Facebook owner Meta to lay off 11,000 staff

PARIS - Facebook owner Meta will lay off more than 11,000 of its staff in "the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history", boss Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.

He said the cuts represented 13 percent of the social media titan's workforce and would affect its research lab focusing on the metaverse as well as its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.

The tech industry is in a serious slump and several major firms have announced mass layoffs -- Twitter's new owner Elon Musk fired half its staff last week.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Zuckerberg said in a note to staff.

"I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted."

Ad-supported platforms such as Facebook and Google are suffering with advertisers looking to cut costs as they struggle with inflation and rising interest rates.

Zuckerberg told staff he had expected the boost in e-commerce and online activity during the Covid pandemic to continue, but added: "I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that."

METAVERSE WOES

The downturn has affected companies across the sector, with Apple and Amazon also recently announcing results that disappointed investors.

But Meta also faces some unique problems of its own.

Investors have been worried about Zuckerberg's decision to devote billions of dollars to developing the metaverse, an immersive version of the web accessed via virtual reality headsets.

Zuckerberg renamed the company to Meta a year ago to reflect the commitment to the project, but the division working on metaverse technology has since made losses of more than $3.5 billion.

He has hinted several times this year that belt-tightening measures were just around the corner and said in his letter on Wednesday that staff layoffs were a "last resort".

Meta would also keep a hiring freeze going into next year, he said, and other spending cuts were envisaged.

"Fundamentally, we're making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we're operating efficiently," he wrote.

Last month, Meta announced profits of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, a 52 percent decrease year-on-year, causing its stock price to fall 25 percent.

The slump in profits comes despite its platforms dominating the world in terms of users -- Facebook alone claims to have around two billion people who log on daily. 

Agence France-Presse

Super Bowl rakes in half a billion dollars in ads

Advertisers splurged more than half a billion dollars during the Super Bowl, smashing previous records for an event that is routinely one of the most-watched things on US television.

Some of corporate America's biggest names coughed up an eye-watering average of $5.6 million for a 30-second spot in American football's razzmatazz-filled final.

Car companies, fast food chains and delivery apps were among those clamoring to get their brands in front of the 96.4 million people who watched Tom Brady's resurgent Tampa Bay Buccaneers trounce young pretender Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs.

A must-watch for dedicated fans, the NFL final is also a major cultural event in the United States, with millions of Americans traditionally joining Super Bowl parties to drink and eat with friends.

Ahead of Sunday's game, health officials had advised against such gatherings in an effort to tamp down the coronavirus.

The audience was the smallest for the Super Bowl in 14 years, though it is still likely to set the overall event viewership record for this year.

The splashy half-time show, which this year featured The Weeknd and hundreds of dancers with bandaged faces, adds to the allure, and many advertisers compete to provide amusing or particularly memorable spots.

Highlights this year included Will Ferrell picking a fight with Norway on behalf of GM over electric vehicles.

Market research firm Kantar said brands paid a total of $545 million for the 96 in-game spots that aired over the four-and-a-half-hour CBS broadcast.

That figure is a fifth higher than the previous highest total garnered in the 2020 edition, when the Chiefs overcame the San Francisco 49ers in a thriller that went down to the final minutes.

Despite the ongoing fragmentation of audiences and the rise of streaming platforms, live sports -- and American football in particular -- remain a safe bet for viewership numbers in the United States.

 

Several mainstay names opted to stay away from this year's big game, including Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Audi and Hyundai.

Northwestern University marketing professor Tim Calkins said some brands had struggled to find the right message for the pandemic climate, explaining the move to the sidelines.

"This is a challenging year, because it's hard to get the tone right on the Super Bowl," Calkins said. 

"If you run a funny ad, it might seem inappropriate. If you run a very serious ad, it might seem discouraging. Given that, given all the chaos in the country, it's hard for these advertisers to figure out what to say at a big event like the Super Bowl."

The single biggest spender on Sunday's game was ViacomCBS itself, which spent $33 million to promote its new on-demand video service Paramount+, which is set to launch March 4.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook to face renewed privacy lawsuit over user tracking

A federal appeals court on Thursday revived nationwide litigation accusing Facebook Inc of violating users' privacy rights by tracking their internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Facebook users could pursue several claims under federal and California privacy and wiretapping laws.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said the proposed class action was without merit, and the Menlo Park, California-based company will continue defending itself.

Facebook users had accused the company of quietly storing cookies on their browsers that tracked when they visited outside websites containing "like" buttons, and then selling personal profiles based on their browsing histories to advertisers.

US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California had dismissed the lawsuit in 2017, including claims under the federal Wiretap Act, and said the users lacked legal standing to pursue economic damages claims.

But in Thursday’s decision, Chief Judge Sidney Thomas wrote for a 3-judge panel that users had a reasonable expectation of privacy, and had sufficiently alleged a "clear invasion" of their right to privacy.


The panel also said California law recognized a right to recoup unjustly earned profits, regardless of whether a defendant's conduct directly caused economic harm.

"Facebook's user profiles would allegedly reveal an individual's likes, dislikes, interests, and habits over a significant amount of time, without affording users meaningful opportunity to control or prevent the unauthorized exploration of their private lives," Thomas wrote.

Citing Facebook’s data use policy, he also said the plaintiffs "plausibly alleged that Facebook set an expectation that logged-out user data would not be collected, but then collected it anyway."

-Reuters-

Google shifts rules for political ads, pressuring Facebook

WASHINGTON -- Google's tightening of its political ad policy could help reduce the spread of misinformation on election campaigns, but at a cost for lesser-known candidates.

The move by Google placing restrictions on how advertisers can target specific groups of voters also adds to the pressure on Facebook to modify its hands-off policy on political ads.

Google announced Wednesday it would not allow political advertisers to use "microtargeting" which can be based on user browsing data, political affiliation or other factors, for its ads, including on YouTube.

Instead it will limit targeting to general categories such as age, gender or postal code location. The changes will be enforced in Britain within a week and in the rest of the world starting in January.

Google also sought to clarify its policy by indicating it does not allow "false claims" in advertising, political or otherwise.

"There are no carve-outs," Google vice president Scott Spencer said.

"It's against our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim -- whether it's a claim about the price of a chair or a claim that you can vote by text message, that election day is postponed, or that a candidate has died."

The move follows a ban by Twitter on most kinds of political ads, and comes amid growing pressure on internet platforms to curb the spread of misinformation around political campaigns.

FACEBOOK ISOLATED

Senator Ron Wyden welcomed the Google move, saying it could reduce the number of deceptive ads which are sent to small segments of users, including from foreign entities.

"Targeted influence campaigns are more effective and more cost-effective than blanket propaganda, and far harder to identify and expose," Wyden said.

"Now that Google and Twitter have taken responsible steps to guard against shadowy political influence campaigns, Facebook should do the same."

Karen Kornbluh, director of the digital innovation democracy initiative at the German Marshall Fund, called Google's move "a critically important step in taking this political disinformation weapon off the table," but warned that the different rules for various platforms could lead to confusion.

Michelle Amazeen, a Boston University professor who follows political advertising, said Google's actions were "small steps in the right direction that serve to chip away at the tsunami of disinformation fostered by the current architecture of digital-social media platforms."

Analysts noted that Facebook, which has rejected efforts to fact-check political speech or ads, will be pressured to make a similar move that could have even more far-reaching consequences.

Facebook said in a tweet late Wednesday it was "looking at different ways we might refine our approach to political ads," without elaborating.

SHIFTING DIGITAL STRATEGIES

But political strategists from both parties warned that the changes by Google are likely to help well-financed and incumbent candidates and may not have the intended effect.

"This change won't curb disinformation, but it will hinder campaigns and others who are already working against the tide of bad actors to reach voters with facts," said Tara McGowan, founder of the progressive advocacy group ACRONYM which has launched a $75 million digital campaign.

Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, said new candidates would be hampered in their ability to raise funds and build voter lists -- a key element on online campaigns even before the "persuasion" phase.

"The big disappointment on this is you're going to have campaign spending go to platforms that are less transparent that will allow you to target voters more narrowly. The dollars won't go away."

Mark Jablonowski, managing partner and chief technology officer of the digital consultancy DSPolitical, which works with Democrats, said Google's efforts create a patchwork of different rules that would favor incumbents.

"In the absence of sensible, implementable federal regulations, companies like Google have adopted misguided policies that will do little more than benefit incumbents, the wealthy, and those who rely on targeting largely monolithic Republican constituencies," he said.

President Donald Trump's campaign director Brad Parscale responded to the Google action by tweeting that "political elites & Big Tech want to rig elections.. Won't stop until they control all digital political speech."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Advertisers, agencies and social media combine to tackle online threat

LONDON -- Sixteen of the world's biggest advertisers have joined together to push platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube to do more to tackle dangerous and fake content online.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media will also include media buying agencies from the major ad groups - WPP, IPG, Publicis, Omnicom and Dentsu - as well as the platform owners, the group said on Tuesday at the ad industry's annual gathering in Cannes, France.

Luis Di Como, executive vice president of global media at Unilever, said it was the first time that all sides of the industry had come together to tackle a problem that had far reaching consequences for society.

"When industry challenges spill into society, creating division and putting our children at risk, it's on all of us to act," he said. "Founding this alliance is a great step towards rebuilding trust in our industry and society."

He said the group would initially focus on content that was a danger to society, such as terrorism.

Platform owners had taken steps to address the problems, he said, but their focus had been more reactive - tackling content after it appeared - than proactive.

The alliance will work together to develop processes and protocols to protect people and brands, he said.

Other brand owners in the alliance include Adidas , Danone, Diageo, Mondelez International, Nestle and Procter & Gamble. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google set to launch privacy tools to limit online tracking: report

Alphabet Inc's Google is set to roll out a dashboard-like function in its Chrome browser to offer users more control in fending off tracking cookies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Cookies are small text files that follow internet users and are used by advertisers to target consumers on the specific interests they have displayed while browsing.

While Google's new tools are not expected to significantly curtail its ability to collect data, it would help the company press its sizable advantage over online-advertising rivals, the newspaper said.

Google's 3 billion users help make it the world's largest seller of internet ads, capturing nearly a third of all revenue, ahead of rival Facebook Inc's 20 percent, according to research firm eMarketer.

Total digital ad spending in the United States will grow 19 percent to nearly $130 billion in 2019, according to eMarketer.

Google has been working on the cookies plan for at least 6 years, in stops and starts, but accelerated the work after news broke last year that personal data of Facebook users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

The company is mostly targeting cookies installed by profit-seeking third parties, separate from the owner of the website a user is actively visiting, the Journal said.

Apple Inc in 2017 stopped majority of tracking cookies on its Safari browser by default and Mozilla Corp's Firefox did the same a year later.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

US millennials a popular but elusive target for brands

NEW YORK - American millennials -- the generation of people aged 17-35 -- are a popular target for advertisers and brands, but companies risk missing out by approaching them as one homogenous population.

From Gillette razors to McDonald's and American Express, every major American company is touting its efforts to attract these young people, considered the workforce of tomorrow and the new generation of consumers.

ExxonMobil and Chevron no longer hesitate to highlight their late and forced conversion to the fight against climate change, a subject important to millennials, who will suffer its most serious consequences.

"I think it's a good idea to focus on millennials in the sense that it's a huge market," said Ajay Kohli, a professor at Georgia Tech University.

"But I don't think it makes sense to play millennials as a homogenous group of people who want the same products or same services, or believe in the same values, or are equally price sensitive or equally responsive to give a message," Kohli said.

RISK OF STEREOTYPES

It is an opinion shared by Kelly O'Keefe, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia, who notes that there is significant diversity in the 75 million millennials who reside in the United States.

"Some voted for Trump. Some for Clinton. Some drink craft beer. Some Pabst. Some only buy organic foods, but Millennials are also among the largest consumers of processed foods," O'Keefe said.

"Many companies make the mistake of treating Millennials like they share a single personality and a common set of values. They don't!"

Faced with public mistrust of banks after the financial crisis, Capital One is seeking to become the bank of choice for millennials by transforming branches into cafes where you can have a cappuccino while negotiating a loan.

"People who actually go to bank branches, we call them 'wanters' and 'needers.' You found millennials among 'wanters' and you also found millennials among 'needers,'" said David Allison, an expert in consumer habits whose firm has conducted thousands of surveys to form a database in the United States, Canada and China.

"'Wanters' are looking for a personal relationship with the banks; 'needers' are looking for a social status, for them a bank is a serious place, they will be looking after my money and that's going to make me feel like I'm a serious person who has money," Allison said, adding that what matters is what services to offer the two categories.

He urges companies to eliminate demography in their marketing approach because it often leads to stereotypes.

DIVERSE MILLENIAL POPULATION

His surveys show that millennials only agree on 15 percent of subjects, which is why, he believes, that a message would be more effective if it focused on what is important for the consumer -- what they think and want.

Last year, Nike used Colin Kaepernick, a controversial American football player known for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, in an ad campaign.

As a result, the company has seen an increase in traffic to its website, especially from young and non-white consumers.

"We know it's resonated actually quite strongly with consumers, obviously here in North America but also around the world," said Mark Parker, Nike's CEO.

University of Maryland professor Hank Boyd, however, believes that the demographic approach remains effective.

If "I know your hometown, I know your gender, I know what socioeconomic class you grew up" in, that gives "me a clearer picture of who you are and how I might want to craft a message," Boyd said.

"It's having a hundred data points on customers that really allows you to say, I have the sense that we're forming an amazing relationship with our customers," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Unilever threatens to pull ads from 'divisive platforms'

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Anglo-Dutch consumer giant Unilever, one of the world's largest advertisers, threatened Monday to snub digital platforms that fail to protect children or help "create division" in society.

Denouncing what it called "toxic online content," the Rotterdam-based Unilever weighed in on growing concerns about fake news and extremist posts on such networks as Facebook and Google.

"Unilever will not invest in platforms or environments that do not protect our children or which create division in society, and promote anger and hate," its chief marketing officer Keith Weed said.

In a speech to be delivered later Monday, of which AFP has been given extracts, Weed added that "fake news, sexism, terrorists that spread messages of hate, toxic content directed at children ... is a million miles from where we thought this would take us."

Unilever "will prioritize investing only in responsible platforms that are committed to creating a positive impact on society," Weed said in his keynote address to be given at a conference in Palm Desert, California.

Weed said he had met Unilever's digital partners, including Facebook, Google and Twitter at the global Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, where he "repeated one point to each and every one of them."

"It is critical that our brands remain not only in a safe environment, but a suitable one."

"Unilever, as a trusted advertiser, do not want to advertise on platforms which do not make a positive contribution to society," Weed said.

Unilever last year spent 7.7 billion euros on marketing and advertising and is the world's second-largest advertiser after US-based consumer goods company Procter & Gamble.

Unilever chief financial officer Graeme Pitkethly said in November that some 30 percent of that total goes to digital advertising.

The company employs some 169,000 people around the world and owns more than 400 household brands including Dove beauty products, Knorr soups, Lipton teas, Magnum ice cream and Marmite.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Advertisers bet big on March Madness as live sports ratings wane

The annual NCAA men's basketball tournament is still among the biggest draws on the sports calendar for advertisers looking to get in front of large audiences, even as TV ratings drop for some major U.S. sporting events.

The past 12 months have brought a slew of close finishes for major sports championships. But with the exceptions of the National Basketball Association's Finals last June and Major League Baseball's World Series in the fall, the audiences were not as large as hoped for, underscoring that in today's shifted- viewing environment, live sports are no longer bulletproof.

Even February's Super Bowl, the first to go into overtime, fell victim to the NFL's season-long ratings decline.

That has put more scrutiny on pricey ad buys for big-time sporting events. Yet advertisers are still willing to fork over major dollars to get in front of the events' large audiences, which include young males, among the most-coveted and hardest-to-reach demographic.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's three-week tournament is the second-largest generator of national TV ad dollars among all U.S. sports' post-seasons, trailing only the NFL.

It also is among the priciest ad buys in television. While CBS Corp and Time Warner’s Turner Sports, which have jointly aired the tournament since 2011, do not comment on ad rates, the price for 30 seconds of airtime during the April 3 National Championship game ranges from $1.2 million to more than $1.5 million, according to three sources with knowledge of negotiations.

Last year's National Championship game averaged around $1.4 million for a 30-second spot, according to ad-tracking firm Kantar Media, and the tournament brought in more than $1.2 billion for CBS and Turner.

But betting big on a major sporting events that under-deliver, especially with rising ad costs, puts marketers in a bind.

"You're not necessarily going to get fired for putting more money on YouTube or more money in Google search, Facebook or even Snapchat at it this point in time," said a media buyer who requested anonymity. "Yet they may question you when you say you’re going to spend $5 million on a Super Bowl spot, or $1.5 on the NCAA tourney and have it fall flat or be an unexciting game or have it underdeliver."

For the entire 2017 tournament, ad rates are up by "mid single-digit increases" according to John Bogusz, executive vice president of sports sales and marketing at CBS.

Some of that is buoyed by the tournament having 19 different corporate sponsors, three more than last year, that have ad buys throughout the tournament.

“We got this major jump start in ad sales, because we have upwards of 60 percent of our advertisers already in,” said Jon Diament, executive vice president for Turner Sports ad sales.

(Reporting by Tim Baysinger; Editing by Anna Driver and Dan Grebler)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Xurpas buys Singapore-based tech firm

MANILA - Listed tech firm Xurpas Inc. on Thursday said it has acquired Singapore-based company Art of Click for $45 million.

The acquisition of Art of Click, which specializes in mobile advertising, is seen to boost the development and expansion of Xurpas' existing consumer business, Xurpas told the stock exchange.

Art of Click has developed a platform that allows the optimal matching of advertisers and mobile publishers, Xurpas said.

"We believe that Art of Click is a perfect match for our mobile consumer services, and that growth prospect excites us," said Nix Nolledo, Xurpas chairman and chief executive.

Xurpas shares were up 1.004 percent to P14.08 on Thursday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook in class of its own as ad revenue soars

After underwhelming results from Apple Inc., Google Inc. and other big tech names, investors finally found a friend in Facebook Inc. after the company shredded Wall Street's forecasts for revenue, profit and user growth.

Facebook's shares, which touched a record high of $120.79 on Thursday, closed up 7.2 percent at $116.73, giving a $22 billion boost to the social networking company's market value.

"FB remains in a class by itself across the combination of scale, growth, and profitability," J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Doug Anmuth said in a research note.

"While there are broader concerns of macro softness toward the end of 1Q, Facebook isn't seeing them."

Apple lost about $36 billion in market value on Wednesday after it reported disappointing earnings the previous day, while Alphabet shed nearly $30 billion after missing expectations.

Analysts don't see Facebook's growth slowing anytime soon as it grabs a bigger share of the advertising market, particularly on mobile devices.

At least 26 brokerages raised their price targets on Facebook's stock, with RBC the most bullish at $165. The median price target is $145, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"Facebook continues to generate very high and very profitable growth. An extremely rare combination. And we see in FB plenty of strong, secular platform growth ahead," RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to clients.

Facebook's ad revenue jumped 57 percent to $5.2 billion in the first quarter as the company's growing user base lured more advertisers to its platforms.

Mobile ad revenue accounted for about 82 percent of total ad revenue, up from about 73 percent a year earlier.

The company said about 1.65 billion people were now using Facebook at least once a month.

"As long as the users are there, FB will find ways to monetize," said Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter.

Facebook has become one of the biggest beneficiaries as advertisers move money away from TV to Web and mobile platforms.

Mahaney noted Facebook was developing better solutions for advertisers and investing in opportunities such as video ads, its messaging platforms WhatsApp and Messenger, photo-sharing app Instagram and virtual reality.

All this puts Facebook on track to capture 18 percent of ad spending with digital media owners in countries outside of China this year, nearly double the 10 percent share the company held in 2014, Pivotal Research analysts said.

Of the 49 analysts covering the stock, 45 rate it "buy" or higher, according to Thomson Reuters data.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook revenue smashes expectations as mobile ad sales surge

Facebook Inc.'s quarterly revenue rose more than 50 percent, handily beating Wall Street expectations as its wildly popular mobile app and a push into live video lured new advertisers and encouraged existing ones to boost spending.

The company's shares rose 9.5 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday to $118.39, setting it on track to open at a new high on Thursday, at nearly triple its initial public offering four years ago.

Facebook also announced it would create a new class of non-voting shares in a move aimed at letting Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg give away his wealth without relinquishing control of the social media juggernaut he founded.

The company plans to create a new class of non-voting shares, which would be given as a dividend to existing shareholders. That would allow Zuckerberg, who wants to give away 99 percent of his wealth, to sell non-voting stock to fund philanthropy and keep the voting stock that assures his control.

Alphabet Inc. passed a similar proposal in 2014 that ensured its founders' control by creating new non-voting shares.

Some 1.65 billion people used Facebook monthly as of March 31, up from 1.44 billion a year earlier. Zuckerberg said users were spending more than 50 minutes per day on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, a huge amount of time given the millions of apps available to users.

Advertisers are shifting money from television to web and mobile platforms, and Facebook is one of the biggest beneficiaries. It faces fierce competition in the mobile video market, where rivals Snapchat and YouTube also garner billions of video views every day.

Facebook recently expanded its live video product, rolling out several new features and making it more prominent on the app to encourage users to create videos and share them. The quarterly results showed success attracting advertisers with the move, and the company was able to expand its operating profit margin to 55 percent from 52 percent a year earlier.

"The company consistently 'warns' about higher spending, but they consistently manage their spending to deliver earnings upside. They're an impressive company, and they leave very little room for criticism," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who called the operating margin a good surprise.

Facebook did not offer details on sales of its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, but emphasized that the device was in its early days and said that sales would not significantly impact 2016 revenue.

The results come after disappointments for investors from several major Silicon Valley firms.

"After Intel and IBM last week, and then Twitter and Apple yesterday, this is by far the best number I’ve seen in technology," said Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company which owns about $40 million worth of Facebook shares, commenting specifically about Facebook ad revenue.

Facebook has not begun advertising on some of its most popular apps. "They haven't yet turned on the monetization spigot for Messenger or WhatsApp, so there should be significant headroom still," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research.

The company's net income attributable to common shareholders nearly tripled to $1.51 billion, or 52 cents per share, in the first quarter from $509 million, or 18 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 77 cents per share, beating Wall Street's 62-cent consensus.

Total revenue rose to $5.38 billion from $3.54 billion, with ad revenue increasing 56.8 percent to $5.20 billion. Mobile ad revenue accounted for about 82 percent of total ad revenue, compared with about 73 percent a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected revenue of $5.26 billion.

If the stock proposal is approved - and Zuckerberg has a majority of voting stock - the company will effectively carry out a 3-for-1 stock split, issuing two shares of non-voting Class C capital stock as a one-time stock dividend for each share of Class A and Class B common stock.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced last year that they would give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares to fund charitable endeavors.

Investors said they were not concerned that Zuckerberg would have increasing control, pointing to the company's consistent ability to grow and exceed expectations.

"I honestly don't think anyone cares if he has more power, since he's done everything right since they went public," said Pachter.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook expands live video, challenging TV and web rivals

SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES - Facebook Inc. on Wednesday expanded its live video product, Facebook Live, giving the feature prominent placement on its app and rolling out features to make it easier for users to search and comment in real time.

The move is the biggest challenge yet by Facebook to online rivals, including Twitter Inc's Periscope live-streaming service, Snapchat's video features and Alphabet Inc's YouTube, as well as a potential threat to broadcast television.

Live video is becoming a highly competitive feature on social platforms, with companies competing to stream major sports events and exclusive video components from high-profile events such as the Oscar and Grammy awards shows.

Advertisers are particularly attracted to video that reaches a younger audience.

Facebook Live, which offers streaming video in real time, was launched last year. On Wednesday, it added features, including a map of video streams around the world, expanded search and filters that echo those on other platforms. Videos can be turned into black-and-white shots, like on Facebook's Instagram, for instance, and soon users will be able to add doodles, a nod to a feature on Snapchat.

Product head Chris Cox hosted a live video session Wednesday to advertise the product, and said Facebook hopes it will be used for everything from intimate family moments, such as a baby's first steps, celebrity-hosted question-and-answer sessions and breaking newscasts.

At a Facebook Live launch event in Hollywood on Wednesday, Will Cathcart, Facebook's vice president of product, told Reuters that the company has paid some partners to supply video in order to get Live off to a quick start, although he expected media companies would make money from advertising and other services longer term.

Time Inc has been paid to use Facebook Live, a source with knowledge of the partnership told Reuters. Vox Media Inc's eight brands, which include Vox and Re/code, also have been paid by Facebook, another source told Reuters.

Re/code tech news site said Facebook is paying The New York Times, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, as well.

Thomson Reuters and Conde Nast Entertainment also will work with Facebook Live, spokespeople said. Thomson Reuters is the parent of Reuters News.

Facebook's app now features Live prominently in the display bar for many users on iOS and Android across 60 countries.

While Facebook's News Feed has long had videos, largely shared from other websites such as YouTube, the company had not heavily pushed its own video products.

Its executives have, however, advertised the 1.6 billion-person social media site's video reach on earnings calls. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told investors in January that 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every day.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Google to pay 130-M pounds to Britain in back taxes

LONDON, United Kingdom - Technology giant Google is to pay £130 million (172 million euros, $185.4 million) in back taxes to Britain following a government inquiry into its tax arrangements, a company spokeswoman said Friday.

It follows a six-year probe by Britain's HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in response to controversy over low taxes paid by multinational corporations which operate in Britain but have headquarters elsewhere.

"We have agreed with HMRC a new approach for our UK taxes and will pay £130 million, covering taxes since 2005," a Google spokeswoman said.

"The way multinational companies are taxed has been debated for many years and the international tax system is changing as a result. This settlement reflects that shift."

In future, Google will pay taxes in Britain according to revenue from advertisers based in Britain, something that "reflects the size and scope of our UK business", the spokeswoman said.

The BBC reported that Google would now register a greater proportion of its sales activity in Britain rather than Ireland, where its European headquarters is based and which has a lower rate of corporation tax.

An HMRC spokesman welcomed the agreement.

"The successful conclusion of HMRC inquiries has secured a substantial result, which means that Google will pay the full tax due in law on profits that belong in the UK," the spokesman said.

"Multinational companies must pay the tax that is due and we do not accept less."

Britain's finance minister George Osborne has vowed to close tax loopholes and introduce a so-called "Google tax" to stop firms moving profits overseas.

Google is among several top technology firms under pressure over complex tax arrangements.

Apple agreed to pay Italy 318 million euros to settle a tax dispute last month, and in November world leaders of the Group of 20 top economies vowed to clamp down on schemes by multinationals to minimise tax.

The plan would force multinationals to pay tax in the country where their main business activity is based.

The OECD group of rich nations has estimated that national governments lose $100-240 billion (89-210 billion euros), or 4-10 percent of global tax revenues, every year because of the tax-minimising schemes of multinationals.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook revenue, profit beat forecasts; shares hit all-time high

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc. posted surprisingly strong profit and revenue growth as the world's largest social network grew even larger, with a spike in mobile users and advertising that lifted its stock to an all-time high.

The company on Wednesday reported audience numbers that suggest it is poised to take on mainstream media as an advertising force, helping investors to overlook Facebook's huge spending on hiring and building data centers.

Facebook now has 8 billion video views per day from 500 million people, compared with 4 billion views in April.

And Facebook's website and Instagram photo-sharing app, which opened up its platform to all advertisers in the third quarter, account for more than 1 in 5 minutes spent on mobile devices in the United States, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.

"In the medium to long run, we believe that we're not competing between Facebook and Instagram. We're competing with other forms of media," Sandberg told analysts on a conference call after the earnings report.

Facebook had 1.55 billion monthly active users as of Sept. 30, up 14 percent from a year earlier. Of these, 1.39 billion used the service on mobile devices.

"Growth is happening across the board and we're of course looking for a lot of growth in the future in emerging markets," Sandberg said in an interview. "We're also pretty focused on helping bring the next set of people who are not online, online."

Market research firm FactSet StreetAccount had predicted 1.53 billion monthly active users, with 1.36 billion on mobile.

Ad revenue grew 45.4 percent to $4.30 billion, with 78 percent of that coming from mobile versus 66 percent in the year-ago quarter.

"Part of the upside came from Instagram. The Instagram monetization engine has been turned on really rapidly for the coming quarters and years," said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with SterneAgee.

Facebook did not disclose Instagram's ad sales figures. But the app is expected to bring in $595 million in mobile ad revenues this year, research firm eMarketer said. Its ad revenue is projected to grow to $2.8 billion by 2017.

Facebook's huge $3.0 billion spending, up 68 percent from the third quarter last year, did not seem to worry investors or analysts.

"I think the investors would like the company to continue to invest given that the opportunity is pretty large," said Shyam Patil of Susquehanna Financial Group.

The stock rose about 5 percent to an all-time high of $109.34 in extended trading, before paring gains to about 4 percent. It closed earlier at $103.94.

Total revenue jumped to $4.50 billion in the third quarter, from $3.20 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected revenue of $4.37 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income attributable to stockholders rose to $891 million, or 31 cents per share, from $802 million, or 30 cents per share.

Excluding items, the Menlo Park, California-based company earned 57 cents per share, ahead of analysts' average estimate of 52 cents per share.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Twitter unveils new tools to measure ad effectiveness

Twitter Inc. said in a blog it would provide its advertisers with custom data-driven reports to help them gauge the impact of their ad campaigns on their profits.

The effectiveness of an ad campaign will be measured by dividing an advertiser's target audience into two groups - one that sees the ads and another that doesn't - and comparing conversions across the two test groups.

Twitter's ad revenue per monthly average user has been declining and to stem this it has launched new advertising products, notably its app install ads.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook, eyeing TV dollars, rolls out new ad products

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc. introduced a slate of new advertising products on Sunday, most of which are aimed at luring television advertisers onto the 1.5-billion user social network.

The advertising options, most of which will also be available on Facebook-owned Instagram, are designed to take advantage of the social network's strengths on mobile devices. It has the world's most popular smartphone app and generates more than three-quarters of its $10 billion-plus in annual ad revenue on phones.

Facebook is trying to convince advertisers, especially those who use video, that their dollars will be better spent on mobile platforms rather than on TV as users, especially millennials, spend more time on their phones than watching television. The rollout of the new products come ahead of New York City's 12th Advertising Week, which runs from Monday to Friday and gathers the world's largest advertisers and companies. Facebook also announced on Sunday that it has 2.5 million active advertisers in total, up from 2 million in February.

Digital video advertising spending is growing rapidly, projected to increase 13 percent to nearly $15 billion by 2019, according to eMarketer. Television ad spending, by comparison, is expected to grow 2 percent in the same time period to $78 billion. "Facebook is listening to the ad community and giving them what they are looking for," said Debra Aho Williamson, social media marketing analyst with eMarketer. "Does Facebook want video ad dollars? Yes."

On television, advertisers can buy ads based on how many people they will reach, an approach Facebook has adopted to ease the transition between television spending and digital spending.

In addition, it can target highly specific audiences, such as women aged 18 to 35 years old who have shopped on a specific website, which TV cannot do.

Among the new products are "brand awareness" ads, which aim to reach a large number of people to promote a company's name and brand, such as Coca Cola. Advertisers will also be able to poll users on mobile phones about whether they saw an ad -- a feature that used to be available only on desktop computers -- and they can use a format that allows them to display multiple videos at once that users can scroll through.

"We want to be the single-most important platform for all businesses," said Carolyn Everson, Facebook vice president for global marketing solutions.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook struggles to sell advertising in India

SAN FRANCISCO/MUMBAI - Facebook is trying to lure skeptical advertisers in India with features such as free email support for questions about advertising and advice on increasing sales in a bid to boost revenue from its second biggest market.

Facebook has 132 million users in India, trailing only the 193 million in the United States, according to the company, and the country is critical for the Menlo Park, California, social network's global expansion.

But so far, the payoff has been small: Facebook earns 15 cents per user in India every quarter, compared to the $7 to $8 it makes on each U.S. user, according to analysts.

Facebook does not break out its revenues in India, but Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, a Hong Kong-based technology consulting firm, estimates it brings in $15 million a quarter, far behind the $350 million he estimates Google earns there per quarter.

Google, which set up in India in 2004, has been in the Indian market six years longer than Facebook, and its search ads are more familiar to advertisers there than the display ads Facebook offers.

The business-boosting features, described to Reuters by company executives and Indian business people, are aimed at advertisers such as Mohit Khattar, managing director at online grocery company Godrej Nature's Basket, one of the roughly 60 to 65 million small- and medium-sized businesses in the country.

He said he began advertising on Facebook about two months ago as the company ramped up its online presence. He found that advertising in-store events and sales helped attract customers, but would not provide specific figures.

"Since our customers are on Facebook, we are on Facebook. It's that simple," Khattar said.

Facebook declined to say how many staff members it has in India or how much it has invested since it launched operations there in 2010.

But the world's largest social network says it has seen early signs its efforts are working. The company unveiled a new type of ad designed specifically for India last year, called "click to missed call."

Users click a button on an ad, which automatically calls an advertiser. The user hangs up - to save them the charge for the call - and the advertiser calls back with a pre-recorded message.

Garnier Men, a leading men's hair care company in India and a unit of beauty products giant L'Oreal SA, saw online sales more than double by using click to missed call, according to Facebook and the company.

TV ADS

But Indian advertisers still overwhelmingly flock to television ads and remain skeptical of the value of advertising on social media, analysts and business executives said.

"Advertisers in India are not warmed enough to social media as a concept of marketing," said Shah, the Counterpoint analyst.

"We really need to help them see how Facebook pages and advertising will help grow their businesses," said Andy Hwang, Facebook director of small- and medium-sized businesses for Asia Pacific.

For instance, the company advises businesses to create interactive Facebook pages and use Facebook Messenger to interact with customers as a way of increasing sales.

Technology companies have turned to India and other markets in Asia for growth because the region contains two-thirds of the world's population. Asia is Facebook's fastest-growing region, with 57 percent year-over-year growth in monthly active users.

India alone has 1.3 billion people, second only to China, and Facebook increased the number of users there by 22 percent last year. On the other hand, only 252 million people in India have Internet access.

Expansion in India is also important because of the "China factor." Facebook, like Google Inc and Twitter Inc, is shut out of the biggest market of all due to the Communist government's concerns over control of information. Other tech companies, such as eBay and Yahoo, have struggled to crack the Chinese market.

Getting more Indian users "drives success, or at least the perception of success," said Jaideep Mehta, vice president and general manager for International Data Corporation Southeast Asia.

Facebook said it plans to use its strategy in India for other emerging markets such as Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico, which are Facebook's third-, fourth- and fifth-largest markets by users.

That makes success in India even more important for its global expansion. For the second quarter of this year, 51.3 percent of Facebook's $4 billion in revenue came from outside the U.S. and Canada.

In addition to efforts to attract more Indian advertisers, Facebook is working to make it easier for users to get on the service.

More than 90 percent of Facebook's Indian users access it through mobile phones, but the Facebook app uses more data than most are able to pay for and Internet connections can be patchy. So the social giant developed Facebook Lite, which uses less data, for India and other emerging markets.

It has also rolled out its Internet.org initiative in India, a program started in August 2013 that aims to connect the two-thirds of the world without Internet access. Many of India's advertising dollars are in rural and semi-urban cities, analysts said, where users do not have a reliable Internet connection.

Facebook is also getting help from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which uses Facebook to provide updates on the government's workings.

"It is undeniable that a pro-social media government is good for the industry," Mehta said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Running an online business? Here are marketing tips

MANILA - There's never been a faster time for entrepreneurs to succeed in their businesses and do it in as little expense and highest return on investment (ROI) possible.

The internet has gifted everybody with the ability to reach millions of people in a fast, affordable, and traceable manner. Done right, brand awareness and high profits can be easy. Just like how a simple change in strategy allowed a Japanese aesthetics clinic in Makati to turn a 5-figure online ad budget into 6-7 figure sales.

Do a bad job or disregard it, and you might earn yourself a bad review, which will scare away everybody and lose profits or your business. People make buying decisions based on what they read online now and it’s crucial for every businesses to learn how to manage their online presence sooner rather than later.

In a rush to keep up, a lot of businesses are adapting it too quickly thinking they can throw money into it the same way they do with other mediums and end up discouraged with the results. Is internet marketing for you or is your understanding the problem?

Diving into digital without knowing the fundamentals is bad, you can lose money and be discouraged only to miss out on this wonderful opportunity. I’ve seen businesses that spent well over 7 figures online without any useful data to show for it. And that’s sad, because gathering insightful data about your customers is one of the strongest aspects of Internet marketing; it lives and breathes through it.

As technology gets more advanced, new user habits emerge with it. As a result, strategies that may have worked in the past can become ineffective. For example, five years ago, most marketers ignored having mobile-friendly websites, but now it has an effect on web rankings and some people also shop through their mobile phones. Internet marketing is a constant battle of who updates their strategies first and how you adapt to these changes.

To help you make the most out of your digital campaign, here are the common questions I ask my clients:

1. What is your objective?

Become crystal clear on what you want to achieve. Brand awareness, pushing for sales, gathering leads, and keeping your online reputation clean are some of the common objectives of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). You have to understand that these objectives are unique and will dictate how much you need to spend and what actions you need to take to achieve your campaign goals.

Most of the businesses that I consulted here always want the same objective, it’s always about brand awareness and sales. But most business owners are still confused on how these efforts contribute to the grand scheme. They focus on the wrong things like their followers, the post shares, impressions, hits or whether a post got viral. I’m not saying these are bad, but they are merely small parts of the whole. A more systematic way to go about this is to look at the bigger picture.

How you can solve this? Understand the journey of a typical Internet user from viewer to buyer and create a plan around it.

As you can see from the image above, the chances of you generating a profit increase the more you compel people to take action. The deeper they go into the funnel, the more they invest. They invest movement to click your ad, use brain cells to share an opinion about you, their time to get to know you more, and ultimately their money. The more people interact with your assets, the deeper you connect with them at a subconscious level. The small ripples resulting from the action in each segment of the funnel affect how many people will convert? The beauty in digital marketing is, you can track each of the action and reaction to each strategic move you make.

 2. How much are you willing to spend?

Decide whether you’re willing to invest time or money. If you want results fast, you need to have budget. To start getting traction on your ad campaign, you need a boost in traffic to your website of online assets. This can be done through a sponsored spot on an influencer’s blog, optimizing your site for search engine rankings, or buying ads online.

Blogger Features
Blogger features can actually become free if you can offer an interesting incentive to the blogger like a free product for them to review or gift cheques in exchange for a post on their social media assets. Doing this is also good for PR and the link you get from an established blogger will also help to boost your rankings on Google.

What To Expect: Generating Social Proof. The good thing about this is getting a lift in social proof for your business. There’s nothing more powerful than a recommendation from a friend let alone an influential blogger.

What to watch out for: Always inquire about average daily site visitors and their engagement rates. Always prioritize engagement rates over number of followers. Engagement is an action, and this kind of response is what you should be after. A common myth is, someone with a million followers always reaches one million users, that’s simply not the case, for even celebrities don’t always get that much engagement. An average social media account only reaches 5 percent of its total followers without paying for it.

Costs: You can take a guerilla approach and find underground social media users that have 20,000-100,000 followers and pay next to nothing or look at the top tier bloggers and expect to pay P5,000 to P100,000 for each feature.

Buying ads online
A typical spread on a popular newspaper can cost you upwards of P150,000. Magazines and newspapers command these high rates and justify it by presenting you with their circulation rates but in reality, you aren’t sure exactly how many people saw your ad and read it. When you buy ads online, you can track exactly how many people saw your ad and how many people took key actions.

What to expect: Get targeted traffic to your websites. The beauty of paid online advertising is the ability to precisely cut through the millions of Internet users and appear on a specific segment of the population. Your best options are Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. Google is best used for targeting user intent because your ads will show up on your targeted search term. Facebook, on the other hand, allows you to target by precise interest and specific age, sex, relationship status or even birthdays.

What to watch out for: The quality of your ads. More money to spend doesn’t always mean performance. It’s true you can order with either Facebook or Google to give you an exact number of users in millions but you can also use their self-serve ad platform. The self-serve ad platform rewards advertisers with cheaper costs for as long as the quality of their ads are high and relevant to the targeted users.

Costs: You get charged either cost-per-click or cost-per-impression. The average cost per click in the Philippines is around P6 or less, so if you had P150,000, you would’ve had 25,000 or more targeted clicks or about 800,000 or more impressions.

3. What makes my business unique?

Figure out what your angle is. Think of the internet like you’re walking into a huge social gathering. Everybody is grouped together according to their common interests and you have to interact with these people and make friends.

What to do: Understand that social media is never about you, it’s what about what people want. In real life, nobody likes a person that talks about himself or herself too much. Take time to get to know your target audience and figure out what makes them tick. Once you find your demographics’ hot buttons, create a persona around it, create an online persona for your brand, one that can have an emotional connection with your customers. Engage with them your content, and do not sell outright.

 4. What talents do I need to support me on this?

Digital marketing requires human capital, and I mean smart, creative, and caring people. Good thing there are plenty of resources available on and offline to help your people get up to speed in adapting on digital or you can also hire an experienced digital marketing agency to do the heavy lifting for you.

Skills that will help your company thrive in digital

Activate somebody with great analysis and critical thinking skills. This person will be in charge of making the strategic moves and tracking the performance of the campaign. When you’re creating ads or posts on social media, you’ll realize that some of it do better than others. To save on ad budgets, somebody has to make sense of the analytics report that you pull from your account so you can replicate these wins and improve the performance of posts or ads. This is where a professional Web Analytics person, a search engine marketer, or digital marketing specialist will thrive.

Utilize a person with a great eye for design and is awesome with words. About 80 percent of engagement begins with a captivating visual. An average user can get served more than 1,000 different stories on his news feed; it’s imperative that your graphics can capture attention within five seconds of seeing it. Don’t forget to add a dash of creative copywriting on that visual, it will serve as the bridge from getting their attention to creating a desire for your product and compelling them to take action. It’s important that you have a graphic designer and a talented writer on your team.

Dedicate a staff member for customer service. Hundreds and thousands of sales can be closed simply by actively answering your customer queries on social media. Yet most businesses are so focused on posting frequency that they forget to interact with queries when this is a lot more valuable than a like or a view. To standardize your customer interaction, come up with an FAQ list for your social media manager to make his work more efficient. Be nice to people, give them what they want and you will achieve your goals.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

How Facebook partnership is helping video tech firm

TEL AVIV - Facebook marketing partner Bidalgo targets a tripling in sales in 2015 as its new technology to automate the process of making personalized online video advertising benefits from Facebook's growing share of the video market.

Facebook is becoming a leader in the video market as users prefer to watch video ads over static images, said Peleg Israeli, general manager of Bidalgo's Israeli operations.

Videos are expensive to make and an advertiser usually makes only one or two versions.

The Bidalgo executive said his company's technology, called ADaptation, can automatically turn one video into as many versions as needed, so that targeted audiences will see images they respond to most. For example, a German audience might see a German flag in one video while users in France will see their flag.

The product should account for as much as half of Bidalgo's revenue in the coming year "and down the line much more than that," Israeli said.

He said automated videos will give Facebook an advantage over Google's YouTube, as Facebook's core technology can identify users "in the most accurate way".

Google remains the leader in long-form video but is facing mounting competition from Facebook in the short-form market for videos that run up to several minutes.

Facebook has said it gets over 4 billion daily video views with more than 75 percent of that on mobile.

IHS senior advertising analyst Eleni Marouli said video is the next big project for Facebook, which needs video to lure branded advertising dollars away from TV.

"Dynamic creative ads are a new, experimental way of providing video advertising," she said, adding that Facebook needs to partner with or acquire companies with this type of technology.

"The fact that they (Bidalgo) have dynamic ads which change based on gender or location can be a great asset," she said.

A Google spokesman said growth in viewing time on YouTube is up 60 percent in the latest quarter, its fastest growth in two years, and that for the online video market to grow more players are needed.

The global mobile advertising market is expected to surpass $100 billion in spending in 2016, up 430 percent from 2013 and accounting for more than half of all digital ad expenditure, according to market research firm eMarketer.

U.S.-Israeli Bidalgo's technology targets mobile app and game developers, who have been quick to adopt mobile advertising. Clients include online gaming firm 888 Holdings and Zynga.

Bidalgo, which has 40 employees, has been profitable for about a year, with a target of $100 million in sales this year, Israeli said. It competes with San Francisco-based Ampush and Boston-based Nanigans.

Companies wishing to advertise on Facebook must bid for users that they wish to see their advertising. Bidalgo's algorithms test an ad against multiple audiences to understand which segments are relevant and what is the right price the advertiser should offer.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com