In his MPA Q&A with Fortune’s David Kirkpatrick, Owen Van Natta didn’t offer any further hints about his future plans when he leaves his post as chief revenue officer of Facebook in a few weeks. Mostly, he said magazines should be tapping into some social media function—all the better if it’s through Facebook—and if they aren’t doing it now, they better do it soon.

I did ask afterward what sort of role he might be leaning towards and he said he hadn’t had time to really think about it. His only plan is to take some time off and then plot out his next move. As for what lessons he is taking away from the flawed Beacon launch this past fall, which angered some Facebook users because it shared their online purchase activities with other members, Van Natta said making mistakes is part of innovating. “The ability to learn from [mistakes], will unlock the benefits of this kind of media. I was at Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) when it started and the book publishers were nervous about letting consumers put reviews up. They only wanted the good review, not the bad ones. But the thing is, the good reviews only have credibility when you have the courage to put negative opinion alongside them. So Amazon changed that view in the retail industry and social media’s doing the same for every other brand on the planet.”

• Facebook’s Owen Van Natta To Leave