If you're looking for a great overview on the reviews greeting Amazon.com's latest produict offerings (the Kindle), this blog post by Dan Farber over at ZDNet does a great job of compiling some of the most interesting of them.
The post also compiles some reactions to Facebook's new Project Beacon. Some of the outcry against this new project is somewhat startling, and one has to wonder if Facebook foresaw the drawbacks in making traditionally private consumer info (such as what books or CDs one buys) so easily viewable to anyone interested in looking into it.
This storm of criticism (and, to be fair, some praise) comes just as The New York Times announces a partnership between Facebook and ABC News to offer political coverage:
ABC News and Facebook have formally established a partnership — the site's first with a news organization — that allows Facebook members to electronically follow ABC reporters, view reports and video and participate in polls and debates, all within a new "U.S. Politics" category.
To underscore their collaboration, the two organizations will announce today that they are jointly sponsoring Democratic and Republican presidential debates in New Hampshire on Jan. 5, three days before the primary election there.
"Through this partnership, we want to extend the dialogue both before and after the debate," said Dan Rose, Facebook's vice president for business development.
The announcements are another sign that news organizations are looking to capitalize on the potential power of Facebook, which began as a database of college friendships, and other social networking sites. Media companies like The New York Times and The Washington Post have produced pages for use on Facebook and some newspapers, magazines and television stations have recently invited users to join special pages that are set up to follow reporters' political coverage. But ABC’s new relationship is intended to be deeper.
What do you think? Is Facebook biting off more than it can chew, or is blazing a trail that others are sure to follow?
