To Facebook: "Don't Tase Me Man!"... What the handling of Beacon says about the Millennial Generation

Whew, what a title... But for business people, the current Facebook case is very interesting. The millennial generation (a.k.a. Generation-Y or Internet Generation) represents the future of businesses and is already shaping the face of business-to-consumer marketing.

Facebook, like MySpace and other social networks, thrives on the use of advertisers to keep their services free to their members. I have serious reservations on whether such networks would even exist were there a cost for usage.

When Facebook started pushing out Beacon, thousands of Facebook users were outraged.

"How dare they share our personal information!"

"What an invasion of privacy!"

Interestingly, these same millennial users seem all too happy to be more than open about what they were doing with their friend's girlfriend at 2 a.m. last Saturday and about what a jerk their boss is. Perhaps even more amusing is the ease in which members of this generation (which I am nearly on the cusp of myself) are willing to hand over their privacy for a free "app" in Facebook, opening themselves up to the data miners and target marketers of the world, just to turn their friends into "zombies."

So why the difference?

Simply put, people want you to ask them. Your loyal customers will go to the ends of the Earth for you, but you'd better not take them for granted. Mark Zuckerberg his team that runs Facebook have a more loyal fan base than most companies in existence. However, the Millennials are extremely fickle and, I suspect due to latent narcissism, must be overtly asked about any small thing that happens around them because, in their world, they ARE the center of the universe.

But then haven't we all been taught that we must treat our customers like they are our center of the universe? I doubt that Mr. Zuckerberg is anything but a bright guy, but it's apparent that he still has a lot to learn about consumer relations.

Minding My Own Business is a blog written by Augustine Iacopelli. This blog consists of a mix of general business observations and contrarian positions on relevant topics as well my own forays in the world of business and networking.