Like many others from mine and older generation, I still succumb to temptation of burst of activities on Facebook. I accepted 19 friends’ request in a single day which may have been result of an overzealous FB product manager tweaking the algorithm to create more active users. Last week, I had written about Facebook's owner Meta Platforms market cap slump by more than $230bn. It was perhaps a reflection of disappointment of investors with the quarterly figures. The shares fell 26.4% after Facebook's daily active users (DAUs) dropped for the first time in its 18-year history.
Of course, managing DAUs is inherently more difficult than MAUs which might be pumped up by occasional notifications. I ended up adding one more active user on the Facebook platform and then went ahead to upload a reels on my instagram profile as well. Of all the Meta Children, my favourite still remains WhatsApp which I have declared to be the most awesome product/app on my phone.
DTW
During the Week, even more bad news poured in for Meta aka Facebook when it faced an awkward response from two EU officials - Robert Habeck (German Economy Minister) and Bruno Le Maire (French Finance Minister).They were clear that Meta needs to abide the new EU regulations or else its social media platforms would be banned across Europe. This was in response to Meta’s report where it warned that it may have to shut down its Facebook and Instagram services in Europe if the new EU laws start forcing all companies to process user data on local servers located within Europe as currently Meta sends user data from Europe to its US servers.
EU leaders were scathing in their criticism of Meta and its Family of Apps.
I’ve lived without Facebook for four years and life has been fantastic. The European Union is such a big internal market with so much economic power that if we act in unity we won’t be intimidated by something like this. - Robert Habeck (German Economy Minister)
European Union seems to be calling the bluff of Meta and other BigTech players who are bargaining for more beneficial negotiation position instead of actually planning on actually acting up on its threats.
I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook. Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty.” - Bruno Le Maire (French Finance Minister)
Meta in its earlier avatar of Facebook had an incredible story- “We have lots of users and we know a lot about these users. We can use this knowledge to deliver focussed advertising to the target customers.”
This story went for toss when there was an outcry against privacy violations and interference in democratic processes so Mark Zuckerberg had to change the narrative by simply muddying the water. Of course, if you cannot convince them, confuse them. He launched one of the largest rebranding exercise in modern corporate history to create an exciting image for Facebook through Meta by signalling proposed change in business model focusing on metaverse.
The fact remains that the company is still deriving 98% of its revenue from online advertising business and it still has insanely high profit margins.
Of course , all is not lost for Meta as the use cases for metaverse keep rising in world including marriages. Just last week, a couple in Bhopal got married in metaverse as well as in a simultaneous physical event.
OTW
Over the Weekend, I was glued to Disney+HotStar watching the Tata IPL 2022 Mega Auction. It had all the elements of mass Bollywood extravaganza i.e. glamour, business, money, drama and heartbreak. Imagine Mr IPL Suresh Raina not getting any interest from IPL teams whereas largely unknown players getting upward of million dollars. All the teams had twin problems of managing current in-form players as well as acquiring future superstars. Of course, it is almost impossible to predict if the players would be able to fulfil the expectations in the short format of the game. The small margin of error makes it difficult for any lapses in performances at individual and team level. You may want to read an earlier newsletter as to why Tatas have come to the IPL party (Hint- Something to do with Tata’s new super app TataNeu)
One of the event which stood out and showed the resilience of Indian cricket ecosystem was the seamless transition when unfortunately the auctioneer Hugh Edmeades collapsed during the first day. BCCI got into quick recovery and managed to get Charu Sharma who did a commendable job of leading the auction for two days before Hugh made a hearty return.
I remember Charu from numerous cricket match presentation ceremonies and was always in awe of his poise and presence of mind during those live sessions. He seems to be acting on some useful advice from Naval Ravikant.
If you would like to get some tips on writing, then do watch the latest podcast of Tynkrring with XYS featuring Prof Usha Raman at University of Hyderabad.
I Love You
Shailendra
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OTM
Opportunities through MountainSpeak are available at HT Smartcast (Delhi Location-3) with IBS Alumna Snigdha Manoli Menda. Interns would assist the marketing manager of HT Smartcast in promoting podcasts and doing market analysis for 2022-2023. Main expectation from interns include:
1. Must be quick in thinking about podcaster promotion mediums and must also have a execution mind rather than an ideating mind.
2. Must know basic creative softwares ( there is no graphic designer here, we do our videos and posts ourselves )
3. Must assist in data analytics and social media posting
4. Sales assistance and closure for branded content, PR cold calls and Hubspot email campaigns.
5. Daily research on what's new with podcats platforms in India and globally.