Shares of Shutterstock Inc. SSTK, +3.46%
rallied 4.4% in premarket trading Tuesday, after the digital media and marketing company announced an agreement to buy GIF and stickers company Giphy Inc. from Meta Platforms Inc. META, -0.29%
for $53 million in cash. Meta shares slipped 0.2% ahead of the open. As part of the deal, Meta has entered into an application programming interface (API) agreement with Shutterstock, to ensure continued access to Giphy’s content across Meta’s social-media platforms. Shutterstock said the deal, which is expected to close in June, should add “minimal revenue” in 2023. The company will fund the deal with cash-on-hand and with its revolving credit facility. The stock has tumbled 28.9% over the past three months through Monday while Meta shares of soared 44.3% and the S&P 500 SPX, -0.39%
has gained 4.5%.
What is it about CEOs and their intense — and often oddball — workout routines?
These days, some top corporate honchos take their exercise rituals to extremes. Consider Damola Adamolekun, chief executive officer of restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s, who recently told Fortune magazine that he wakes up each day at 4:30 a.m. and runs seven to eight miles. He explained that the routine stimulates his nervous system and sets the tone for the day ahead. “You’ll feel better the whole day; you’ll be smarter, you’ll be sharper, you’ll be more energetic,” he said.
Adamolekun is in good company when it comes to training hard. Here are how five other executives work up a sweat and aim to stay healthy.
Jack Dorsey, head of Block and co-founder of Twitter, walks an hour and 15 minutes every day.
AFP via Getty Images
Jack Dorsey
The Twitter co-founder, who now heads the tech conglomerate Block SQ, +3.36%, does it all: two-hour meditations, fasting — he has said he eats only once a day during the week and has almost no food on the weekends — and alternating saunas and ice baths. But he’s no gym rat: Dorsey gets his primary exercise by walking an hour and 15 minutes every day. “I might look a little bit more like I’m jogging than I’m walking. It’s refreshing … It’s just this one of those take-back moments where you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m alive!’” he once observed.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg takes his dog for frequent runs — good exercise for both him and his pooch.
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Mark Zuckerberg
The Meta Platforms META, +1.09%
chief isn’t one to get up at the crack of dawn, according to GQ, but he still runs three mornings a week. “I also try to take my dog running whenever I can, which has the added bonus of being hilarious because that’s basically like seeing a mop run,” he told GQ. As for diet, he once was said to experiment with an eating plan that involved only devouring animals he had killed himself — including chickens, goats and pigs. But he also apparently skips meals — or at least he said as much in a 2021 Facebook post. “Do you ever get so excited about what you’re working on that you forget to eat meals?” he asked.
Richard Branson takes off on another kite-surfing adventure.
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Richard Branson
Kite surfing, anyone? The founder of the Virgin Group swears by it as one of his favorite ways to stay fit, according to Men’s Health. He once even kite surfed across the English Channel. His other activities include tennis and biking. He’ll work with a trainer if he’s on the road, but otherwise he likes to exercise outdoors on his private island in the British Virgin Islands. “I just want to be sure that when I’m 150, my body still looks as good as it is today,” said Branson, who is now 72.
Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp works out by cross-country skiing — and says the key is to take it as slowly as possible to build your “cardio base.”
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Alex Karp
The head of software company Palantir Technologies takes advantage of the fact that he lives near the White Mountains of New Hampshire to have a regular cross-country skiing routine. Key to his approach, he told Axios, is taking it slow on the snow. “To run like a deer, you have to spend 90% of your time running like a snail,” he explained, adding that his unhurried pace “builds a cardio base.” He also includes tai chi and stretching to his routine. But he isn’t too fussy about his diet. “If I’m traveling and someone has a really nice Danish, I enjoy every minute of eating it,” he said.
Martha Stewart is one of the cover models for Sport Illustrated’s new swimsuit issue.
Sports Illustrated
Martha Stewart
The 81-year-old lifestyle entrepreneur and founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has been in the spotlight for her recent cover appearance on Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. So what does she do to stay in shape for beach season? Stewart swears by Pilates, according to various media reports. And she rides horses. She has also said she doesn’t smoke, eats very well and every morning drinks a glass of “green juice” made with pears, cucumbers, celery stalks, parsley, fresh ginger and two oranges (complete with peels), a recipe she calls “so spectacular.”
London – Meta was fined the equivalent of a record $1.3 billion by the European Union on Monday for its transfer of users’ personal data from Europe to the United States.
Andrea Jelinek, chair of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), said Meta’s infringement was “very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive and continuous.”
“Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive,” Jelinek said in a statement. “The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizations that serious infringements have far-reaching consequences.”
Meta was also ordered to bring its data transfers into compliance with European privacy law.
The tech giant said it would appeal the ruling and argued there was a problematic clash between U.S. and European privacy regulations.
“Without the ability to transfer data across borders, the internet risks being carved up into national and regional silos, restricting the global economy and leaving citizens in different countries unable to access many of the shared services we have come to rely on,” Meta said in a statement.
This is a breaking new story. Please check back for updates.
Meta Platforms META, -0.49%
was fined a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, according to reports. The fine was over allegations Facebook didn’t ensure data transfers from Europe to the U.S. had appropriate safeguards. Meta reportedly said it was singled out and has used the same legal mechanisms as thousands of other companies.
Embattled Twitter may soon have a serious rival: Facebook’s Instagram is planning to release a text-based app as a competitor.
Instagram, a property of Meta Platforms Inc. META, -0.49%,
has been testing the service with creators, celebrities and influencers for months, according to people familiar with Meta’s strategy.
“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson told MarketWatch.
The app could debut as early as June, according to Lia Haberman, an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who teaches social and influencer marketing. She published a screenshot of an early description of the app, which may eventually be compatible with rival Twitter apps like Mastodon.
Twitter has hemorrhaged users since Tesla Inc. TSLA, +1.84%
Chief Executive Elon Musk began his chaotic leadership of the company late last year, prompting an exodus by disgruntled customers to alternative services like Mastodon and Bluesky.
Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said the text-based service has been in the works for months alternately code-named P92 or Barcelona.
“The big picture here is that there is clearly an appetite for Twitter-like services,” Enberg said in an interview. “With Twitter’s problems and so many alternatives, Meta’s new service looks like a mashup of Instagram and Twitter. Meta sees an opportunity to tap into this market, and it has a history of copying other popular apps [like Snap].”
Meta’s stock was flat in Friday’s regular trading session.
A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against multiple technology giants, including Meta and Google, by families of several victims of the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting which left 10 Black people dead. The gunman was a white supremacist, authorities said, and the suit accuses the companies of designing algorithms that promote “racist, antisemitic and violent material.” Jericka Duncan has details.
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Anyone in the U.S. who used Facebook in the last 16 years can now collect a piece of a $725 million settlement by parent company Meta tied to privacy violations — as long as they fill out a claim on a website set up to pay out money to the social network’s users.
The settlement stems from multiple lawsuits that were brought against Facebook by users who claimed that the company improperly shared their data with third-party sources such as advertisers and data brokers. The litigation began after Facebook was embroiled in a privacy scandal in 2018 with Cambridge Analytica, which scraped user data from the site as part of an effort to profile voters.
Meta denied any liability or wrongdoing under the settlement, according to the recently created class-action website. However, the agreement means that U.S. residents who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, can file a monetary claim as long as they do so before August 25, 2023.
How do I claim money under the Facebook settlement?
Go to the claim website to fill out your claim, or else print out the claim and mail it to this address: Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, c/o Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
What information do I need to provide?
The claim asks for basic information:
Your name
Your address
Your email
Your phone
If you resided in the U.S. between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you deleted your account in that period, the date range when you were a Facebook user
Your Facebook user name
The payment service you prefer, such as PayPal, Venmo or a prepaid Mastercard
How long does it take to fill out the form?
It should take only a few minutes.
How do I find my Facebook name?
You can find it on Facebook’s website by going to “Account” and then clicking on “Settings and Privacy.” From there, click on “Settings,” where you should see “Username.”
On the mobile app, go to the menu and then click on your display name on top of the screen. Then select the “…” next to “Edit Profile” and your user name appears under “Your Profile Link.”
Can I file for more than one Facebook account?
The claim administrator says that if you created but deleted one or more Facebook accounts, and then later created a new Facebook account, you can claim for the full amount of time you had an activated Facebook account during that time.
However, if you had multiple accounts at the same time, you can’t get a claim for those extra accounts. In other words, no double-counting, according to the claim administrator.
Can I file for a deceased person?
Yes, but it takes a few extra steps.
First, file the claim under the name of the deceased person and fill out their details in the “Your Facebook Account” section of the claim form.
Next, you’ll have to provide the claim settlement administrator with a request to change the name to the beneficiary or the estate of the claimant. To do that, you’ll have to provide documentation showing the reason for the name change, such as a copy of the death certificate. Send an email to the administrator through its secure portal with the explanation and the documents that demonstrate the need for the change.
The secure portal will allow you to send an email to administrative@angeiongroup.com. Use the subject line: “Name Change – Facebook User Privacy Settlement” and include the claim ID from the claim confirmation, as well as the full name of the deceased person. The site will also ask you to register with your email and password.
You can also mail the documentation to:
Facebook User Privacy Settlement Attn: Name Change 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210 Philadelphia, PA 19103
Is the Facebook settlement legit?
Yes, according to Meta.
“We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders,” a Meta spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch. “We are notifying people through their Facebook notifications about this settlement so they can decide whether to participate.”
How much money will I get?
That’s unclear, because the settlement amount per user will depend on how many people fill out a claim, according to the settlement website.
However, the lawyers involved in the case are likely to take a portion of the settlement as part of their fees. The claim website notes that they could be awarded up to 25% of the settlement — or $181.3 million. If they receive that much, the settlement will be reduced to $543.7 million for the Facebook users who ask for part of the claim.
Each claimant will get one point for each month when they had an “activated” Facebook account between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022. The settlement administrator will add up all the points assigned to all claimants and then divide the net settlement amount by that number.
Each claimant will receive that per point amount multiplied by the number of points they were assigned, meaning that people who have been on Facebook for shorter periods of time would likely get a lower settlement amount.
When will I get the money?
Not until later this year at the earliest.
The claims site notes that there is a final approval hearing for the settlement on September 7, when the court will decide whether to approve the deal and award attorneys’ fees and other costs. If the settlement is approved, the case could still face appeals, which would take an unknown amount of time to be resolved, the website notes.
“Settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible if the court grants final approval of the settlement and after any appeals are resolved,” it notes.
Can I opt out of the settlement — and if so, why should I?
Yes, Facebook users can opt out of the settlement. One possible reason to do so is if you want to keep your right to separately sue the company about the issues and allegations in the case, according to the settlement website.
To opt out, you’ll have to send a request online or via mail before July 26, the site notes. To send the request in writing, you’ll have to include the information below:
The case name — In re: Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, Case No. 3:18-md-02843-VC (N.D. Cal.)
Your name and current address
Your signature
A statement “clearly indicating your intent to be excluded from the settlement”
Your Facebook account URL
A statement that you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
What if I don’t do anything?
If you neither file a claim nor opt out of the settlement, you give up your right to file a lawsuit, continue a suit or be part of any other litigation against Facebook about the legal issues involved in the case. You also won’t get to collect any of the settlement money, according to the site.
Are there people who are excluded from the settlement?
Aside from those who opt out of the settlement, people who work for Meta, affiliated companies or subsidiaries as well as the attorneys for the plaintiff and their employees can’t join the settlement. The special master, mediators and judges involved in the case can’t participate either.
The settlement also doesn’t cover users outside the U.S. or people who weren’t Facebook users at any time between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg bagged gold and silver medals this weekend at his first jiu-jitsu tournament.
A series of six photos, posted to Facebook and Instagram, shows the Meta founder grappling with two different opponents at the Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition, which was held Saturday at Woodside High School in Woodside, California, just north of Silicon Valley. Other images show a referee declaring Zuckerberg victorious after the two matches.
“Competed in my first jiu jitsu tournament and won some medals for the Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu team,” Zuckerberg wrote beneath the photos, which racked up more than 400,000 likes on Instagram and 300,000 likes on Facebook. “Thanks to Dave Camarillo, Khai Wu, and James Terry for training me!” reads one caption.
The post features a photo of the CEO posing alongside members of the Gorilla Jiu Jitsu team, at a Bay Area-gym where he competed. The last image shows a pensive Zuckerberg approaching a gym mat.
Competed in my first jiu jitsu tournament and won some medals 🥇🥈 for the Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu team. Thanks to Dave Camarillo, Khai Wu, and James Terry for training me!
Zuckerberg began studying mixed martial arts during the coronavirus pandemic and quickly became enamored with the sport, he told in an August interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, himself a noted practitioner and fan of the sport. The sport’s “primal” nature has helped Zuckerberg boost his energy level as he tackles challenges at work, he told Rogan.
“MMA is the perfect thing,” Zuckerberg said on the podcast. “After an hour or two of working out, or rolling or wrestling with friends, or training with different folks, it’s like now I’m ready to go solve whatever problem at work for the day.”
Zuckerberg trains with Dave Camarillo of Gorilla Jiu Jitsu, who has taught several UFC champions. Since beginning his jiu-jitsu journey, Zuckerberg has convinced several of his friends to start hitting the gym as well, he told Rogan.
From the C-suite to the mat
Zuckerberg isn’t the only tech tycoon who has been hitting the gym.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, 51, also trains in jiu-jitsu at a California gym he said on Rogan’s show in 2021. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman has a well-documented affinity for krav maga, an Israeli self-defense practice that the 65-year-old has credited with teaching him how to pick his battles and keep advancing toward his goals. Palantir CEO Alex Karp, 55, has practiced both jiu-jitsu and aikido — a Japanese art of self-defense, Fortune reported.
Martial arts and other sports might offer much-needed stress relief for tech CEOs, especially given the industry’s recent slump. Tech companies have been battered by waves of layoffs as they record weaker earnings.
Meta’s net income fell 24% to $5.71 billion during the first quarter of 2023. Last week, the social media company also revealed it would shed an additional 1,500 jobs in the Bay Area as part of its plan to reduce its worker headcount by 21,000, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The Metaverse, the once-buzzy technology that promised to allow users to hang out awkwardly in a disorientating video-game-like world, has died after being abandoned by the business world. It was three years old.
The capital-M Metaverse, a descendant of the 1982 movie “Tron” and the 2003 video game “Second Life,” was born in 2021 when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his trillion-dollar company to Meta. After a much-heralded debut, the Metaverse became the obsession of the tech world and a quick hack to win over Wall Street investors. The hype could not save the Metaverse, however, and a lack of coherent vision for the product ultimately led to its decline. Once the tech industry turned to a new, more promising trend — generative AI — the fate of the Metaverse was sealed.
The Metaverse is now headed to the tech industry’s graveyard of failed ideas. But the short life and ignominious death of the Metaverse offers a glaring indictment of the tech industry that birthed it.
Grand promise
From the moment of its delivery, Zuckerberg claimed that the Metaverse would be the future of the internet. The glitzy, spurious promotional video that accompanied Zuckerberg’s name-change announcement described a future where we’d be able to interact seamlessly in virtual worlds: Users would “make eye contact” and “feel like you’re right in the room together.” The Metaverse offered people the chance to engage in an “immersive” experience, he claimed.
These grandiose promises heaped sky-high expectations on the Metaverse. The media swooned over the newborn concept: The Verge published a nearly 5,000-word-long interview with Zuckerberg immediately following the announcement — in which the writer called it “an expansive, immersive vision of the internet.” Glowing profiles of the Metaverse seemed to set it on a laudatory path, but the actual technology failed to deliver on this promise throughout its short life. A wonky virtual-reality interview with the CBS host Gayle King, where low-quality cartoon avatars of both King and Zuckerberg awkwardly motioned to each other, was a stark contrast to the futuristic vistas shown in Meta’s splashy introductory video.
The Metaverse also suffered from an acute identity crisis. A functional business proposition requires a few things to thrive and grow: a clear use case, a target audience, and the willingness of customers to adopt the product. Zuckerberg waxed poetic about the Metaverse as “a vision that spans many companies” and “the successor to the mobile internet,” but he failed to articulate the basic business problems that the Metaverse would address. The concept of virtual worlds where users interact with each other using digital avatars is an old one, going back as far as the late 1990s with massively multiplayer online role-player games, such as “Meridian 59,” “Ultimate Online,” and “EverQuest.” And while the Metaverse supposedly built on these ideas with new technology, Zuckerberg’s one actual product — the VR platform Horizon Worlds, which required the use of an incredibly clunky Oculus headset — failed to suggest anything approaching a road map or a genuine vision. In spite of the Metaverse’s arrested conceptual development, a pliant press published statements about the future of the technology that were somewhere between unrealistic and outright irresponsible. The CNBC host Jim Cramer nodded approvingly when Zuckerberg claimed that 1 billion people would use the Metaverse and spend hundreds of dollars there, despite the Meta CEO’s inability to say what people would receive in exchange for their cash or why anyone would want to strap a clunky headset to their face to attend a low-quality, cartoon concert.
A high-flying life
The inability to define the Metaverse in any meaningful way didn’t get in the way of its ascension to the top of the business world. In the months following the Meta announcement, it seemed that every company had a Metaverse product on offer, despite it not being obvious what it was or why they should.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella would say at the company’s 2021 Ignite Conference that he couldn’t “overstate how much of a breakthrough” the Metaverse was for his company, the industry, and the world. Roblox, an online game platform that has existed since 2004, rode the Metaverse hype wave to an initial public offering and a $41 billion valuation. Of course, the cryptocurrency industry took the ball and ran with it: The people behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT company conned the press into believing that uploading someone’s digital monkey pictures into VR would be the key to “master the Metaverse.” Other crypto pumpers even successfully convinced people that digital land in the Metaverse would be the next frontier of real-estate investment. Even businesses that seemed to have little to do with tech jumped on board. Walmart joined the Metaverse. Disney joined the Metaverse.
Despite Zuckerberg’s obsession with the Metaverse, the tech never lived up to the hype. Facebook
Companies’ rush to get into the game led Wall Street investors, consultants, and analysts to try to one up each other’s projections for the Metaverse’s growth. The consulting firm Gartner claimed that 25% of people would spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse by 2026. The Wall Street Journal said the Metaverse would change the way we work forever. The global consulting firm McKinsey predicted that the Metaverse could generate up to “$5 trillion in value,” adding that around 95% of business leaders expected the Metaverse to “positively impact their industry” within five to 10 years. Not to be outdone, Citi put out a massive report that declared the Metaverse would be a $13 trillion opportunity.
A brutal downfall
In spite of all this hype, the Metaverse did not lead a healthy life. Every single business idea or rosy market projection was built on the vague promises of a single CEO. And when people were actually offered the opportunity to try it out, nobody actually used the Metaverse.
Decentraland, the most well-funded, decentralized, crypto-based Metaverse product (effectively a wonky online world you can “walk” around), only had around 38 daily active users in its “$1.3 billion ecosystem.” Decentraland would dispute this number, claiming that it had 8,000 daily active users — but that’s still only a fraction of the number of people playing large online games like “Fortnite.” Meta’s much-heralded efforts similarly struggled: By October 2022, Mashable reported that Horizon Worlds had less than 200,000 monthly active users — dramatically short of the 500,000 target Meta had set for the end of 2022. The Wall Street Journal reported that only about 9% of user-created worlds were visited by more than 50 players, and The Verge said that it was so buggy that even Meta employees eschewed it. Despite the might of a then-trillion-dollar company, Meta could not convince people to use the product it had staked its future on.
But the Metaverse was officially pulled off life support when it became clear that Zuckerberg and the company that launched the craze had moved on to greener financial pastures. Zuckerberg declared in a March update that Meta’s “single largest investment is advancing AI and building it into every one of our products.” Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, told CNBC in April that he, along with Mark Zuckerberg and the company’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, were now spending most of their time on AI. The company has even stopped pitching the Metaverse to advertisers, despite spending more than $100 billion in research and development on its mission to be “Metaverse first.” While Zuckerberg may suggest that developing games for the Quest headsets is some sort of investment, the writing is on the wall: Meta is done with the Metaverse.
Did anyone learn their lesson?
While the idea of virtual worlds or collective online experiences may live on in some form, the Capital-M Metaverse is dead. It was preceded in death by a long line of tech fads like Web3 and Google Glass. It is survived by newfangled ideas like the aforementioned generative AI and the self-driving car. Despite this long lineage of disappointment, let’s be clear: The death of the Metaverse should be remembered as arguably one of the most historic failures in tech history.
I do not believe that Mark Zuckerberg ever had any real interest in “the Metaverse,” because he never seemed to define it beyond a slightly tweaked Facebook with avatars and cumbersome hardware. It was the means to an increased share price, rather than any real vision for the future of human interaction. And Zuckerberg used his outsize wealth and power to get the whole of the tech industry and a good portion of the American business world into line behind this half-baked idea.
The fact that Mark Zuckerberg has clearly stepped away from the Metaverse is a damning indictment of everyone who followed him, and anyone who still considers him a visionary tech leader. It should also be the cause for some serious reflection among the venture-capital community, which recklessly followed Zuckerberg into blowing billions of dollars on a hype cycle founded on the flimsiest possible press-release language. In a just world, Mark Zuckerberg should be fired as CEO of Meta (in the real world, this is actually impossible).
Zuckerberg misled everyone, burned tens of billions of dollars, convinced an industry of followers to submit to his quixotic obsession, and then killed it the second that another idea started to interest Wall Street. There is no reason that a man who has overseen the layoffs of tens of thousands of people should run a major company. There is no future for Meta with Mark Zuckerberg at the helm: It will stagnate, and then it will die and follow the Metaverse into the proverbial grave.
Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR, a national tech and business public-relations agency. He is also the author of the tech and culture newsletter Where’s Your Ed At.
Facebook says it is not dead. Facebook also wants you to know that it is not just for “old people,” as young people have been saying for years.
Now, with the biggest thorn in its side — TikTok — facing heightened government scrutiny amid growing tensions between the U.S. and China, Facebook could, perhaps, position itself as a viable, domestic-bred alternative.
There’s just one problem: young adults like Devin Walsh have moved on.
“I don’t even remember the last time I logged in. It must have been years ago,” said Walsh, 24, who lives in Manhattan and works in public relations.
Instead, she checks Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook parent company Meta, about five or six times a day. Then there’s TikTok, of course, where she spends about an hour each day scrolling, letting the algorithm find things “I didn’t even know I was interested in.”
Walsh can’t imagine a world in which Facebook, which she joined when she was in 6th grade, becomes a regular part of her life again.
“It’s the branding, right? When I think of Facebook, I think ugh, like cheugy, older people, like parents posting pictures of their kids, random status updates and also people fighting about political issues,” Walsh said, using the Gen Z term for things that are definitely not cool.
Once cool
The once-cool social media platform born before the iPhone is approaching two decades in existence. For those who came of age around the time Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com from his Harvard dorm room in 2004, it’s been inextricably baked into daily life — even if it’s somewhat faded into the background over the years.
Facebook faces a particularly odd challenge. Today, 3 billion people check it each month. That’s more than a third of the world’s population. And 2 billion log in every day. Yet it still finds itself in a battle for relevancy, and its future, after two decades of existence.
For younger generations — those who signed up in middle school, or those who are now in middle school, it’s decidedly not the place to be. Without this trend-setting demographic, Facebook, still the main source of revenue for parent company Meta, risks fading into the background — utilitarian but boring, like email.
It wasn’t always like this. For nearly a decade, Facebook was the place to be, the cultural touchstone, the thing constantly referenced in daily conversations and late-night TV, its founding even the subject of a Hollywood movie. Rival MySpace, which launched only a year earlier, quickly became outdated as the cool kids flocked to Facebook. It didn’t help MySpace’s fate that it was sold to stodgy old News Corp. in 2005.
“It was this weird combination…no one knew how technology worked, but in order to have a MySpace, we all needed to become mini coders. It was so stressful.” said Moira Gaynor, 28. “Maybe that’s even why Facebook took off. Because compared to MySpace it was this beautiful, integrated, wonderful engagement area that we didn’t have before and we really craved after struggling with MySpace for so long.”
Remember AOL?
Positioning himself a visionary, Zuckerberg refused to sell Facebook and pushed his company through the mobile revolution. While some rivals emerged — remember Orkut? — they generally petered out as Facebook soared, seemingly unstoppable despite scandals over user privacy and a failure to address hate speech and misinformation adequately. It reached a billion daily users in 2015.
Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with Insider Intelligence who’s followed Facebook since its early days, notes that the site’s younger users have been dwindling but doesn’t see Facebook going anywhere, at least not any time soon.
“The fact that we are talking about Facebook being 20 years old, I think that is a testament of what Mark developed when he was in college. It’s pretty incredible,” she said. “It is still a very powerful platform around the world.”
AOL was once powerful too, but its user base has aged and now an aol.com email address is little more than a punchline in a joke about technologically illiterate people of a certain age.
Tom Alison, who serves as the head of Facebook (Zuckerberg’s title is now Meta CEO), sounded optimistic when he outlined the platform’s plans to lure in young adults in an interview with The Associated Press.
“We used to have a team at Facebook that was focused on younger cohorts, or maybe there was a project or two that was dedicated to coming up with new ideas,” Alison said. “And about two years ago we said no — our entire product line needs to change and evolve and adapt to the needs of the young adults.”
He calls it the era of “social discovery.”
“It’s very much motivated by what we see the next generation wanting from social media. The simple way that I like to describe it is we want Facebook to be the place where you can connect with the people you know, the people you want to know and the people that you should know,” Alison said.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is central to this plan. Just as TikTok uses its AI and algorithm to show people videos they didn’t know they wanted to see Facebook is hoping to harness its powerful technology to win back the hearts and eyeballs of young adults. Reels, the TikTok-like videos Facebook and Instagram users are bombarded with when they log into both apps, are also key. And, of course, private messaging.
“What we are seeing is more people wanting to share reels, discuss reels, and we’re starting to integrate messaging features back into the app to again allow Facebook to be a place where not only do you discover great things that are relevant to you, but you share and you discuss those with people,” Alison said.
Facebook has consistently declined to disclose user demographics, which would shed some light on how it is faring among young adults. But outside researchers say their numbers are declining. The same is true for teenagers — although Facebook seems to have stepped back from actively recruiting teens amid concerns about social media’s effects on their mental health.
“Young people often shape the future of communication. I mean, that’s basically how Facebook took off — young people gravitated toward it. And we we see that happening with pretty much every social platform that has come on the scene since Facebook,” said Williamson. This year, Insider estimates that about half of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 12 and 24.
Williamson doesn’t see this trend reversing, but notes that Insider’s estimates only go as far as 2026. There’s a decline, but it’s slow. That year, the research firm expects about 28% of U.S. Facebook’s users to be between 18 and 34 years old, compared with nearly 46% for TikTok and 42% for Instagram. The numbers are more stark for teens aged 12-17.
“I think the best thing they could do is get away from being a social platform. Like they’ve lost that. But hey, if they want to become the new Yellow Pages, why not?” said Gaynor, who lives in San Diego, California and works in government. “I really like Marketplace. I recently just moved, so that was where I got most of my furniture.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The Metaverse: an immersive virtual world where we can interact with each other using smartphones, PCs, special glasses or VR headsets. A digital world that up until recently enjoyed huge buzz and excitement surrounding the opportunities it might have presented for businesses and consumers alike.
The Metaverse arrived with a variety of investment and money-making opportunities, where users could purchase a wide variety of digital goods and services for their avatars and their own virtual experiences. Ranging from brand-name accessories to cars in virtual stores and even being able to buy virtual land. The NBA’s Brooklyn Nets made sports history as the first pro sports team to broadcast a game in the metaverse, which they coined the “Netaverse.”
Big early bets have been made on the Metaverse, too. Meta has spent eye-watering levels of money on its metaverse play. Reality Labs, the division inside Meta that houses Metaverse projects, recorded cumulative losses of nearly $24 billion across 2021 and 2022.
But, as fast as the hype built around the Metaverse though (much the same time as Mark Zuckerberg made huge announcements about Facebook’s future being connected to an immersive 3D world and rebranding the company to Meta), interest equally waned. Evidence of this can be seen by looking at Google search traffic for the Metaverse, which dwindled significantly over recent months, taking it back to pre-announcement levels.
Over the span of a few years, tech and entertainment giants invested heavily in building this virtual world, only to discover that most of us haven’t got much of an appetite for the Metaverse. It looks like we are much more attached to reality than tech leaders first thought. Statistics across retail and air travel confirm we are moving back into the real world following Covid-19 lockdowns. Most people still don’t yet understand what the Metaverse is, how it works or what it means for them, which could be categorized as a fairly significant failure considering the huge investments and media coverage this space has received.
Meta has been actively slimming down its virtual world operations. Disney and Microsoft are both closing their Metaverse departments. Apple looks to have all but given up on its virtual reality headset, while Tinder has announced that it will abandon its plans for virtual world dating.
What was once a potentially exciting business and investment opportunity has become a terribly expensive gamble that looks to have all but failed so far. The Metaverse is looking to be turning into a great corporate collapse, at least in the immediate term, with billions of dollars of investment at risk and reputations being impacted.
Tech innovators and leaders tend to think in terms of the hype cycle: the roller coaster journey from concept to widespread adoption. For now, it looks like huge sums of investor money have been spent on a technology whose potential has yet to be realized — and may never be.
More recently, Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement to the market about Meta’s renewed focus on AI, which could likely be a sign that he’s silently killing off the Metaverse project and walking away from the vast investments he’s made in this tech. And while Zuckerberg has pointed out that the Metaverse is a long-term investment for Meta — and he has promised to dial down the Metaverse rhetoric — this gamble is looking more and more like an example of corporate hubris.
Generative AI has stolen the Metaverse’s thunder. The real-world application of OpenAI’s ChatGPT is hard to compete with at the moment, and rightly so. It has immediate and very real and meaningful uses that can be hugely helpful to individuals and to businesses. It’s having a meaningful impact on bottom lines across the world and isn’t speculative like the Metaverse.
AI also goes well beyond ChatGPT. It can be categorized into four areas at the moment:
Automated intelligence: Automates manual routine and non-routine tasks.
Assisted intelligence: Assists people to perform particular tasks faster and sometimes better.
Augmented intelligence: Helps people make better decisions.
Autonomous intelligence: Automates decision-making processes without the need for human input.
Whether it be machine learning, smart applications and appliances, digital assistants or autonomous vehicles, AI has very real scope across the global economy right now and also into the future, helping it avoid the tag of being a fad. As a result, it’s viewed as a safer and less risky investment bet.
What needs to change for the Metaverse to recover?
For the Metaverse to have any chance of success at some point in the future, consumer education must be front and center. Dissolve the mystery surrounding the virtual world and its applications to both consumers and businesses.
The enormity of the challenge must not be underestimated. At its best, from a user experience perspective, the Metaverse requires hyper-realistic 3D display technology that would be offered through a normal pair of glasses. This virtual world is quite simply too early in its journey right now to have any real impact, hence it’s viewed as a dangerously speculative and risky investment at present.
The Metaverse is not about to simply die on the vine overnight. With time, we will stop being asked to spend our time in virtual worlds using kooky avatars to simply chat with friends or hang out on some digital land we purchased. Virtual spaces will become far more natural and realistic — with time. And that’s the critical ingredient: time.
I think that with its evolution, we will see it more broadly adopted, perhaps in a more narrow and focused manner — likely for short bursts, i.e. truly immersive experiences such as product launches, concerts, meetings, education and training, socializing and much more, rather than the inaccurate or unrealistic concept that we will somehow spend much of our waking days inside a virtual world.
An investment in the Metaverse is only as valuable as the demand for the technologies involved. When the hype was at its peak, there was an argument to be made about the value of an investment (albeit a risky one) in the virtual world, but when that hype dries up and the punters leave, that investment fast becomes worthless.
While Meta has confirmed that it remains a long-term focus, and big corporates such as Siemans, Proctor and Gamble and others are using Metaverse technology for various applications related to their businesses, no one has yet brought that magical application or experience to the table as yet, probably because the hardware devices required to achieve this don’t yet exist.
So is the Metaverse dead? I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. It’s too early to make that call. It’s not that the real world is back and the online world is in the past, but rather that the two will run in parallel. It is not that the online universe is going to disappear, but rather that it may have reached its limit — for now. If you have an appetite for significant risk-based investing, a passion for bleeding edge technology and making bets that are wildly speculative, then there’s probably an angle for you to explore in the Metaverse, but get advice and tread very carefully.
Anyone in the U.S. who used Facebook in the last 16 years can now collect a piece of a $725 million settlement by parent company Meta tied to privacy violations — as long as they fill out a claim on a website set up to pay out money to the social network’s users.
The settlement stems from multiple lawsuits that were brought against Facebook by users who claimed that the company improperly shared their data with third-party sources such as advertisers and data brokers. The litigation began after Facebook was embroiled in a privacy scandal in 2018 with Cambridge Analytica, which scraped user data from the site as part of an effort to profile voters.
Meta denied any liability or wrongdoing under the settlement, according to the recently created class-action website. However, the agreement means that U.S. residents who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, can file a monetary claim as long as they do so before August 25, 2023.
How do I claim money under the Facebook settlement?
Go to the claim website to fill out your claim, or else print out the claim and mail it to this address: Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, c/o Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
What information do I need to provide?
The claim asks for basic information:
Your name
Your address
Your email
Your phone
If you resided in the U.S. between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you deleted your account in that period, the date range when you were a Facebook user
Your Facebook user name
The payment service you prefer, such as PayPal, Venmo or a prepaid Mastercard
How long does it take to fill out the form?
It should take only a few minutes.
Can I file for more than one Facebook account?
The claim administrator says that if you created but deleted one or more Facebook accounts, and then later created a new Facebook account, you can claim for the full amount of time you had an activated Facebook account during that time.
However, if you had multiple accounts at the same time, you can’t get a claim for those extra accounts. In other words, no double-counting, according to the claim administrator.
Can I file for a deceased person?
Yes, but it takes a few extra steps.
First, file the claim under the name of the deceased person and fill out their details in the “Your Facebook Account” section of the claim form.
Next, you’ll have to provide the claim settlement administrator with a request to change the name to the beneficiary or the estate of the claimant. To do that, you’ll have to provide documentation showing the reason for the name change, such as a copy of the death certificate. Send an email to the administrator through its secure portal with the explanation and the documents that demonstrate the need for the change.
The secure portal will allow you to send an email to administrative@angeiongroup.com. Use the subject line: “Name Change – Facebook User Privacy Settlement” and include the claim ID from the claim confirmation, as well as the full name of the deceased person. The site will also ask you to register with your email and password.
You can also mail the documentation to:
Facebook User Privacy Settlement Attn: Name Change 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210 Philadelphia, PA 19103
Is the Facebook settlement legit?
Yes, according to Meta.
“We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders,” a Meta spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch. “We are notifying people through their Facebook notifications about this settlement so they can decide whether to participate.”
How much money will I get?
That’s unclear, because the settlement amount per user will depend on how many people fill out a claim, according to the settlement website.
However, the lawyers involved in the case are likely to take a portion of the settlement as part of their fees. The claim website notes that they could be awarded up to 25% of the settlement — or $181.3 million. If they receive that much, the settlement will be reduced to $543.7 million for the Facebook users who ask for part of the claim.
Each claimant will get one point for each month when they had an “activated” Facebook account between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022. The settlement administrator will add up all the points assigned to all claimants and then divide the net settlement amount by that number.
Each claimant will receive that per point amount multiplied by the number of points they were assigned, meaning that people who have been on Facebook for shorter periods of time would likely get a lower settlement amount.
When will I get the money?
Not until later this year at the earliest.
The claims site notes that there is a final approval hearing for the settlement on September 7, when the court will decide whether to approve the deal and award attorneys’ fees and other costs. If the settlement is approved, the case could still face appeals, which would take an unknown amount of time to be resolved, the website notes.
“Settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible if the court grants final approval of the settlement and after any appeals are resolved,” it notes.
Can I opt out of the settlement — and if so, why should I?
Yes, Facebook users can opt out of the settlement. One possible reason to do so is if you want to keep your right to separately sue the company about the issues and allegations in the case, according to the settlement website.
To opt out, you’ll have to send a request online or via mail before July 26, the site notes. To send the request in writing, you’ll have to include the information below:
The case name — In re: Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, Case No. 3:18-md-02843-VC (N.D. Cal.)
Your name and current address
Your signature
A statement “clearly indicating your intent to be excluded from the settlement”
Your Facebook account URL
A statement that you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
What if I don’t do anything?
If you neither file a claim nor opt out of the settlement, you give up your right to file a lawsuit, continue a suit or be part of any other litigation against Facebook about the legal issues involved in the case. You also won’t get to collect any of the settlement money, according to the site.
Are there people who are excluded from the settlement?
Aside from those who opt out of the settlement, people who work for Meta, affiliated companies or subsidiaries as well as the attorneys for the plaintiff and their employees can’t join the settlement. The special master, mediators and judges involved in the case can’t participate either.
The settlement also doesn’t cover users outside the U.S. or people who weren’t Facebook users at any time between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022.
U.S. stocks ended April higher on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average booking its best monthly gain since January. Despite renewed focus on stress in the U.S. banking system, major stock indexes were able to post gains on Friday to end the week and month on higher ground, in part as earnings reports from several big technology companies, including Meta Platforms Inc. META were received positively by investors. The Dow DJIA rose about 272 points Friday, or 0.8%, ending near 34,098, according to preliminary FactSet levels. The S&P 500 index SPX posted a 0.8% gain, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP advanced…
Major U.S. stock indexes posted big gains on Thursday as Meta and other major technology companies embolden bullish investors with better earnings results than anticipated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA rose about 524 points, or 1.6%, ending near 33,826, while the S&P 500 index SPX gained 2%, according to preliminary FactSet figures. That marked the best daily percentage gains for both since Jan. 6, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP led the charge higher Thursday, jumping 2.4%, its best daily advance since Feb. 2. Meta Platforms Inc.’s META said Wednesday that the company’s profit…
U.S. stocks rose on Thursday, on track for their biggest gain in two weeks, as another batch of strong big-tech earnings reports helped boost the broader market while offsetting signs of slowing economic growth.
How are stocks trading
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 229 points, or 0.68%, to 33,302 as worries about First Republic Bank FRC overshadowed upbeat big-tech earnings.
Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock soared more than 10% higher in extended trading Wednesday after the social networking company’s profit declined less than expected in the first three months of 2023, and a revenue forecast pointed toward reinvigorated sales growth.
Facebook’s parent company META racked up fiscal first-quarter net earnings of $5.71 billion, or $2.20 a share, compared with earnings of $2.72 a share in the year-ago quarter. Revenue gained less than 3% to $28.65 billion from $27.91 billion a year ago.
Anyone in the U.S. who used Facebook in the last 16 years can now collect a piece of a $725 million settlement by parent company Meta tied to privacy violations — as long as they fill out a claim on a website set up to pay out money to the social network’s users.
The settlement stems from multiple lawsuits that were brought against Facebook by users who claimed that the company improperly shared their data with third-party sources such as advertisers and data brokers. The litigation began after Facebook was embroiled in a privacy scandal in 2018 with Cambridge Analytica, which scraped user data from the site as part of an effort to profile voters.
Meta denied any liability or wrongdoing under the settlement, according to the recently created class-action website. However, the agreement means that U.S. residents who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, can file a monetary claim as long as they do so before August 25, 2023.
How do I claim money under the Facebook settlement?
Go to the claim website to fill out your claim, or else print out the claim and mail it to this address: Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, c/o Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
What information do I need to provide?
The claim asks for basic information:
Your name
Your address
Your email
Your phone
If you resided in the U.S. between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you deleted your account in that period, the date range when you were a Facebook user
Your Facebook user name
The payment service you prefer, such as PayPal, Venmo or a prepaid Mastercard
How long does it take to fill out the form?
It should take only a few minutes.
Is the Facebook settlement legit?
Yes, according to Meta.
“We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders,” a Meta spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch. “We are notifying people through their Facebook notifications about this settlement so they can decide whether to participate.”
How much money will I get?
That’s unclear, because the settlement amount per user will depend on how many people fill out a claim, according to the settlement website.
However, the lawyers involved in the case are likely to take a portion of the settlement as part of their fees. The claim website notes that they could be awarded up to 25% of the settlement — or $181.3 million. If they receive that much, the settlement will be reduced to $543.7 million for the Facebook users who ask for part of the claim.
When will I get the money?
Not until later this year at the earliest.
The claims site notes that there is a final approval hearing for the settlement on September 7, when the court will decide whether to approve the deal and award attorneys’ fees and other costs. If the settlement is approved, the case could still face appeals, which would take an unknown amount of time to be resolved, the website notes.
“Settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible if the court grants final approval of the settlement and after any appeals are resolved,” it notes.
Can I opt out of the settlement — and if so, why should I?
Yes, Facebook users can opt out of the settlement. One possible reason to do so is if you want to keep your right to separately sue the company about the issues and allegations in the case, according to the settlement website.
To opt out, you’ll have to send a request online or via mail before July 26, the site notes. To send the request in writing, you’ll have to include the information below:
The case name — In re: Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, Case No. 3:18-md-02843-VC (N.D. Cal.)
Your name and current address
Your signature
A statement “clearly indicating your intent to be excluded from the settlement”
Your Facebook account URL
A statement that you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
What if I don’t do anything?
If you neither file a claim nor opt out of the settlement, you give up your right to file a lawsuit, continue a suit or be part of any other litigation against Facebook about the legal issues involved in the case. You also won’t get to collect any of the settlement money, according to the site.
Are there people who are excluded from the settlement?
Aside from those who opt out of the settlement, people who work for Meta, affiliated companies or subsidiaries as well as the attorneys for the plaintiff and their employees can’t join the settlement. The special master, mediators and judges involved in the case can’t participate either.
The settlement also doesn’t cover users outside the U.S. or people who weren’t Facebook users at any time between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022.
Despite mass layoffs and cost-cutting initiatives throughout the tech industry, some top executives are still receiving ample compensation.
During a virtual Q&A session with Meta employees last week, workers grilled CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the six-figure bonuses given to executives amid the company’s turbulent time of layoffs and stock dips.
According to the company’s SEC filing released last week, C-suite executives at Meta received six-figure bonuses in 2022: CFO Susan Li ($575,613), CPO Christoper Cox ($940,214), COO Javier Olivan ($786,552), CTO Andrew Bosworth ($714,588), Strategy Officer (CSO) David Whener ($712,284) and former COO Sheryl Sandberg ($298,385).
“Why did the entire executive team get EE/GE ratings [short-hand for top-tier performance reviews at Meta] when they are also directly responsible for the choices that led to us needing to lay off 20+% of the company? Where is the accountability?” one employee asked, per The Wall Street Journal.
The company’s filing stated that C-suite executives received bonuses based on individual performance calculations, with the target percentage being 75%. Each executive is reported to have exceeded expectations well beyond the target and received bonuses in six figures.
Zuckerberg allegedly said that some of the executives had stepped into new roles and “taken on expanded scopes,” an employee present for the meeting told Insider.
The CEO’s response felt “shallow” and “patronizing,” the person told the outlet.
Meta has declined to comment to Entrepreneur.
However, Meta isn’t the only tech giant that gave out generous bonuses amid downsizing.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai received compensation of nearly $226 million in 2022, according to the company’s SEC filing last week. His total compensation for 2021 was $6,322,599. All five other top executives at Alphabet also received compensation in the millions for 2022, with an increase of at least nine million compared to the year before.
Pinchai’s significant jump in compensation is mostly attributed to the $218 million in stock awards for 2022 (he had none in 2020 or 2021).
In January, Google announced it would be laying off 12,000 employees. The company also informed staff it would be cutting back on some of the office perks and programs as a means of cost-cutting.
Entrepreneur has reached out to Google for comment.
Anyone in the U.S. who used Facebook in the last 16 years can now collect a piece of a $725 million settlement by parent company Meta tied to privacy violations — as long as they fill out a claim on a website set up to pay out money to the social network’s users.
The settlement stems from multiple lawsuits that were brought against Facebook by users who claimed that the company improperly shared their data with third-party sources such as advertisers and data brokers. The litigation began after Facebook was embroiled in a privacy scandal in 2018 with Cambridge Analytica, which scraped user data from the site as part of an effort to profile voters.
Meta denied any liability or wrongdoing under the settlement, according to the recently created class-action website. However, the agreement means that U.S. residents who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, can file a monetary claim as long as they do so before August 25, 2023.
How do I claim money under the Facebook settlement?
Go to the claim website to fill out your claim, or else print out the claim and mail it to this address: Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, c/o Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
What information do I need to provide?
The claim asks for basic information:
Your name
Your address
Your email
Your phone
If you resided in the U.S. between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you were a Facebook user between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022
If you deleted your account in that period, the date range when you were a Facebook user
Your Facebook user name
The payment service you prefer, such as PayPal, Venmo or a prepaid Mastercard
How long does it take to fill out the form?
It should take only a few minutes.
How much money will I get?
That’s unclear, because the settlement amount per user will depend on how many people fill out a claim, according to the settlement website.
When will I get the money?
Not until later this year at the earliest.
The claims site notes that there is a final approval hearing for the settlement on September 7, when the court will decide whether to approve the deal and award attorneys’ fees and other costs. If the settlement is approved, the case could still face appeals, which would take an unknown amount of time to be resolved, the website notes.
“Settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible if the court grants final approval of the settlement and after any appeals are resolved,” it notes.
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In recent years, Instagram has become one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 1 billion active users. For many individuals and businesses, being verified on Instagram has become a coveted status symbol, as it signifies credibility and authenticity. In the past, verification was only available to high-profile accounts, but now anyone can pay to be verified on Instagram.
Meta (formerly known as Facebook) recently introduced Meta Verified, a new paid subscription that offers a streamlined and expedited process for users looking to gain the blue checkmark on their Instagram and Facebook accounts. The move has left many users wondering whether the blue checkmark, once seen as a symbol of notability, has lost its standing due to the availability of paid verification.
While verification is a step in the right direction, it is not enough to build a strong presence on the platform. Optimizing your account by developing a clear brand identity, utilizing Instagram’s features and creating a high-quality content plan is crucial.
In this article, we will dive deeper into these strategies and provide actionable tips to help you optimize your Instagram account after paying for verification.
Meta Verified was first introduced to the public on February 19, 2023 but has just become available to users in the U.S. as of March 17, 2023. According to Meta’s latest announcement, this feature is currently only available to users with personal accounts. Therefore, businesses and other creators whose account names and profile pictures do not match that on their government-issued ID are not eligible for paid verification at this time.
Aside from the blue check mark, Meta Verified offers protection against impersonators, additional account support and increased reach and visibility. Traditional verification on Instagram requires a significant presence and influence in your industry or field. One can demonstrate this through various factors, including:
Media presence:Being featured in multiple news sources or media outlets for your work or achievements.
Brand presence: You have a strong and established brand presence online, with a large following and engagement on your social media platforms.
Industry recognition: You have received awards, accolades or credit for your work or contributions to your industry.
Public figure: You are a well-known public figure, such as a celebrity, politician or athlete.
Business presence: You have a successful business with a robust online presence and influence in your industry.
Develop a clear brand identity
Developing a clear brand identity is crucial for optimizing your Instagram account. Your brand identity is your unique personality and what sets you apart from your competitors. Therefore, all aspects of your profile should reflect your brand identity, from your profile picture to your content, clearly communicating who you are, what you do and what sets you apart from the competition.
When it comes to your content, consistency is key. Consider the aesthetic you want to convey, and use consistent colors, fonts and filters in your posts. This will help your brand stand out and make it easy for your followers to recognize your content.
In addition to the visual aspects, it is also essential to have consistency in the type of content you post. Your content should align with your brand identity and communicate what sets you apart. Also, include any relevant keywords so people can easily find your account when searching for specific topics.
Simply being verified is not enough to build a strong presence across your social media platforms. In today’s digital landscape, creating high-quality content is crucial for businesses to attract, engage and retain customers. However, with so much online content and access to verification, standing out from the crowd can be challenging. That’s where a well-crafted content strategy comes in.
The first step in creating a content strategy is identifying your target audience. Who are they, what are their interests, what are their pain points, and what kind of content do they consume? Then, conduct market research to identify your ideal customer and create buyer personas to help you understand their needs and preferences.
Next, you need to establish your goals and determine what you want to achieve with your content. For example, do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive traffic to your website or establish thought leadership in your industry? Setting clear goals will help you create content that aligns with your business objectives and measures the success of your content strategy.
Identify gaps in your existing content based on your target audience and goals. Look for topics others aren’t covering or new angles to approach a subject. Use keyword research to identify topics your target audience is searching for, and create content that addresses their needs.
Utilize Instagram’s features
According to Meta’s latest blog post, its verified users will have increased visibility and reach with prominence in some platform areas — like search, comments and recommendations. With this enhanced discoverability, it’s important to utilize all of Instagram’s features to get the best possible results for your account.
Instagram offers a range of features that can help you connect with your audience and showcase your brand. These include Instagram Stories, Reels and live videos. Each of these features offers a unique way to engage with your audience and showcase your brand in different ways.
Instagram Stories are a great way to share behind-the-scenes content, highlight special promotions or events or simply connect with your followers more personally. Reels, on the other hand, are short-form videos perfect for showcasing your brand’s personality and creativity. And live video is a great way to engage with your audience in real-time and build a sense of community around your brand.
Experiment with different formats to see what works best for your audience. Pay attention to which types of content get the most engagement, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
In conclusion, being verified on Instagram has become a symbol of credibility and authenticity, with many individuals and businesses seeking this coveted status. While the availability of paid verification through Meta Verified may have raised concerns about the value of the blue check mark, it is essential to remember that verification is a starting point for building a solid presence on the platform.
To optimize your account, you must develop a clear brand identity, create a high-quality content plan and utilize Instagram’s features. By following these strategies and staying true to your brand identity, you can build a strong presence on Instagram, achieve your business goals and stand out amongst the flooded crowd of blue check marks.
