Comments on: What Designers Can Learn From Facebook’s Beacon: the collision of “fronts”

By: Alone – yet together: Web 2.0 technologies lessening the sense of isolation and displacement in diaspora communities - Online Conference On Networks and Communities

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:44:50 +0000

[...] Ladner, S. (2007). What Designers Can Learn From Facebook’s Beacon: the collision of ‘fronts’. Copernicus Consulting. Retrieved February 28, 2011 from http://copernicusconsulting.net/what-designers-can-learn-from-facebooks-beacon-the-collision-of-fron... [...]

By: Me, Myself and I: the phenomenon of multiple selves both online and offline - Online Conference On Networks and Communities

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:39:22 +0000

[...] Ladner, S. (2007). What Designers Can Learn From Facebook’s Beacon: the collision of ‘fronts’. Copernicus Consulting. Retrieved from http://copernicusconsulting.net/what-designers-can-learn-from-facebooks-beacon-the-collision-of-fron... [...]

By: Don’t think privacy, think identity « Design Research

Don’t think privacy, think identity « Design Research — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:25:55 +0000

[...] can accurately predict a “privacy breach” of digitally available information. Hence the confusion and hand-wringing over Beacon, Facebook’s privacy-busting advertising system. Instead, designers should create a framework [...]

By: sladner

sladner — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:05:26 +0000

It’s not that it’s a “bad” thing that we have different identities. This is not a condemnation of our comportment in everyday social life.

What I’m saying is that it is NECESSARY for us to have different social selves, depending on the front, because otherwise we would be overwhelmed. And I’m also arguing that we need to do that in the virtual space as well as the face-to-face space.

This is not about “judging” people. It is about examining how social life is organized. Berger and Luckman tell us that we have “typifications” or tried and true roles, that we understand and use in everyday life.

We do this not because we think it’s “right” to treat someone at the drycleaner’s in a particular way, but because it is convenient. We could not possibly take the time every social moment to figure out, “How should I treat this person? Should I shake their hand? Should I kiss them?”

Beacon does deserve to be criticized, but not for this reason. It is morally wrong to co-opt someone’s identity for market purposes. They did this not because they are “disrupting” anything — they are actually cementing market values. In fact, Beacon is REGRESSIVE.

By: smaki

smaki — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:24:56 +0000

Is it such a bad thing to force people to rethink their identities? Why is it that we are embarrassed of who we are in the first place? I agree that we have different fronts, but not that we have different identities. These fronts are simply different facades of one identity, that is made of the combination of all of our different fronts.

We can continue to have the strange culture where we let ourselves see only selective facades of a person, maybe believing somewhere in our naive minds that that is the only facade they have, and then judge them negatively for diversions from it. Or maybe we can learn to become more accepting of each other’s identities, and learn to appreciate the uniqueness that shines through more the more thorough a picture we have of someone.

I would also hesitate to criticize Beacon so sharply. Making mistakes and stirring up controversy are necessities of creativity, disruptive technologies and creating progressive change. Beacon has called for a way distinguish between different online audiences within one central social networking platform. Admit it, another problem of these social networking tools is that there are so many of them, and if you want one to represent each of your different “selfs”, it could quickly become overwhelming. Now, you can use Facebook to create an identity, as well as control who sees which facades.

Sorry, I had to play devil’s advocate…. hate one-sided arguments.

By: Border Crossing Stats » What Designers Can Learn From Facebook’s Beacon: the collision of …

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:44:28 +0000

[...] Dig deeper into the topic here [...]

By: social media

social media — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:38:25 +0000

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By: The Brand as A Self: Web Design as Impression Management « Design Research

The Brand as A Self: Web Design as Impression Management « Design Research — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:51:59 +0000

[...] Popular What Designers Can Learn From Facebook’s Beacon: the collision of “fronts”When to do qualitative and qualitative researchQualitative versus quantitative researchDesigning for [...]

By: If all your friends jumped off of a bridge… at Ben Brown, Internet Rockstar

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:00:31 +0000

[...] never moved out of his home town and now grows pot and fights pitbulls in his basement. (Read about the collision of “fronts”.) I mean, it is great that I can inform such a wide and diverse audience about every minute change [...]

By: The collision of fronts « Culture is a Conversation

The collision of fronts « Culture is a Conversation — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:55:30 +0000

[...] collision of fronts I have been thinking for a while now about a post on Design Research about the problems with Facebook’s attempt to monetize its social network assets [...]