacon=

Where you will find FB Beacon is alive and well.

Good luck.
Aaron Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 8:53 am
I clicked your link and went straight to the business solutions page where beacon is listed. Is that a mistake?
Mark Says:
March 31st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
As of right now Beacon is not accepting new partners and is only working for existing partners.

I read somewhere on the Facebook site that Facebook Connect is Facebook’s official strategy for connecting with external sites.
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April 29th, 2009 at 11:20 am
[...] sharing/advertising product that generated significant privacy concerns and was eventually shut down. Facebook has since relaunched related functionality in opt-in form through Facebook [...]
Facebook Settles Beacon Case: No More Beacon, But There’s a $9.5M “Privacy Fund” | egob.info Says:
September 18th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
[...] lawsuit filed in 2008 has been settled today. There are two parts. One is that Beacon, as it has been, will be fully shut down — only a few accounts are still open and those will be closed. The [...]