Do you still remember Facebook?

People pay a lot of attention to the tangible. In what you can see. Today everyone is talking about the uncertainty that recently changed the world. China, Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, AMLO…

But the world has already changed about twice in this century, and it’s about to change a third… on your smartphone. All this derives in your purchases.

Facebook, now called Meta, is worth 65 percent less than a year and a half ago. Each of his shares fell from $380 to $133 in that span. TikTok is to blame, to a large extent. But time invites to make a quick compilation of history.

Altavista disappeared and was replaced by Yahoo!, which in turn was surpassed by Google.

Bing is now approaching, a search engine that has not had the luck of other Microsoft products, a company that with the investment it makes in artificial intelligence could trigger a change in that service.

Now Facebook is facing an unforeseen storm. Beyond the competition from TikTok, the threat of jail weighs on its founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The Government of the United Kingdom could cause this event, if legislators of that country verify that Instagram encourages the suicide of young English people.

“Mark Zuckerberg could face up to two years behind bars,” Parmy Olson warned yesterday in Bloomberg.

Perhaps it is the most serious warning that has weighed on this entrepreneur, who ensures that his intention has always been good and the results of his platforms are the consequence of the acts of others.

While he is distracted by that circumstance, in addition to his attempts to create a metaverse, the people of Discord say that his intention is good and even more so, Gas’s.

If this column confuses you a little with so many names, I suggest that you approach the first teenager that comes close.

Discord is a kind of playground for high school kids, after school. I confess that I have not used it, but as the parent of an individual who belongs to that flock, I can assure you that you do not let go of that digital tool while doing homework or playing on the computer. Whoever is free from WhatsApp, cast the first stone.

Jason Citron is the one who appears as the entrepreneur of this new company based on this coexistence platform that allows – they all start the same – to form communities to exchange points of view… or memes. In real time.

Now let’s go to perspective. Discord just agreed to buy Gas.

What is Gas? There is a way to quickly explain it to the eighties: Do you remember the gossip? The most worn page of the notebook that kept everyone’s answers was the one in which the question appeared: “Who do you like in the room?”

In that humble sheet of paper, everyone used to look for their self-esteem. Some to measure their popularity. Others to find out if there was an opportunity to go to the movies with someone.

Many of these playful informal documents were anonymous. A list of responses from students that satisfied some and hoped for others.

Nikita Bier recently had the idea of ​​making a digital platform with similar results and founded Gas, an app in which groups of schools, perhaps teenagers, answer questions like this: What do your friends love about you?

From this, answers arise that can, in the best of cases, raise the self-esteem of the person who receives the comments.

Discord could add Gas’s “sex appeal” now, just as TikTok could launch new product marketing tools with a bang, while Facebook continues to play at creating a metaverse that actually already exists through games like Fortnite that receive real money for give in exchange costumes or intangible weapons.

If it is difficult for them to enter the subject, they are at risk of being left out and losing opportunities.

Nobody uses Messenger today. WhatsApp ran over him and today you 90s teenagers depend on that tool to do business.