Article Contributed on: 12/15/2007 8:29:56 AM
Tangentially related to
this post is my first encounter with the talk of the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks - Facebook's Beacon advertising program.
When I bought our tickets to see The Golden Compass on Fandango, I was surprised to see a little drawer open up in the bottom right corner of my Browser. The message inside said something to the effect of "Your purchase has been added to your Facebook newsfeed." Ah, so this is what everyone has been talking about.
After printing my tickets, I head over to Facebook and sure enough, there was a message asking me, if I would like to add "Justinian bought
The Golden Compass on
Fandango."
I went ahead and approved the post, but I can see how it could really be an invasion of privacy if (as originally designed) they didn't give you the option to decline the addition.
As a Web Geek, I was fascinated by the integration of the two sites. I can only assume that Fandango searches Facebook's user database for email addresses that match users in its database. From a user perspective, the integration is seamless, but at the same time a little disconcerting.