Clap on, clap off

The launch of Facebook's Beacon ad platform last year generated significant attention, in part because of user outcry and privacy concerns. The Beacon was quickly extinguished, and Zuckerberg apologized for flubbing Beacon's release.

But according to a top exec at Facebook, the Beacon's failure to appeal to users was all media hype. And instead of snuffing it out, Facebook plans to expand on the Beacon model.

After a bout of bad press following its introduction, Beacon is now in integral and accepted part of the Facebook experience, according to chief revenue officer Owen Van Natta. He argued that the pushback, which centered around the idea people were unwittingly sharing private activities through a public timeline, came from the media — not users.

Van Natta made his remarks at Ogilvy & Mather's Verge Conference.

Beacon was launched last November as part of Facebook's Social Ads model. Third-party sites can pipe purchases and other activities (like restaurant or book reviews) conducted by Facebook users onto their profiles.

Van Natta contends the premise of Beacon is sound: to link users' activities to their circle of friends.

Federated Media founder John Battelle observed some of the ads running on Facebook apps perform extremely well. He pointed to the difference in engagement with ads on social networks, where interaction is the norm, versus that on ad networks, where it is not.

AdWeek observed Facebook's News Feed feature also faced criticism when it launched, but is now an indispensable part of the site experience.

Much of ado about Beacon stemmed from a petition circulated by MoveOn.org, which gathered testimonials about how the Beacon invades user privacy. The petition was signed by over 60,000 people.