Tag archive: beacon

Announced on the official Xbox.com blog, the Xbox 360 team at Microsoft has replaced the “My Xbox” section of the site with a section of the site simply called “Social”. Users will immediately be directed to the new Social page when logging into the Xbox site with a gamertag. While the look of the site has changed slightly, the most notable addition within this new social push is access to the Beacon feature that's… Read More

Unofficially leaked by a YouTube user last month, Microsoft officially released information about the next planned update to the Xbox 360 dashboard earlier this week. One large change to the dashboard includes a higher level of integration with social networks. Using the new Social tab within the interface, users will be able to set a “beacon” to alert friends on Facebook about playing a specific game. This “beacon” also… Read More

Online marketplace Etsy has made a name for itself serving as a clearinghouse for unique hand-made, artisan, and vintage items that have trouble selling in more-general sites like eBay. However, the site is now rankling many of its members through the quiet introduction of a new “Circles” feature apparently intended to enable users to easily find other Etsy users with similar interests…but which has exposed many users' names… Read More

Social networking site Facebook is continuing it's about-face and apologies about its controversial Beacon system, a key component of the company's advertising platform. As originally envisioned, Beacon was intended to let Facebook users easily capture and share information that wasn't necessarily on Facebook—like what they do (and purchase) at other Web sites and services. Of course, this information is also of… Read More

Three weeks ago, social networking site Facebook rolled out an expansive new ad platform dubbed Beacon. Under the program, Facebook users who made a purchase on a participating external site would automatically have the purchase published in their profile news feeds unless the user explicitly opted out of the feature. The capability quickly drew fire from users, privacy advocates, legal experts, and activist group MoveOn.org, who said… Read More