Tag: facebook

bookmark_borderMeta’s Slow and Steady Metaverse Progress

Posted on by mikejsiegel

Remember when “metaverse” was the buzzword everyone was either hyping or mocking? Meta’s still plugging away at it, refining VR headsets and virtual platforms. While user adoption hasn’t skyrocketed overnight, I’m noticing more signs of real-world use cases—particularly in education, remote collaboration, and training simulations.

Axios recently ran a piece on several Fortune 500 companies trialing VR for onboarding and employee training. If Meta can capture that enterprise market, it could offset weaker consumer adoption. Selling a few thousand headsets to a corporate client can be more lucrative than trying to woo individual gamers one by one.

Financially, Meta’s ad business is still the cash cow, though it’s faced headwinds from Apple’s privacy changes and growing competition. But the company’s pivot to short-form video (Reels) and new ad formats seems to be stabilizing revenue. It might not be the rocket growth we saw in Facebook’s early days, but it’s enough to keep the lights on while they invest in the metaverse.

As a shareholder, I’m willing to endure the growing pains. The future might be a fully fleshed-out metaverse or something simpler, but the underlying technology—VR, AR, immersive social—isn’t going anywhere. If Meta can stay focused on delivering value (and not just hype), the next few years could validate this bold pivot.

bookmark_borderMeta’s Tough Year and Future Prospects

Posted on by mikejsiegel

It’s been a rollercoaster year for Meta stock, no question. The metaverse vision is still burning cash, and user growth on Facebook has plateaued in certain markets. But I’m not throwing in the towel. As someone who’s watched this company adapt time and time again, I believe there’s another act waiting in the wings.

I found an interesting The Information article that dives into Meta’s Reality Labs spending. Yes, they’re hemorrhaging money, but the progress in VR/AR tech is notable. The Quest headsets are popular with early adopters, and enterprise solutions might unlock new revenue streams. Think remote training, VR workspaces, and immersive marketing experiences.

Regulatory hurdles remain. Meta’s approach to privacy and data handling has often drawn fire. But as they retool and pivot, there’s a chance they’ll address those concerns in a more fundamental way. The success of Reels on Instagram also shows they can still innovate and keep up with trends. Meanwhile, their advertising engine remains strong enough to fund these bets on the future.

I’m continuing to hold, albeit with eyes wide open. The stock might stay volatile for a while. But if you have the stomach for it, Meta could look like a bargain a few years down the road—especially if the metaverse concept starts showing real-world returns.

bookmark_border Rebranding and the Metaverse

Posted on by mikejsiegel

Facebook’s big rebrand to Meta has become the talk of the tech town. I’ve been following Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the “metaverse,” and while it sounds futuristic, it’s not entirely science fiction. As an investor, I see this pivot as a natural evolution for a company that has consistently bet on immersive social experiences—think Instagram Stories, VR headsets, and more.

A Wired article I read last week laid out some compelling reasons why Meta might actually pull this off. They’ve already got the hardware component with Oculus, and they’re working on VR/AR apps that could bridge social networking and mixed reality. The question, of course, is whether mainstream adoption will happen fast enough to justify the current spending spree.

Regulatory issues and privacy concerns haven’t gone away. But if Meta can build a new platform from the ground up that addresses these concerns, they might sidestep some of the scrutiny that plagued Facebook. The risk is that the metaverse vision proves too expensive, or remains too niche, draining resources and investor patience.

I’m holding my shares because I believe in the leadership’s ability to shift and adapt. It won’t be a smooth ride—Meta’s stock could see volatility if investors lose faith in the metaverse concept. But high risk can lead to high reward. If they crack it, Meta might anchor an entirely new digital ecosystem.

bookmark_borderYoung Users

Posted on by mikejsiegel

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Old habits die hard. As you get older your mental models of the world become more rigid. You know what you know but ya start becoming closed off to trying new things.

People making products, especially products with a shitload of users, run into this all the time. As processors and cellular networks improve, new features are possible but people are stubborn, they like the way they do X and they’re not trying to change it.

Facebook, with over a billion users, has a tough task on hand. They don’t cater to the lowest common denominator but they don’t cater to their advanced, or power users either. This means Facebook doesn’t release the most advanced product they can, Facebook makes concessions so they can release a product that will be widely used.

Snapchat, on the other hand, is doing an excellent job of capitalizing on bandwidth and smartphone improvements. “Stories” – a mixture of photos and videos that users create using the editing tools Snapchat provide are a perfect example of this. When Facebook came out, sharing videos was a pain in the ass, it was slow and cameras weren’t readily available. People form a mental model around what Facebook is as they use it and when things change it becomes difficult for companies to break out of the box their user base sees them in.

Facebook has done a great job pushing against that tide and have made huge inroads with videos, some say they’re even surpassing youtube, but taking a video of yourself and uploading it to Facebook is not the ubiquitous behavior you see in Snapchat.

Snapchat has a much younger and more open minded user base and this allows them to be more aggressive with their product. When Snapchat Chat 2.0 was released on 3/29 I was curious if they were going to push the envelope in the chat game. Sure enough, they delivered.

The chat game is crowded, as I pontified on before. It’s hard to make inroads but one of the ways to get started is to piggyback on your social network’s user base. Unlike Facebook and Instagram that have public ways of giving props, Snapchat lacks this which encourages users to send a chat if they like a Story or have something to say. It’s funny because, like the name implies, Snapchat started off as an ephemeral chatting app, evolved into a Social Network and is now getting back to its roots and beefing up its chatting abilities.

It’s one thing to release cool features it’s another to have them be used. At 33, most of my friends will be reluctant to embracing the new features. The majority in my age group insist on using feature-poor iMessage or SMS. Luckily I’m on the older side of Snapchat’s user base. Snapchat Chat 2.0 will be immediately embraced by their users. For whatever reason I find the stickers lame (too old?) but I look forward to seeing my (younger) friends live stream, create small gif-like videos, annotate em with Snapchat’s editing tools, audio notes and more.

 

bookmark_borderYentas, the Messaging Gold Rush

Posted on by mikejsiegel

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We’re all a bunch of yentas and inventors from Samuel Morse to Alexander Graham Bell to Brian Acton (WhatsApp) have made a ton of money making it easier for us to chit chat. Communication is a time-tested gold mine that’s changing with the rise of new paradigms (like smartphones). With so much at stake, we’re experiencing an intense battle between all sorts of players vying to solve our messaging needs.

To name a small sampling ya got iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, GroupMe, Line, Viber, Kik, Tango, Skype, Slack, Google Hangouts (Gchat), Tencent QQ, Snapchat etc etc etc. They all have different twists to them but the general use case is the same: help people directly communicate.

These players differentiate in a few key ways:

Communication styles is the first way these messenger services start to differentiate. People like to communicate differently depending on where they’re at and what they want to say. You have short text (SMS-style), longer texts, pictures, videos, gifs, voice, ephemeral messaging, and who knows what will be next…VR videos?

Cross-platform is a big differentiator in the messaging wars. Many of the newcomers are smartphone only (iOS and Android generally). Skype crosses a number of platforms (Windows, OS X, Windows Phone, iOS, Android, Blackberry OS). This cross-platform support ensures the vast majority of computer and smartphone customers can use a messaging service conveniently on the device they have on them.

Interoperability is the next decision all of these messaging services wrestle with. The majority of the popular ones are single-protocol –i.e. ya gotta be on Google Hangouts to talk to others on Google Hangouts. When you go multiprotocol, you allow your users to talk to people outside of your messaging service.

Deciding how to approach each of these areas of differentiation can be a challenge, and implementing too much can slow down your ability to do anything cool. Supporting multiple communication styles adds complexity to both the code base and the UI. More communication styles limits what platforms you’ll be able to support with parity. A cross-platform strategy adds complexity to the development process — instead of building a feature once you build it per platform. Supporting multiple platforms can affect your ability to support these features and can result in a “lowest common denominator” type effect if you want a consistent user experience. Same thing with interoperability, you ultimately hinder your ability to support numerous protocols well (e.g. if you want to use SMS, you’re limited to 160 characters).

In the messaging game, getting better distribution (cross-platform, interoperability) makes it harder to do cool stuff. If you want that premium, cutting edge experience, you go for the 80/20 rule when it comes to cross-platform and not worry about interoperability.

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Of all these players, I’m digging Facebook’s approach. They have two massive horses in the race with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, which allows them to try out different strategies that will capture different segments of the market. WhatsApp is all-in on the cross-platform strategy and removing the $1/year fee removes the remaining friction there to get on WhatsApp. Sure, the experience won’t be great and definitely won’t be consistent for all users, but WhatsApp will continue to capture the low-end market where people want a cheap way to chat.

Facebook Messenger is going for the premium experience and taking the platform route. It’s single-protocol, it’s got a web presence and is on the major mobile platforms, but it’s focusing on the cool things. More importantly, Facebook is empowering other devs to do cool things within Messenger.

In the messaging space, being the best of breed might not mean squat. The network effect is too important, you go where your friends are. I love Facebook Messenger but I gotta admit, I’m a iMessage, Google Hangouts, email, SMS (non-iOS users) Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp kind of guy, in that order. I may like Facebook’s strategy the best but I go where my friends are.