Search results for: “facebook”

  • The Facebook pivots to WeChat post

    Wonks clearly saw parallels. Hence the short form ‘Facebook pivots to WeChat’. The first thing I’d advise you to do is read Mark Zuckerberg’s notes on how he is planning to move Facebook as a business. There’s a link at the bottom of this post to it, I’ll still be here when you come back.

    Mark Zuckerberg f8 Keynote

    The reactions were:

    • Facebook is trying to ‘kill’ Apple
    • Advertisers need to be concerned about Facebook’s moves
    • Facebook’s pivot is a diversion or play to get out from under future regulation
    • It’s fake, or variants of that
    • It’s about asserting market dominance
    • It’s a move against Snap
    • It’s a ‘China’ type move, trying to corner the free internet

    These takes are mirrors of our own views and concerns as about Facebook. I am not a Facebook apologist, by any means. But I could see a clear parallel between Facebook and concerns about television, the communist threat or big oil. And to a large extent Facebook is highly deserving of our skepticism.

    So let’s start breaking them off one by one:

    Facebook is trying to ‘kill’ Apple

    Apple has managed to differentiate from Google and other web giants by its privacy focus. This is because advertising isn’t that important to Apple’s business model. Where Apple have tried advertising, they haven’t been that successful at it.

    Facebook’s messaging focus ‘doing a WeChat’ has caused others to draw clear parallels with China. In particular, Apple’s problems in China and WeChat. The simple answer is that its complicated:

    • Apple’s problems in China aren’t just about WeChat. WeChat creates a level playing field between Chinese Android-based and iOS user experience. Because consumers spend so much time inside the application, rather than the OS
    • Both Apple and Chinese manufacturers lose services revenue to WeChat. On a per device basis, this particularly penalises manufacturers like Xiaomi who break even on the handset at best
    • Apple has tested the price elasticity of the premium phone market in China (and elsewhere). Channel discounting has been shown to drive a massive uptake in sales

    Facebook’s messaging strategy poses a challenge to mobile operators, Google’s Android messaging offering and Apple Messages equally.

    Mobile phone operators saw messaging traffic drop precipitously over the past decade. China Mobile were one of the first operators of video and SMS over the internet with its Fetion texting service. This was shut down three years ago in the face competition from Youku, QQ Video and WeChat.

    The GSM Association has tried to fight back against the decline in SMS and MMS messaging with Rich Communications Services (RCS). It is supported on Android Messages app and Google has looked as wider implementation.

    RCS is currently supported by 11 smartphone manufacturers and 55 mobile network operators across Asia, the Americas, Africa and Europe. Facebook may support it, but is likely to compete against it. Apple hasn’t announced support for RCS (yet).

    Here’s what Mark said, nothing particularly controversial but a nice analysis of current development options.

    You can already send and receive SMS texts through Messenger on Android today, and we’d like to extend this further in the future, perhaps including the new telecom RCS standard. However, there are several issues we’ll need to work through before this will be possible. First, Apple doesn’t allow apps to interoperate with SMS on their devices, so we’d only be able to do this on Android. Second, we’d need to make sure interoperability doesn’t compromise the expectation of encryption that people already have using WhatsApp. Finally, it would create safety and spam vulnerabilities in an encrypted system to let people send messages from unknown apps where our safety and security systems couldn’t see the patterns of activity.

    A privacy-focused vision for social networking – Mark Zuckerberg March 6, 2019

    What its most likely to do is strip value added services away from carriers, Google and Apple; rather than Apple on it’s own. Encryption alone doesn’t mean security or privacy; but Apple needs to provide that level of nuance to premium consumers. Given the Google Android services there is still blue water between the eco-systems.

    Advertisers need to be concerned about Facebook’s moves

    Advertisers on Facebook always need to be concerned about Facebook’s moves. The people with most to worry are people who build their businesses on Facebook’s platform. But that isn’t a new issue, its been a mistake that marketers have made over-and-over again in the digital realm. And they’ll still keep making the mistake.

    In many respects, Facebook advertising has had to change. The reason why Facebook has been putting out features like stories and carousels is because of ‘context collapse‘. Back in 2015, the Information wrote about how Facebook users were sharing less. Sharing less means less room for ad inventory in the news feed and less reasons for the audience to remain engaged with the newsfeed.

    However, Facebook won’t fully give up on the town hall type environment that the news feed provides to advertisers, don’t take Mark’s word for it: follow the money.

    Public social networks will continue to be very important in people’s lives — for connecting with everyone you know, discovering new people, ideas and content, and giving people a voice more broadly. People find these valuable every day, and there are still a lot of useful services to build on top of them. But now, with all the ways people also want to interact privately, there’s also an opportunity to build a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first.

    A privacy-focused vision for social networking – Mark Zuckerberg March 6, 2019

    Zuckerberg needed to do something to combat context collapse, even if the regulatory environment hadn’t got a lot worse for him. It also means the declining amount of information available to advertisers will continue to go that way.

    On the plus side if you look at WeChat, you can see the kind of directions Facebook is likely to take:

    • Advertising / promoted content
    • On-platform services and retail
    • E-commerce
    • Mini-applications
    • Payments
    • Ticketing
    • Electronic real ID

    And the one thing that we can be sure about with Mark Zuckerberg is that he doesn’t like leaving money at the table. Expect change, (continue) to be concerned about advertising efficiency and effectiveness, but don’t worry about not having Facebook as a channel in the future.

    Facebook’s pivot is a diversion or play to get out from under future regulation

    There are a few angles to this which I am going to break down into two parts:

    Facebook’s interest

    • The more entrenched across services, the harder Facebook will be to take action against. Facebook would be harder to break apart in any future anti-trust court decision
    • The move towards messaging could reduce the issues that Facebook faces in terms of moderating speech and preventing bad behaviour 
    • Pushes Facebook’s PR / repetitional issues under the rug

    Consumer interest

    • From a consumer interest point of view Facebook is showing a willingness to go beyond encryption by carefully choosing where its data centres go for maximum regulatory protection. (Though one would still fall under the extra-territorial laws of the five Is countries in particular the US, UK and Australia at the moment)
    • Consumer convenience due to focus on interoperability, so one might not need to have both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger on a device – in theory at least

    It’s fake, or variants of that

    We won’t know the true level of sincerity and commitment of Facebook to make a positive impact through this pivot. Facebook’s brand is so low, it is very easy to believe the very worst in them. I can’t say that I am surprised this came out in the commentary but I am prepared to hold fire on judgement just yet.

    It’s about asserting market dominance

    Some commentators saw a clear link between Facebook’s pivot and Microsoft’s push into web browsers. Both companies were threatened by disruption and utilised their existing market dominance in their markets in current products to extend their dominance into future eras. Businesses by their very nature try to maintain and grow themselves. It would be a natural outcome of Facebook’s pivot.

    Microsoft’s move eventually led to the Judge Jackson ruling against Microsoft. Something that Facebook would be very keen to avoid.

    Part of the reason why Facebook bought WhatsApp originally was partly put down to Mark Zuckerberg’s concern about only having one great idea. He wanted to bulk up the Facebook brain trust with WhatsApp’s management. We know that didn’t end well with the management team eventually departing. This pivot could be seen as an antidote to Zuckerberg’s creative bankruptcy.

    It’s a move against Snap

    The competition posed to one-to-one messaging was perceived by analyst Richard Greenfield of BTIG as a threat to Snap. Facebook is very competitive, but Facebook has bigger markets to focus on with this move. Effects on Snap would be a welcome bonus rather than a key focus. Snap has bigger issues at the moment:

    • User growth is moribund. Instagram has already ‘outsnapped’ Snap with its fast follower copying of Snap’s features
    • Snap needs to do better in generating advertising revenue

    In essence it’s like sleeping with a hippo. It could roll over and crush you without even realising what it managed to do in its sleep. Its a move that is likely to adversely affect Snap, but its by no means all about Snap.

    It’s a China type move trying to corner the free internet

    This particular trope came from Fox Business. What’s interesting is that one would expect the outlet to be pro-free markets. The commentary by Kurt Knutsson talks about the inescapability of Facebook and conflates the similarities with WeChat to argue Facebook is sinister in a similar manner to ‘China’. The thing I took away from it is the cross-party skepticism on Facebook, privacy and market power.

    If you would have told me a decade ago that a right wing business publication would have been concerned about free markets and market dominance I wouldn’t have believed you.

    Facebook’s assumptions

    Facebook’s pivot requires some major changes in the companies technical ability:

    • Currently Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp use encryption from the Open Whisper Systems project that gave us Signal Messenger. Signal is an open source product funded by donations to the Signal Foundation. It isn’t a core strength of Facebook
    • A lot of WeChat’s secret sauce is how they managed to build so much functionality into its mobile app without taking away from the user experience. This is in sharp contrast to the plethora of apps currently used for Facebook. It poses a major UX design challenge for Facebook
    • Facebook can expand to new areas successfully such as payments – again not an area where Facebook has previously known to be successful

    There is an assumption that Facebook’s communications team can give it enough space to allow the pivot to be put in place. Facebook’s management team won’t drop the ball between now and the pivot.

    More information

    A privacy-focused vision for social networking by Mark Zuckerberg – shared on his facebook page.

    Facebook’s pivot must be viewed with scepticism | Financial Times

    Facebook’s former chief of security says its privacy pivot is ‘punting’ on its hardest issues | The Verge

    Facebook’s Biggest Bull Sees Privacy Pivot as Move Against Snap | Bloomberg

    Facebook’s Awkward Pivot to Privacy | Slate

    Facebook’s pivot is bigger than privacy | Axios

    Facebook’s Fake Pivot To Privacy | Forbes – As a social network, Facebook, has 15 million fewer users today than in 2017. During October – December of 2018, 23% of Facebook users in the U.S. showed signs of activity, e.g. updated their status or posted a comment, as compared to 32% at the same time in 2017. In 2016, Facebook accounted for more than half of time spent on social networks, but that figure is anticipated to be 44.6% in 2019, while, for the first time, from 2018 on, it was expected that Facebook usage among the 11-24 demographic – highly coveted by advertisers – would decline.

    Facebook privacy pivot a China-type move, trying to corner the free world: Cyber Guy | Fox Business

    Building your business in Mark’s house | renaissance chambara – on the perils of over-reliance on platforms.

    Facebook and advertising or why Facebook is a dead man walking part III? | renaissance chambara

    Why Facebook is a dead man walking part II? | renaissance chambara

    Why Facebook is a dead man walking | renaissance chambara

    Jargon Watch: context collapse | renaissance chambara

  • Facebook cant be removed + more

    Facebook Cant be removed from Certain Android Phones – Search Engine Journal – pre-installs creating bloatware on phones like the PC industry did when profits got tight. Given Facebook’s position as a monopoly Facebook cant be removed from phones has to be an area for action

    ‘I love my Mac!’ – Zoë Smith“My phone rang, and the video I was watching on the computer paused!” – when we are running computers hundreds of thousands of times the power of the entire NASA Apollo space programme computers, why wouldn’t this happen? This seems like a relatively easy CX related win, yet it seems like magic. This says a lot about the poor user experience in computing. More design related content here.

    Chinese budget smartphone brand Realme has Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe in its sights after sweeping India | South China Morning Post – BBK expands its brand portfolio beyond Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo and Realme. It is the hidden leader while Huawei gets the kudos, BBK owns mid market handset sales. BBK were also responsible for the amazing Oppo Blu-Ray players and high end headphones.

    This online tool can transform your black-and-white photos into color images | Abacus – interesting that it was launched to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Chinese economic reform. It uses machine learning taught with 1,000s of photos. Just don’t rely on it for colour fidelity.

    Selling extremism: Nationalist streetwear and the rise of the far right – interesting given the multi-cultural history of street wear. However clothing has also been a code for subcultures and communities. In the past the far right borrowed the workwear look from the skinhead culture. MA-1 jackets, Fred Perry shirts, Ben Sherman shirts, Levi’s jeans and Dr Marten boots. As the codified items get coopted by other groups they get replaced. Skinhead haircuts are replaced something more high and tight. It was only a matter of time that extremists borrowed from streetwear and football casual style.

  • Facebook secret rulebook + more things

    Inside Facebook Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech – The New York TimesModerators express frustration at rules they say don’t always make sense and sometimes require them to leave up posts they fear could lead to violence. “You feel like you killed someone by not acting,” one said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he had signed a nondisclosure agreement. – the Facebook secret rulebook for global free speech raises as much questions as it provides answers and gives Facebook dangerous extra governmental powers. More Facebook related content here.

    Amazon Alexa crashes after Christmas Day overload | The Irish TimesThe crash, at about 10am Irish time, prompted Amazon customers to complain about not being able to play festive songs, turn on their living room lights or get cooking instructions for Christmas dinner. – reminds me of working on the Cellnet / O2 Genie WAP portal that did a similar thing on Christmas day. And the technicians from Logica (now part of CGI) who supported it all having to roll back the Oracle database underpinning many of the systems including email.

    Silence has been golden for Jardine Matheson | Financial Timestoday’s Jardines is primarily Sir Henry’s creation. It is an intensely conservative institution that does not give a fig for modernity or the views of outside shareholders, and is overseen by an all-male, family infused board of directors. It is equally a daring merchant adventurer with plenty of grit. – Jardines were more averse to the risk that the 1997 handover of Hong Kong represented and have built up businesses in other countries unlike their peer Swire

    Amazon Alexa Shopping Tripled as Bose, Nerf Topped Holiday Sales | FortuneAmazon on Wednesday said that the number of voice-activated orders placed via its virtual personal assistant Alexa were three times greater during the 2018 holiday season than they were in the last year – is this proportionate to the increase in Alexa powered devices, this comparison is important in order to understand the ramifications of the growth pattern

    Huawei Veterans Selling AI to Banks Shape China’s Newest Unicorn – Bloomberg – 4Paradigm looks as if it could get crushed by Huawei’s wolf culture. The only thing holding it back is the lack of trust in the associatedHuawei name abroad and concerns about letting Chinese software manage the most sensitive data

  • Facebook eroding & other news

    Facebook eroding

    The tweet about Facebook eroding is part of a greater issue of what Facebook is calling internally ‘context collapse‘. Facebook recognised the issue back in 2015. There are several likely reasons for Facebook eroding:

    • Negative network effects
    • Societal norming on social media content
    • Lack of trust in the facebook brand
    • People just don’t like Facebook as a platform that much

    Business

    After Anbang Takeover, China’s Deal Money, Already Ebbing, Could Slow Further – The New York Times

    Hello, mobile operators? This is your age of disruption calling | McKinsey & Company – lots of buzz words, diagnosis but not a glimpse of a way forward

    Edelman Revenue Up 2.1% In 2018 To $894m | Holmes Report – given that all the global PR groups have had exceptionally low growth or even declines

    How Douyin became China’s top short-video App in 500 days – WalktheChat

    Wireless

    Nokia on 5G at MWC, what struck me is the sales pitch was more like an enterprise software company like IBM or Oracle than a telecoms vendor. There is lots of tech in the networks but there isn’t a recognisable killer app. His warnings about 5G upgradeable products ring true though.

    Consumer behaviour

    Asian Boss do some really nice street interviews in different Asian cities and this one about Apple iPhones in Korea is particularly instructive. Samsung is seen as the default phone as they assemble phones (mostly for Asian markets) in Korea. Whereas in Europe all of the are made in China. When I lived in Hong Kong, both Samsung and LG emphasised that they made their phones in Korea with an implicit quality guarantee. 

    The iPhone seems to have won out on product design amongst younger people. but one shouldn’t ignore the desire to support the national brand. 

  • Facebook API + more news

    Facebook Is Shutting Down Its API That Marketers Lean on for Research – Adweek – big for proprietary agency tools, social media tools and ad platforms that rely the Facebook API – it shows how vulnerable the ad tech sector is

    Spicing up Hong Kong’s Café scene | Marketing Interactive – great write-up of Café de Coral

    China’s central bank believes bitcoin will die | Quartz – I am more on the bearish side along with the Bank of China. A key function of bitcoin for China was aiding capital flight out of the country

    Unilever moves global comms planning to Mindshare from PHD | Media | Campaign Asia – huge win for Mindshare and a move away at the global level between planning guidance and media buying. It would be analogous to investment managers to go back to taking advice from sell-side analysts. I guess part of the problem is trying to get global guidance to be implemented at a country level

    Flotogram v1.1 Preview on Vimeo – interesting app that blurs the boundaries between AR and photography

    Google’s AI Built its own AI That Outperforms Any Made by Humans – one thing humans jump to is the implications of a more general purpose rather than narrow focus machine learning tool

    China’s Tariff Cuts Won’t Hurt Daigou Business For Now | Jing Daily  – China plans to reduce tariffs on 187 consumer goods, including cosmetics, apparel, health supplements, food, and pharmaceuticals. The new policy will go into effect on December 1. The average tax rate will drop to 7.7 percent from 17.3 percent.

    China’s Toutiao Tried to Buy Reddit — The InformationOne reason was general skittishness among Reddit’s investors about selling to a Chinese internet company whose user and revenue numbers were tough to assess – and there is the burn

    Chinese Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Eyes 2018 Stock Market Listing — The Information – interesting move given Xiaomi’s challenges with other Chinese smartphone companies

    Futuristic Warfare Arena Ghost in the Shell: Arise Stealth Hounds – VR ZONE SHINJUKU – I’d love to have a go at this

    Are we witnessing the end of the jumbo jet? | Quartz – interesting mix of game theory and economics involved

    Apple: Chinese Buying Huawei et. al. but Sticking with iPhone, Says Morgan Stanley – Barron’s – The Jigaung data also highlights that in the 4 weeks ending October 22nd, more “switchers” left their Chinese branded smartphone for an iPhone than iPhone users left for a Chinese branded smartphone, across all local vendors. In fact, Apple’s net switching rate, or the net amount of switchers gained/lost as a percentage of all brand switchers increased to 7.6% in the latest 4 week period, up from 6.7% in the prior 4 week period ending October 8th. Comparatively, Vivo was the only Chinese smartphone vendor to gain “net switchers”, albeit at a significantly lower rate. We expect this trend to only accelerate as future data sets will include the period after the iPhone X first began shipping.

    Amazon (AMZN) is so good at keeping prices low, it’s changed how economists think about inflation — Quartz