Research archive for META

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, released underwhelming numbers on Wednesday night. The street took a dim view of the results because profit missed estimates and there was weak forward growth guidance. Not a great combination.

Meta's Instagram is working on a tool that will encourage users to take a break from mindless scrolling. This new initiative is to help teens with their mental well-being. According to Bloomberg, the photo-sharing app will let users opt to see a pop-up message when they have spent a lot of time looking at a particular topic, suggesting they explore other subjects.

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has acquired virtual reality fitness developer Within. Within is the Los Angeles-based developer of the popular fitness/workout virtual reality app Supernatural, which is famous for its Beat lightsaber-like devices that individuals use, when wearing VR goggles.

Meta, the company previously known as Facebook, bought VR headset maker Oculus for $2 billion back in 2014. This was their first venture into the world of virtual reality. Last year, they released a fresh set of VR headsets called the Oculus Quest 2 to compete with Sony, their biggest rival.

Facebook had third-quarter results out on Monday evening that were highly satisfactory. Despite some problems with Apple's new iPhone privacy settings which limit user tracking, Facebook posted a 35% rise in third-quarter revenues to $29 billion. Monthly active users on all platforms rose by 6% year-on-year to 2.91 billion. That's not far from half of the world's population.

Facebook has been getting a fair amount of bad press lately. I think the media like to paint them as the bad guys because everyone knows the platform and they are successful, the perfect combination for a villain. As Paul points out above, the group has close to 3 billion users, and the vast majority have a great experience on the platform. Zuckerberg has repeatedly stated that if people were not enjoying themselves, the company would be dead in a few years.

Last night Facebook reminded us all how central its services are to our lives. How many times did you tap on your phone to see if your most recent WhatsApp message was sent? What about scrolling through Instagram hoping to see fresh content come through? Or being sad that you couldn't comment on a post from some misinformed user on Facebook?

Facebook is a stock in US portfolios that has done very well for us. However, some people feel ambivalent about buying the shares because the company is often accused of not correctly policing the content that appears on their social media platforms.

Michael wrote yesterday about Facebook and their collaboration with EssilorLuxottica to make Ray-Ban Stories, which are basically Wayfarer sunglasses with fancy cameras and speakers in them.

Last week Facebook announced that they have teamed up with EssilorLuxottica to make the world's first set of smart glasses that aren't cringe-worthy. The glasses will be sold through the Ray-Ban brand and the default models resemble the classic Wayfarer frames.

On Wednesday night Facebook released bone-crunching second quarter numbers. Revenues increased by 56% to $29 billion, and $28.6 billion of that came from advertising. So yes, this is a social media company that is really an advertising platform. Net income (profit) was $10 billion. I remember when the company listed in 2012 it made no money at all. The shares have been a 10-bagger since then.

Facebook recently announced that it plans to pay content creators over $1 billion by the end of 2022. The social media giant will pay creators through a new bonus program designed to encourage creatives to publish their work first on Facebook and Instagram.

Yesterday a US federal judge dismissed two antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), claiming that it has a monopoly in social networking.

Facebook launched its own social audio feature as it pushes to compete with Clubhouse, Discord and Twitter Spaces. The big differentiator is that its own version will allow listeners to send Facebook's virtual currency "stars" to content creators in the live audio rooms.

As we mentioned in previous newsletters, last week Facebook released numbers that demolished Wall Street expectations. Revenue came in at $26 billion, generating earnings of $3.30 per share thanks to average revenue per user coming in at $9.27. Wall Street was expecting $23 billion, $2.37 and $8.40, respectively.