• Adweek, Thursday, March 13, 2008 11 AM

Owen Van Natta, Facebook's departing chief revenue office, defended his company's controversial advertising platform, Beacon, at an industry conference on Tuesday. He agrees that Facebook should have made it clearer that actions taken off the site were being recorded and broadcast to users' friends via the News Feed. Following a user uproar, Facebook altered Beacon. "It was just a matter of making sure they knew when it was happening," Van Natta said. "I think you'll see Beacon expand."

Facebook execs point out that its users had the same initial reaction to the News Feed, a service that informs them about actions their friends are taking. The executives argue that the News Feed has now become indispensable part of Facebook. Van Natta claims the media was mostly responsible for the uproar over Beacon's privacy issues.

Meanwhile, Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton argued that social advertising programs like Beacon are borne out of an inability to make it as a media property. "A site like Facebook is forced to innovate beyond what the users will accept," he said.

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