Facebook Inc.

[Wildreamz]

To be fair, every time Zuckerberg did something radical (e.g. spent billions buying instagram/whatsapp when they were just small startups) there were initial skepticism, and they eventually turned out to be great business decisions..

Hi madagnet,

Thanks for your feedback, and I do agree with the examples you gave. Just that my issue with Zuckerberg is not that he isn't a astute businessman (ie lacking "intelligence" or "energy").

Is that (IMHO) business acumen is not enough to guarantee long-term business success, without "integrity" to stakeholders.

[CY09]

The other issue is that the industry is "against" his model. Under the new laws, i recall Facebook has to pay more to Google. So google benefits more while facebook costs is higher. He does not have an OS or facebook phone in which he can reap savings from.

[Wildreamz]

Not just the industry, but governments and regulators around the world, Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp users, platform owners etc are against his business model. 

Precisely because his main business model (using whatever it takes to collect as much personal data as possible; and then monetize them, in ways that maximize value to Facebook, but not to users etc.) isn't in good faith (not stakeholder friendly).

Why do we expect anyone (e.g. regulators, users) to defend them, when Apple give users a choice whether or not to be tracked? 

Only 4% of Facebook users, want to be tracked by Facebook, when given a choice: https://bestpractice.biz/just-4-of-faceb...ng-setting

Why doesn't Facebook have the trust of their own Facebook users?

[weijian]

Google strives in a diverse WWW. Their free products like Android, Gmail, Chrome facilitate the growing of this ecosystem. And the bigger it is, and messier it is, the more valuable will be their omnipresent Search engine. It doesn't have differentiated hardware to sell, like Apple does. So it is no surprise that Google will continue to "arm the rebels".

Google plans privacy change similar to Apple’s, which wiped $230 billion off Facebook’s market cap

Google said it will continue to support the current identifiers for the next two years, which means other companies have time to implement changes.

Google criticized Apple’s approach in its blog post without naming the company.

″We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers,” Google Android vice president of product management, security and privacy, Anthony Chavez, wrote in the blog post. “We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/16/google-p...pples.html

[r0n]

Google strives in a diverse WWW. Their free products like Android, Gmail, Chrome facilitate the growing of this ecosystem. And the bigger it is, and messier it is, the more valuable will be their omnipresent Search engine. It doesn't have differentiated hardware to sell, like Apple does. So it is no surprise that Google will continue to "arm the rebels".

Agree with your conclusion but not the logic. Privacy and advertising are effectively a bundle and we all know what is the biggest driver of revenue in Google.

[BigFatWhale]

Given the huge decline in recent times, Meta is finally looking attractively priced but we will only go to say it is at a reasonable valuation.

Is it a good buy now?

We feel the bear trend has not run out of steam yet so there could be possibly further downside.

In this article, we will discuss the merits of investing in Meta Platforms.

Click here for the Full Article:

https://thebigfatwhale.com/is-meta-a-buy...pessimism/

[learntoinvest2022]

Is Meta Stock still a Buy Now?

Meta (previously Facebook) has been cascaded with a slew of security, privacy, and growth challenges ranging from political advertising to Apple and Google’s privacy changes, as well as a lowered growth outlook due to rising social media competition. As a result, Meta’s stock price has dropped more than 21% and trading near 52-week low. Is this a stock you should take advantage of at the current pricing, or should you avoid this value-trap?

This is our short analysis on Meta:
https://learntoinvests.com/2022/02/27/is...a-buy-now/

[weijian]

Zuckerberg’s Biggest Bet Might Not Pay Off

It looked for a while as if WhatsApp might actually become central to Facebook’s future as a business. In March 2021, Zuckerberg announced his “privacy-focused vision for social networking” and predicted a future where communication would shift to private services like WhatsApp.

But seven months later, Zuckerberg’s vision had changed. He announced that the future of the internet lay in the immersive world of the metaverse, representing the “next chapter” for newly named Meta. Beyond an announcement about the launch of a new customer chat service on WhatsApp in May, Zuckerberg has said little about messaging since.

WhatsApp’s place within the Meta hierarchy has bobbed up and down like a hydrofoil board. And now, with Zuckerberg resolved to pivot to virtual reality, the app’s real value is likely to come from something more ignoble than making money as a viable business. It will probably be the sacrificial offering that Zuckerberg needs to fend off antitrust regulators.

That would explain Zuckerberg’s lack of drive to turn WhatsApp into a going concern. The problem has never been that it’s too difficult to make money from messaging. After all, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat — a messaging competitor in China — generated more than $500 million in June 2022 alone, according to an estimate by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, largely from payments, advertising and acting as a gateway to games.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/...story.html

[weijian]

Since we are social in nature, I don't think recommendation media will kill social media. Probably both will co-exist and then fight for our attention.

But by moving away from its "social graphs", Facebook ironically actually loses its moat.

The End of Social Media

Last week, Meta announced that the Facebook newsfeed would be shifting towards an algorithmic, recommendation-based model of content distribution. This announcement marked the most recent example of a major platform to formally make this shift, while other major platforms, including Meta’s Instagram, have been headed in this direction for a while. Given Facebook’s relevance as the world’s largest social network, this change signals the end of social media as we’ve known it for the past decade and a half.

Platforms like the massively popular (and still growing) TikTok and YouTube put far less emphasis on friends and social graphs in favor of carefully curated, magical algorithmic experiences that match the perfect content for the right people at the exact right time. This is recommendation media, and it’s the new standard for content distribution on the internet.

https://mignano.medium.com/the-end-of-so...8ffed21f86

[Wildreamz]

Top 5 2nd Quarter Trades of Li Lu
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1850452/t...s-of-li-lu

Meta Platforms Inc

The guru sold out of their 876,200-share investment in NAS:META. Previously, the stock had a 8.19% weight in the equity portfolio. Shares traded for an average price of $193.38 during the quarter.

On 08/16/2022, Meta Platforms Inc traded for a price of $180.89 per share and a market cap of $486.15Bil. The stock has returned -50.19% over the past year.

..

Alphabet Inc

The guru established a new position worth 948,000 shares in NAS:GOOGL, giving the stock a 5.51% weight in the equity portfolio. Shares traded for an average price of $118.07 during the quarter.

On 08/16/2022, Alphabet Inc traded for a price of $122.08 per share and a market cap of $1,597.34Bil. The stock has returned -11.36% over the past year.

(vested in Alphabet; ex-investor in Meta)