Sarah has a poignant post about how Mark Zuckerberg’s apology for the Beacon controversy is very reminiscent of his apology a year ago regarding the News Feed. Yet, as Fred points out, Facebook’s News Feed was a powerful UI innovation — likely the most important UI innovation since del.icio.us popularized tagging.

So, is Beacon fated for similar long term success after an initial backlash just like News Feed, or will this re-run end differently this time?

My vote: The mainstream audience will adopt personal broadcasting of consumerism. In fact, I bet an implicitly generated feed of purchasing behavior will lead to all kinds of interesting explicit gameplay dynamics (remember Shop Til You Drop?). But, will Facebook reap the rewards that comes with this end-game scenario after sparking so much controversy? I’m less certain about that, but my bet is, again, yes. The negative PR will fade away, but Beacon will remain in place and will generate all kinds of interesting (likely unintended) use cases.