First revenue drop in Meta history (and the end of social networks) – Corriere.it

I have to be honest: I really think Instagram is going to become a growing place for videos […]. Adam Mosserinumber one on Instagram and very loyal to Mark Zuckerberg, last Tuesday deliberately The end of the era of social networks.

Wednesday with there my quarter by MetaNew confirmation, by the numbers: Giant Menlo Park record The first decline in revenue in its historywhich began in 2004 with the launch of the platform that revolutionized the Internet: Facebook. From April to June 2022, compared to the same period in the previous year, Meta lost 1%: from $ 29.077 billion in 2021 to $ 28,822 billion, versus analyst expectations of $ 28.92 billion. Net profit fell 36% to 6.7 billion.

That -1% of revenue represents the iota of a potential avalanche, as happened in February, when Facebook, understood as a social network, experienced its first drop in users per day (from a millionthen they started to grow again) and Procedures From Meta started a file flexion which was equal in the period of these six months 40%. In the same period Snap lost 68%, while Twitter – with the complicity of Elon Musk To be verified in court – 43% sold in the last year.

But what’s going on? And what do Mosseri and Instagram videos have to do with it? The answers are there and almost all of them are clarified and confirmed in the company’s accounts starting next fall To dispense (also) one of the most famous columns, faces and minds: Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer and creator of the Meta business model, has resigned, to be replaced by Susan Lee.

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg and Sandberg were both cited Economic recession Which would have a major impact on the digital advertising business – and it also affected the quarterly reporting of Alphabet and Snap – alike. Changes made by apple To the iPhone operating system, which limits the collection of user data, again has a negative impact on advertising sales.

Macroeconomic factors, including exchange rate developments, and their related aggregate and competition between firms – and, addThe intervention of lawmakers with restrictive rules on the use of data, such as the European Digital Services Act – is thus changing and putting pressure on the market that has made Meta in recent years one of the largest technology giants on the planet. The average Menlo Park ad price fell 14% in the quarter.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg said periods like this in the past have ended favorably thanks to transitions or new formats, such as the possibility of Getting users to move from advertising to messaging, already used by 40% of advertisers. Zuke looks to the future with fewer resources, both in terms of investments and employees.

And in completely renewable contexts. Or rather: distorted. success and spread tik tok They imposed the imminent and radical Facebook and Instagram, whose main problem has been confirmed to be the potentially growing discontent of users distracted by new apps and new usage habits, have turned even more than the direction of the global or digital economy or the grip of regulators and lawmakers.

The data says so: Time spent on Reels on Facebook and Instagram increased 30% in the quarter under review. And the reels are short editable videos inspired by (copied to) TikTok, that now need monetization – at the moment, annual revenue has crossed $1 billion. But not just formatting, as happened with the Snap-inspired story truncation: Revolution, or tiktoktizationIt’s about streaming what’s streaming on our smartphone screens.

No Facebook, which will have two separate abstractsInstagram, which is testing an interface (very) similar to that of TikTok, will propose with the help ofArtificial intelligence An ever-growing number of content posted by people and accounts we don’t know or follow. Right now, and many have already noticed, it’s already about 15% of the time: We expect those numbers to double by the end of next year, Zuckerberg said.

From platforms created to keep us in touch with friends and acquaintances and peek at their expressions and pictures to a kind of engaging mini-TV without programming, header or queuing. Dear users, Like Chiara Ferragni or sisters Kyle Jenner and Kim Kardashian, they have already criticized the novelty, although they owe their millions and hundreds of millions of followers precisely to the fact that viral and popular content has also crept into the posts of friends, family and acquaintances on social networks. Now this second category of content will take the platform, while for exchanges with our network of contacts, there are and will remain messaging applications. Meta has two related components, Whatsapp and Messenger, which also focus on meeting advertisers’ needs, as we said before.

The (new) real money Zuckerberg wants to make metaverse: hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, over time. At the moment, the cost of the big game under construction is $ 2.8 billion, i.e. the Red Accumulated in the quarter by the Reality Labs unit. But the businessman says and repeats it Big chance. It is now certain that social networks, as he imagined and designed them, are a thing of the past.