Facebook’s about-face on privacy a bit late
By Therese Poletti, MarketWatch
“Facebook should have said something earlier, that’s a mistake that they made,” said Jay Meattle, a product marketing manager at Compete.com in Boston, which tracks Web site traffic.
The whole Beacon fiasco does not seem to have had any impact on membership, and it is not clear that it will. Even though some members threatened in their posts on the MoveOn.org group that they would quit Facebook, visits to the site are still surging. According to Compete.com, the number of unique visitors to Facebook in November jumped 20.1%, outpacing growth at the larger MySpace, owned by News Corp, which is buying Dow Jones, the parent of MarketWatch.
“Even with the privacy hoopla and the PR fiasco, Facebook is still growing and it’s growing quickly,” said Meattle of Compete.com.