How MONTIALSING The Decline of Facebook with WhatsApp – ryan

Photo-illustration: Intelligenmer; Photo: Getty Images

What’s Going on With Meta These Days? It”s Simple, Really. Instagram is tiktok but also snapchat. Threads is twitter but also Instagram. Facebook Is Craigslist but Also Reddit. Messenger is Now WhatsApp. And whatsApp is the new Facebook – which means it is the incoming of the Company.

This All-Important Last Point Comes from no lessoring than Mark Zuckerberg. Here he is Speaking to the New York Times:

Now whatsapp has become increasingly crucial to meta, the Company that Ouns Facebook, Instagram, and Other Apps. More than Half of Americans Ages 18 to 35 Who Own a Cell Phone Have Installed WhatsApp, According to the Company’s Studies, Making It One of Meta Fastest-Growing Services in Its Mathe Market. Ads on Facebook and Instagram That Push Users to WhatsApp and Its Sister Messaging Service, Messenger, Are Also Growing So Rapidly That May Reach $ 10 Billion in Revenue This, The Company Recently Said. “If you’re envisioning what will will be the private social platform of the Future, Starting from Scratch, Think It Wauld Basically Like WhatsApp,” Mr. Zuckerberg, 39, Said in a Recent Interview.

Meta Continue to Spending Lots of Money on Vr and He, two relatively young Money-Pit industries it hopes one day to dominate, but the company still on its core products for the bulk of its and almost all of it profits.

In recent years, these feed-based apps-Facebook, Instagram, and Most Recently Threads-Have Been Smushed and Smeaared Together in a Variety of Ways for A Few Obivious Reasons. IN FINANCIAL DISCLUSH, META DOESN’T BREAK OUT FOR-PLATERFORTOR USER NUMBERS OR REVENUE, INSTTEAD TALKING ABOUT ITS “FAMILY” OF APPPS. (It does Share Distinct Facebook user numbers but not revenue; this presumably is Because Old-School Facebook Remains the Company’s Most Lucrative Proppery by Far.) On the User Side, Meta Apps Are For Small Portals: Facebook Messenger Showing on Instagram and Vice Versa; Messages from threads showing up in Instagram and Facebook Feeds (a Feature Meta May Be Walking Back a bit); Brands that follows say from app to app with ads purchased Through the Same Dashboard.

Meta’s goal is to get more people to use more of its apps and to monetizes those people to the great extents. In Practice, are Complicated Things. If Facebook is Extremely Well MONTEMSH But Instagram has more and more active youunger users, Should Meta try to herd Back to Facebook? Or Should It Rework Instagram to Show More Videos and Ads, Making It More Like Facebook? If Threads GREW FAST IN PART PARTEUSE IT WAS BUILT ON TOP OF INSTAGRATION, AND ITS USSERS AND CONTINUM to be promoted on Instagram, Should IT People Back to Insta, Where they Might See Juicy Paid Ads? Meta’s Short Answer is Yes, All of the Above, with the caveat that it has been limited control over what it uses actually choose to do.

IF META EMPERATIVE IS TO Grow Forever, ITS 2014 Acquisition of WhatsApp was a great Move, at least in one sense. WhatsApp has grown a lot, first oversseas but more recently in meta Metake Markets, Including the United States, where some of it other services are starting to show their and not they used to, if at all. IT’S A BASIC Utility – A Messaging Service People for Planning and Talking About Important Things – In a Way that Facebook Once Aspirhed to Be and, For SomeSers, Briefly Was. It ‘a real piece of the Global Communication Infrastructure and Is Better at “Connecting the World” Than Anyding Ever releassed itself. Despite a Few Branding and Cross-Promational Features, It Still Feels Very Like Its Utilitarian Self and Not Much Like Its Sister Products, Which Are Pretty Honest Representations of Meta as a Company: Well Engineered, ThounghtFully Designed, and Intended to Caps. Much of their users’ attention as a Possible right up to the point of Becoming Openly hostile.

The conventional wisdom has always been that meta meta have to figure out a way to monetize whatsapp, and the company’s decision to go to make the case that messaging is meta “Next chapter” But monetizing an encryption-messaging app isn’t Easy-The Playbook Meta Developed with Facebook and is Now Running on Instagram doesn’t work here. WhatsApp ISNIVE BUILT AROUND A FEED, AND MEST MESSAGES SENT ON THE PLATFORT ARE AND INTEMNED FOR ONE Other person or a Small Group. Straightforward Advertising Feels Intrusive. WhatsApp First Became Popular by Dramatically Undercutting Text-Message Prices, Effectively Destroying a Massive Line of Business for Cell-Phone Carriers. Now i being Called uppon to support A different Major-Middleman Business Somehow. Its an AWKWARD FIT, but Meta Found (OR HAPPENED UPON) A Plan of Sorts. From Times:

WhatsApp Also Began Offering Paid Tools and Custom Apps for Businesses that wanted to use the platform to communicate with consumers. Chevrolet, Lenovo, Samsung and L’Oreal Now use of Those Tools, and WhatsApp Has Forged Business and Advertising Partnerships in Latin America and India with Companies As Amazon and Uber.

In 2017, WhatsApp Introduced “Click-to-MESSAGE” advertising, which is an ad format that busesses can buy to place inside a Facebook Feed. When users click on the ad on Facebook, it links say to a brand whatsApp Account, where they can talk with Customer Service Representatives or Take an Action Like Booking or Buying Goods. The ads have Become Meta’s Fastest-Growing AD Format, The Company Said.

This is what the aphorioned “$ 10 Billion in Revenue” references to, and it’s world Explaining. Broadly Speaking, Facebook is Faltering a Bit But Still Accounts for Meta’s Billions of Dollars in Advertising Sales. WhatsApp, Howver, Is Growing Briskly in Markets Where Facebook is Ling Steam But Doesn’t Make Much Meta. Everyone knows This, Including Brands, which Want to Spend their Money in the Most Effective Place But Also Don’t Want to Get Left Beind

Brands want to be on whatsapp; Meta wants on whatsapp. So what does meta recommend, and what do brands ultimately decide to do? Buy ads on Facebook… for whatsapp. For yearsBrands have ben paying meta to advertise to their own customers to get to chat with saying on another meta service. This is a Pretty Good Deal for Meta! IT’S SORT OF LIKE A HEDGE, I GUESS, Except in Buying WhatsApp, Meta (Facebook) Didn’t Just Acquire a Future Competitor. It acquired the rights to overssee and monetizes the transition from one of its products to another. Call it… Diagonal Integration?

There are at risk. Ideally for Meta, Facebook and Instagram Will Stick Around As SuccessFul ad platforms with an increasing Share of Ads Sending to brand whatsapps Rather than external websites. But as Brands Start Engaging with their Customers on WhatsApp, they won’t spend as much on Facebook and Instagram. Likewise, if users shift their commercial interactions and more of their time in General Over to whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram Will Suffer and Meta is stub with the problem of an undermoneized messaging platform stars cash.

But Most users haven’t been herded to whatsapp by meta. They’re ussing it gcause it work. They’re ussing it because imessage still texting between Apple and Android Phones AWKWARD and ANNOYING. They’re ussing it Because Other Modes of Communication, Including Meta’s Social Apps, Have Become Boring or Alienating or Loud or Annoying. They’re ussing it gcause it doesn’t really have ads. They’re ussing it shatly because other people will.

Meta Still Needs to figure out how to monetizes whatsapp in the long term if messaging, not the social feed, really is the company’s Future. In the meantime, though, iT’s successing at the next best thing: selling the story of this shift to semi-captive brands for Billions of Dollars and Migration of Migration of Its Own Restless users. Heavily Consolidated Social-Media Ownership: What a Business!