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Matter of fact – Is Meta ushering the future or just reflecting it ?

News, views & trends from across the spectrum.

By Tariq Al-Sharabi, Managing Director of Cicero & Bernay Communication Consultancy

Is Meta ushering the future or just reflecting it? 

When Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, complementing its venture into the metaverse, the world took pause to listen to what the man, who arguably put social media on the map, had to say. What he suggested presented an interactive version of the future where we all exist as virtual avatars and was not necessarily far-fetched…if you’ve never used a VR headset, have never played video games (or stopped playing more than a decade ago), or have never heard of apps such as Rec Room or VRChat.

Essentially, the big-bang moment we were all waiting for fizzled faster than he probably thought it would, and the world quickly resumed scrolling their social media feeds and investing in NFTs. However, things are different from his side of the field. As reported by fortune.com, Zuckerberg’s version of the future depends on ad revenue, something Facebook as a platform, i.e. Meta’s cash cow, has been struggling to retain.

Why is one of the most used platforms haemorrhaging advertisers? Because companies like Apple and Google are restricting ad tracking on their operating systems, which puts a massive dent in Facebook’s ad model that allowed for surgical targeting. Making matters worse, the era of TikTok is not showing any signs of slowdown for the foreseeable future, leaving other platforms in the dust fighting for relevance.

Any company would have shuttered when facing just one of these challenges. I wonder how many it will take to halt Meta’s progress and restrict its updates to the history books. Only time will tell.

Source: Gulf News


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