Facebook: A Metaverse-Owned Social Networking Site Success Story!
There are very few people in today’s digital age who are not using the social media site Facebook. Facebook started out as a social network for a specific group of college students, but it has now developed into a vital tool for everyday socialising and professional networking.
As the owner of a small business, Facebook might be just what you need to identify potential employees, attract new customers, or monitor your rivals’ activities. Additionally, you don’t need to create a new Facebook profile in order to browse Facebook material.
Meta Platforms is the owner of the American social networking site Facebook. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and three other undergraduates from Harvard University started Facebook.
Despite the fact that Facebook is free to use, the majority of the platform’s revenue is generated through advertisements. Users can create accounts, submit images, join pre-existing communities, or create new ones.
Facebook’s success is partly due to its founder Mark Zuckerberg’s determination that users be honest about who they actually are from the start because fake pages are strictly prohibited.
Transparency, in accordance with the company’s operations, is essential for fostering interpersonal relationships, exchanging knowledge and suggestions, and advancing society as a whole. It was also mentioned that businesses find it simpler to communicate with clients about their services and products thanks to Facebook users’ bottom-up, peer-to-peer networking.
Continue reading this article to learn more about Facebook, a company owned by Meta, including how it benefits us, its business model, founding history, and many other things.
About Facebook
Facebook, an American-based social networking and online social media platform is owned by Meta Platforms. Among the features of the website are Timeline or wall, a section on the user’s homepage where users can post content and friends can send messages, Status, which enables users to inform friends of their current location or a specific set of circumstances, and News Feed, which alerts users to updates to their friends’ statuses and profiles.
Users can send and receive messages, as well as converse with one another. The Like button, which is present on many other websites, allows users to express their approval for content on Facebook.
Facebook opened up membership to those above the age of 13 in 2006, increasing its user base beyond students. Just as Zuckerberg predicted, advertisers were able to establish new and fruitful ties with consumers.
Facebook announced in October 2021 that Meta Platforms will be the new name of its parent company. The name change indicated a shift in emphasis to the “metaverse,” a participatory augmented reality world. Facebook, a social networking site, is now a part of the Meta Platform.
Facebook – Industry
Customers can participate in the social media market, which consists of sales by entities, generating, and sharing content and information (organizations, single traders, or partnerships). Users of social media platforms can share images, videos, and audio files.
Sales of advertisements and other services offered through social networks are the main sources of income for this business. The social media industry is divided into two distinct categories: social media advertising and subscriptions.
With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.7%, the global social media industry is anticipated to increase from $159.68 billion in 2021 to $223.11 billion in 2022.
The COVID-19 impacts, which had previously resulted in restrictive measures including social isolation, the closure of commercial businesses, and remote work, all of which presented operational issues, are now causing businesses to restructure their operations and recover. The market is anticipated to reach $309 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 32%.
The Asia Pacific was the most significant area in 2020, accounting for 46% of the worldwide social media market. North America, the second-largest region, accounted for 32% of the global market. South America held the position of the smallest region in the global social media market.
Facebook –Â
The term Facebook was chosen because each Harvard student received one of them, which contained photos of their friends and were referred to as Facebooks, according to David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect. This is how “Facebook” got its name because the company uses its social media platform to help individuals connect with their friends and family.
According to some, the little F symbol on Facebook’s website stands for either the word Facebook or the idea of bringing friends together.
The slogan for Facebook has changed from “It’s Free and Always Will Be” to “It’s Quick and Easy.” Between August 6 and August 7, 2019, it was mysteriously modified, and Facebook didn’t say why.
Facebook – Founders and Team
Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin established Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg
American entrepreneur, media personality, and philanthropist Mark Zuckerberg. His most notable accomplishment is co-founding Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, Inc., where he currently holds the positions of chairman, CEO, and largest shareholder. Additionally, he is a co-founder and board member of Breakthrough Starshot, a project to construct solar-powered spacecraft.
Andrew McCollum
In 2014, Andrew McCollum became the CEO of the entertainment-focused OTT streaming service Philo. Philo made its national premiere in November 2017. Before taking over as CEO, Andrew served on the Philo board of directors, oversaw the company’s founders, and was one of its earliest investors.
Before joining Philo, Andrew was a part of the Facebook founding team and has always been interested in the social design of products. After leaving Facebook, Andrew served as an Entrepreneur in Residence for two of Philo’s backers, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Flybridge Partners. He continues to be an active angel investor and advisor during the start-up phase of a business.
Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes (born on November 26, 1983) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook with two of his Harvard classmates and served as its spokesperson. From 2012 until 2016, he served as The New Republic’s publisher and chief editor. Hughes is the Economic Security Project’s co-chair as of 2019.
Dustin Moskovitz
Asana’s CEO and co-founder are Dustin Moskovitz. Both Good Ventures and the Open Philanthropy Project were co-founded by him. In addition, he helped found Facebook.
Eduardo Saverin
The co-founder and partner of B Capital Group are Eduardo Saverin. Mr Saverin was an early investor and a co-founder of Facebook. Mr Saverin is keen to invest money in the upcoming technological advancements.
As a technology investor and supervisor, he has advised and collaborated closely with a variety of companies of various sizes and phases, all of which have one thing in common: a passion for people-centric technology and a mobile platform lean with global aspirations.
In December 2021, the Facebook team had 71,970 registered full-time employees.
Facebook – Startup Story
The social networking site Facebook was first launched as FaceMash on October 28, 2003, before changing its name to Facebook on February 4, 2004. Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard University classmates founded it. The website’s creators initially only allowed Harvard students to join.
However, it was subsequently extended to cover more colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and eventually the majority of American and Canadian universities, corporations, and, by September 2006, every person over the age of 13 with an active email account.
The Wall was added to a Facebook user’s online profile in September 2004. This extensively utilised feature, which allowed users’ friends to submit content to their Walls, quickly contributed significantly to the network’s social component. By the end of 2004, Facebook had amassed one million active users.
The company was still trailing Myspace, the most popular online social network at the time, which had five million subscribers. However, over time MySpace was unable to compete with Facebook.
2005 became a significant year for the business. Here, the concept of “tagging” individuals in pictures uploaded to the website was developed. In pictures that other Facebook friends may see, people identified themselves and other people using tags. Facebook members have unrestricted photo uploads. In 2005, high school and university students from other countries were given permission to enlist in the “Facebook army.” It had six million monthly active users by year’s end.
Facebook – Mission and Vision
Giving individuals the ability to create community and unite the world is central to Facebook’s aim.
Based on the company’s social media service offerings, Facebook’s corporate mission statement is “People use Facebook to keep connected with friends and family, discover what’s going on in the world, and share and express what matters to them.”
The company is more than just an online social networking service, as shown by its corporate vision. Instead, the company promotes meaningful conversation and information sharing among specific clients.
Facebook – Business Model and Revenue Model
The main way that Facebook generates revenue is by displaying advertisements from companies on its Facebook and Instagram apps. 98 per cent of Facebook’s $86 billion in income in 2020 came from advertisements. Sales of the Oculus and Portal devices, as well as fees for development costs, accounted for the majority of the remaining 2 per cent of revenues.
The core of Facebook’s business plan is to offer its services and technologies to billions of users without charge to make money by allowing companies to advertise to users. Facebook auction-based pricing is used by advertisers, and it is based on supply and demand.
That suggests that Facebook’s users—those who use its services—are not the ones who pay for them. The actual clients are small businesses that advertise on Facebook’s selection of applications. The initial incarnation of Facebook’s e-commerce capabilities, Facebook Shops, was released, making the company’s emphasis on small businesses much clear.
Despite its past and current issues, Facebook is succeeding greatly. Sales climbed by 22 per cent to $86 billion in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. It had a net income of $29 billion and a profit margin of 38%.
Facebook starts experimenting with polygon NFTs and Ethereum on profiles.
In a report dated July 1, 2022, Facebook declared that it has already begun implementing NFTs for some American creators. Initially supporting NFTs on Polygon and Ethereum, the platform will soon include support for NFTs on Solana and Flow as well, according to a spokesman for the social media behemoth.
The users’ Facebook accounts will feature a “digital collectables area,” where they may exhibit their NFTs, which are unique blockchain tokens that reflect ownership, according to a post by Meta Product Manager Navdeep Singh.
The users would be able to connect their Facebook profiles to their bitcoin wallets, Singh added. Additionally, they will be given the choice to turn their NFTs into Facebook posts, which may then be shared, liked, commented on, and answered just like any other Facebook postings.
Face Recognition Shutdown
Face recognition will gradually be removed from Facebook’s social network, the business revealed in November 2021. According to Meta, Facebook’s newly established parent company, its use would be restricted across all products, and over a billion saved faces will be destroyed.
Over a billion saved faces will be erased in the coming weeks, said Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta. The elimination of such a sizable database indicates that Meta will restrict the use of facial recognition in its anticipated “metaverse” projects, which will initially entail real people interacting in sizable virtual settings, such as gaming environments.
Facebook – Competitors
Technology behemoths like: are Facebook’s main rivals.
YouTube
Snapchat
Amazon
Microsoft
Apple
Facebook – Challenges Faced
Facebook’s prominence and size have drawn criticism from a number of sources. Internet privacy, its face recognition technology, excessive data retention, the addictiveness of DeepFace, and its use in the workplace, including employers’ access to employee accounts, are all issues.
Facebook has received criticism for its usage of electricity, tax avoidance, compliance with real-name user verification rules, censorship, and involvement in the US PRISM surveillance programme.
Facebook users are alleged to have negative psychological effects like stress, envy, lack of focus, and social media addiction. Facebook has been under fire for allowing users to publish offensive or illegal material. The specifics include copyright and intellectual property violations, rape, hate speech, terrorist incitement, fake news, crimes, murders, and live-streaming violent events.
In an effort to temporarily restore peace in the wake of the worst anti-Muslim violence the nation had seen since the Easter Sunday massacre the year before, Sri Lanka temporarily disabled both WhatsApp and Facebook in May 2019. Facebook eliminated 3 billion bogus accounts during the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, increasing the overall number of monthly active users to 2.39 billion.
The business announced that the Federal Trade Commission was looking into it for antitrust violations in late July 2019.
Facebook Layoffs
According to sources from July 15, 2022, Facebook is going to lay off workers and has already instructed the process managers to identify the underachievers and move them to exit. According to reports, the corporation has been experiencing difficulties due to macroeconomic factors, which have hurt its advertising revenue.
Facebook – Future Plans
Facebook has changed its name to “Meta,” and CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims that moving forward, the company will put the “metaverse first,” which means you won’t need a Facebook account to use other Meta products.
Additionally, it implies that the business would split its operations into two groups: one for its app family and another for its upcoming platform initiatives (the latter group will be known as Reality Labs).
While developing their social networking applications will continue to be a top focus, he thinks the company’s identity will gradually become less dependent on a particular good or service.
According to Zuckerberg, who believes it will be the next form of integrated virtual media to emerge after video, the metaverse will essentially be an incarnation of the internet (which evolved from photos and texts).
You’ll be able to completely engross yourself in these activities as opposed to staring at a screen. That can most likely be achieved by fostering a strong sense of presence in a communal setting, which would serve as the metaverse’s defining attribute. The company will need to provide hardware for this, such as the Oculus Quest 2 or other models.
The company is considering giving incentives to developers and new users to sign up. These choices include cost-cutting, subsidising technology, and selling products at a loss in order to increase adoption.
It’s important to emphasise that Zuckerberg’s imagined metaverse is far from complete. According to Zuckerberg, just the basic building blocks function right now. In the end, technological challenges persist; for example, it is challenging to fit sophisticated computers and augmented reality technologies into a pair of eyeglasses.
In a founder’s letter, Zuckerberg promises to promote security and privacy on this new “social technology” network, but it will be interesting to see if he can convince people to use it—especially younger generations who have been leaving Facebook behind. Many people wonder if a new interface won’t only bring up the same old problems.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma.
