Zuckerberg should stop messing with the metaverse and get Facebook to be Facebook again

Goal, the company formerly known as Facebookyou should start focusing on making Facebook Facebook again.

In the last year, its CEO, Mark Zuckerberghas focused on his favorite project: the metaverse. It is an obscure concept that can describe many things, but in the broadest sense it is based on the idea that people connect with each other through virtual worlds instead of doing it in traditional social networks.

But, as I recently wrote, Meta’s big turn into the metaverse has been a disasterwith little to show apart from mediocre experiencevirtual reality glasses more and more expensive and its shares are down more than 60% this year.

Zuckerberg should reduce it and prioritize the reinforcement of his company’s main applications, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which have been very neglected while Meta invested 15,000 million dollars in its metaverse project.

Given the possibility of a recession, Meta should look more towards the income reported by social networks that have billions of users around the world. Meanwhile, Horizon Worlds, the main app related to the Meta metaverse, has a mere 200,000 monthly active users, according to has recently reported The Wall Street Journal.

Although Instagram has faced headwinds recently, remains the jewel in the crown of Meta. Keeping users happy and mapping out a plan for it for years to come should be the company’s number one priority.

Meta, in fact, acknowledged in the presentation of its accounts for the second quarter that Reels was growing and represented 20% of the time that people spend on Instagram.

Instead of pissing off users by trying to make Instagram a clone of TikTokMeta should spend its time and energy monetizing that usage as much as possible without making people tire of it or lose interest.

You should also try doing the same with WhatsApp, the most popular instant messaging application in the world.

For now, the platform is ad-free in an effort to maintain its identity as a friendly service first and foremost, but Meta has promised to use his popularity in other ways to earn incomeincluding through paid features.

Instead of focusing on its tried-and-true technology, however, Meta is pouring billions of dollars into an idea that may pay off in 5-10 years.

If left unchecked, a bet of this magnitude risks alienating investors and workers from the company.

Zuckerberg will have to show his end-of-year notes this Wednesday

Meta presents its results this Wednesday, and Wall Street walks with its tail between its legs. Analyst Neil Campling called a recent presentation of Zuckerberg’s metaverse “desperate” and said it was no wonder investors were equally anxious.

Investment firm Bernstein calls this a “decisive quarter” in a recent note, saying that numbers reflecting Meta’s ability to engage users will be “critical” for the company this quarter.

“We believe that if Meta does not provide additional information to suggest that its power of attraction across its family of applications is stable, your stock will fall furtherBernstein analysts wrote.

They further believe that a turnaround is possible by the end of the year and in 2023 if Meta, among other things, increases its ad load on its TikTok-like video product, Reels.

Meta’s revenue fell in the second quarter, the first time it has done so in the decade the company has been publicly traded. Zuckerberg blamed it on an “economic recession” that was affecting the digital advertising business.

Manzana was a key part of the pproblem. Last year, the tech giant introduced a privacy change in iOS that asks users if they want to opt out of being tracked in other companies’ apps. Meta then responded by saying that advertisers “could see an overall decrease in ad performance and personalization and an increase in cost per action.”

Trying to escape a future scenario where Apple is a dominant force that can cripple your business with a single software hit, Zuckerberg is trying to invent the platform of the future.

But headlines alone aren’t enough, which is why Zuckerberg’s vision of the metaverse seems more suited to a venture-backed startup than to drawing the near horizon for a company like Meta.

Apple has also been exploring future platforms, but much more quietly than Meta (it is said that your own virtual reality headset is coming soon). Therefore, the company has not been punished by Wall Street because it remains focused on the growth of its main business sectors, unlike Meta.

That hasn’t stopped Zuckerberg from turn your drive in the metaverse into a competition between Meta and Appleso it is clear that the subject is taking up a lot of space in his mind.

“This is a competition of philosophies and ideas where they believe that by doing everything themselves and integrating very little they can build a better experience for the consumer,” Zuckerberg said of Apple’s strategy at an all-employee meeting this year. , according toTheVerge.

But perhaps Zuckerberg should follow Apple’s lead, prioritize his goose that lays the golden eggs to keep investors happy, and relegate the metaverse to some garage, where projects aiming for the moon start.