Weekend Musings 23
Meta's Ad Business after Sandberg's exit, LinkedIn's creator push, Future of Search, State of Modern Philanthropy 2022, I dive into the word of Web3 and the secret of happiness
Google’s famous early motto, “Don’t be evil,” also implied that being evil was an option. Web 2.0 primarily has been and is all about “trust” which also implies that we are powerless and the platforms control the power.
“Web3 is about building systems that don’t rely on trusting people, corporations, or governments to make moral choices but instead render evil choices impossible. Blockchain is the crucial technology for making that happen,” says Gavin Wood.
Wood, an English computer scientist who helped program Ethereum, coined the term Web3 in 2014, the year Ethereum launched. He first called it Web 3.0, but the decimal thing has since become passé, writes Wired’s Gilad Edelman in his brilliant long piece that takes a deep dive into the revolution of Web3 - the new movement wants to free us from Big Tech and exploitative capitalism—using only the blockchain, game theory, and code.
On the Big Technology podcast - Gavin Wood the co-founder of Ethereum and creator of Polkadot shares his thoughts on why we need Web3. One of his points is that the current mess that social media has created with social graphs can be solved by Blockchain. However, it is a framework that will need players to implement. Will Facebook do? But the conversation makes it clear that the new web 3/4/5 is there to clean the mess that Web2 has created.
Will Web3 then create a new mess?
Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund and a leading Web3 booster, puts it,
“Can’t be evil > don’t be evil.”
Web3 is an exciting space to be, yes it has its own challenges but the intent is good. To build tech or the next generation of digital products over the top of the ideas of decentralisation that define your Web3.
One of the hot topics is the Metaverse and everyone is behind it. Nicholas Thompson, CEO at The Atlantic is excited in his LinkedIn video but does make a brilliant point that we messed up Web2 big time so Web3 will need to have a good set of rules and regulations right from the start.
Rules and regulations this is where this space will get interesting since the mighty or set of people will sit down and decide. This will be backed by their own beliefs and prejudices.
In 2010, I was excited about social media and its possibilities. Looks like this ongoing decade will be how power shifts to larger groups than just being in the hands of a few elite individuals, more power to creators than platforms, and bringing the virtual world closer with technologies.
Web2
Sheryl Sandberg’s exit, Javier Olivian the new COO and Meta’s ad business
Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Meta after 14 years as the number-two executive. On her Facebook note, she said that she is leaving the office to focus on her foundation, philanthropic efforts, and family.
Meta’s head growth, Javier Olivian will step into the role of COO but not exactly how Sandberg was handling it.
On the same day, WSJ reported that the company is investigating Ms Sandberg’s activities, including a review of her use of corporate resources to help plan her coming wedding.
In another story, WSJ says that this is a broader review that is focusing on the extent to which staffers worked on her personal projects.
But then one can’t forget the work she did in building the ad business for the company which was earlier known as Facebook.
14 years ago Mark gave her a free run over certain parts that were non-product domain - which was selling ads but also meant handling communications, lobbying, and policy. While she made a successful ad business for the world’s largest social networking company but it came at a cost such as the Cambridge Scandal, the spread of misinformation, and the US Capitol riot.
So finally after 14 years, the CEO has decided to end The Deal as Wired calls it.
In this new era where Facebook is now known as Metaverse, Mark has brought in Javier Olivian, the new COO who will assume “a more traditional COO role,” where Olivian will be focused internally and operationally, Zuckerberg wrote in his Facebook post. “Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products.”
Meta is relooking its product and its offerings. That’s the only way it can fight with Apple. If experts are to be believed that Metaverse will at least take another 5-6 years to happen and the ad business is the backbone of the company’s revenues which needs fixing. Who better than a product and growth guy.
According to FastCompany, earlier Olivian’s title was Chief Growth Officer and his team was responsible for Facebook Lite, which was a phenomenal success in countries where data was not cheap and feature phones dominated the market. As of 2017, Facebook had 200 million Lite users in such countries as Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.
India was also a market for Facebook Lite but then Reliance Jio happened and the Chinese brands brought in high-end smartphones at cheap prices.
Meanwhile, Meta has revamped the business suite which is basically a one-point dashboard from where you can post, schedule, and create ads and other things for all your business profiles on Facebook and Instagram. While it has wrapped everything under one wrapper the new design will take time. I have bookmarked my essential pages. Because the new design is just on the top, internally when you click on the Ad Manager it takes you to the same site. Glad it has not changed. However, here is a useful guide on how to set up and navigate the Meta Business Suite.
Additionally, Meta’s platform Facebook is also in the early stages of planning a Basic Ads product. Basic Ads would be aimed at advertisers who are looking to build awareness around their brands. “A Basic Ads product would offer and report only the simplest metrics such as engagement and video views.”
There is a release date and reports say that testing is to start in the EU ahead of the U.S. Let’s wait and see what Facebook has to offer even if it looks like a top-of-a-funnel approach for now.
And in the U.S. Meta has been pushing the benefits of advertising with a justification for personalised ads - “personalise ads help you find them.”
It took a while for me to understand what is happening. In a nutshell, Meta is telling that personalise ads are good because it helps to discover small businesses. Creepy? At least the Apple ad makes the point in a simple and bold manner - “Your Data is being sold.”
After this privacy feature, I don’t remember giving any third-party app access to my data. However, Apple also has its means out there.
LinkedIn launches new creator tools and Business Manager
LinkedIn has been working hard to evolve from a professional network thankfully the creators are now helping it to become an Inspiration Network. Okay leaving my jokes aside after LinkedIn Live and newsletters, the network is furthermore expanding its offerings by launching audio events and profile enhancements.
“Since first launching Creator Mode last March, we’ve been excited to see the rapid adoption of our suite of creator tools—everything from newsletters to audio events to enhanced analytics,” Keren Baruch, product lead for creator strategy at LinkedIn, tells Fast Company. “What’s most exciting to watch is how creators are leveraging the different content tools to tell their stories in their own unique ways to spark member engagement.”
At a time when Clubhouse’s voice is fading out, LinkedIn is making its audio event public.
Additionally, LinkedIn has some good news for large enterprises and agencies - it has announced the creation of a Business Manager. The centralised platform will aim to simplify how marketers keep track of their accounts by offering their Campaign Manager and Pages options easily visible from a central location.
LinkedIn has no launch date but says “coming soon.”
Embracing the full-funnel approach with YouTube
Last year the International Rescue Committee saw that organic interest and brand search were on the decline. They noticed that their performance-driven campaigns were having a positive impact on brand demand. Rather than focus exclusively on bottom-funnel performance media to generate leads, they decided to introduce reach campaigns to the mix.
YouTube says that by adding those campaigns to key markets and remarketing viewers through their performance campaigns, IRC saw an increase of 42% in new donors and 19% in revenue growth.
In another article, YouTube talks about the 4 key drivers that YouTube advertisers focus on.
The future of search is boutique
Whenever I see a call from my mother around 7 in the morning there could be two reasons - 1. she had an argument with someone or 2. she is ready for her next travel destination. Recently she called me around 7 in the morning to tell me that she wants to travel to Ladakh and asked me to do the research.
I asked Google but was left disappointed. The answer to your question will never be in the first two or even three pages. The first two pages are jammed with ads and useless content.
Finally, I messaged a few friends and eventually, I found the right answer.
The problem, now so drastically different from a decade ago, is not what to read/buy/eat/watch/etc., but figuring out the best thing to read/buy/eat/watch/etc. with my limited time and attention.
“I believe the opportunity in search is not to attack Google head-on with a massive, one-size-fits-all horizontal aggregator, but instead to build boutique search engines that index, curate, and organize things in new ways,” says Sari Azout, Founder of startupy.world, a search engine for tech and culture insights.
Her startup is an attempt at a boutique search engine for qualitative insights. As she defines the future of search she adds that it isn’t an ad-driven model but subscriptions present an opportunity.
Nonprofit fundraising
The State of Modern Philanthropy 2022
The latest guide is from the people at Classy - Path to Lasting Donor Connections. According to the report: Facebook is the only platform that drives both traffic and conversions. LinkedIn and Instagram show potential as key social media platforms that attract motivated supporters who are ready to complete donations.
Additionally: Donors are likely to land on a campaign from a phone so make sure your landing page/event page/ donation page is mobile optimised.
Trust in civil society
Independent Sector, in partnership with Edelman Data & Intelligence, has released the third annual report of exclusive survey findings that explore the nuances of trust in American nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, and other institutions.
The report in its findings says that trust in major American institutions is low. Only nonprofits, small businesses, and community members are trusted by a majority or near-majority of the public. Less than one-third say the same about government, large corporations, and the news media.
Integrity and purpose are critical to trust.
“Distrusters of nonprofits and philanthropy point to perceived fund mismanagement and cases of corruption and scandals. Neutral trusters say financial transparency and proof of impact are necessary. Public figure endorsements, communicating the clear organizational mission, and demonstrating results remain top trust drivers.”
Leveraging UTMs to Donor Acquisition
When you run a campaign such as Click To Donate you would love to know where the donor or donation is coming from and how many donations each marketing initiative is giving.
This is where the importance of UTMs comes into play. Urchin Tracking Module simply refers to tags that can be added to your donation page URL. Once you setup you can track these tags on your Google Analytics giving you complete information about your campaign. It is a very small and simple process but often gets overlooked. Here is an article that talks about everything about UTMs.
In case you just want to set up the UTM parameters for your campaign, then Google has a simple tool too.
What actually happened - Apple Mail privacy protection
Apple Mail Privacy Protection was rolled out last year which meant that Apple MPP will be marked as having “opened” ALL of their emails — whether or not they ever actually looked at any individual message.
So what happened to open rates? M+R Benchmarks in its post digs into it and finds out that the human opens went down because many of those opens are now hidden behind Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection. Apple or aka machine opens went up, something which never existed before.
The only good solution segment out Apple ones.
Web3
These are my early days in the world of Web3.
Wired describes it: “ONE WAY TO think about Web3 is right there in the name: It’s the successor to Web 2.0, the era that was supposed to democratize the internet but instead became dominated by a handful of huge platforms, like Google and Facebook.”
Web3 is about re-decentralizing the web.
Reputation in Web3
“The business models of Web3 encourage collaboration. In Web2, all revenue streams reward the action of the output (advertising against what’s already published, subscribing to a finished piece of work),” writes Dark Star on Mirror.xyz
Mirror.xyz is a unique publishing tool for writers, which leverages cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. The platform provides tools for writers to earn in cryptocurrency rather than through typical cash transactions.
In Web3, there’s now a business model on the input. Crowdfunding and social tokens are an investment in the idea before there is any output generated, encouraging strong collaboration at the onset which rewards all participants throughout the creative process.
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
Albert Wenger writes: “Web3 can, if properly developed and with the right kind of regulation, provide a meaningful shift in power back to individuals and communities.” He ends his post on a positive and a brilliant note:
And if widely adopted Web3/crypto technology will also start to improve along other dimensions. It will become faster and more efficient. It will become easier and safer to use. And much like the PC was a platform for innovation that never happened on mainframes or mini computers, Web3 will be a platform for innovation that would never come from Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.
Why The New York Times should be Tokenised
Joey DeBruin shares that there has been lots of talk about the current battle between “old” media platforms like The New York Times and upstart newsletters on Substack.
“I believe tokenization could emerge as a key differentiator for forward-thinking media companies. Especially for new companies and products, allowing early subscribers to benefit from future upside can shorten the time to product market fit.”
In his article, he shows how tokenization solves some of the issues with their current model - “I expect it to be smaller competitors that push this envelope first.”
Check out Big Green DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) an experiment in democratizing and decentralizing grantmaking.
Understanding the key to happiness has been my quest. This is one of the reasons why I shifted to Tiruvannamalai, the primary being self-love. According to Pravajika Divyanandaprana the secret to happiness also lies in the way how we think:
“Life does not create thoughts. Thoughts create life.”
I have never practised the manifestation of positive thinking. But I do now. I am not happy always. But I make an effort to have fewer negative thoughts and as much as possible be in a state of awareness.
Positive and happy things can happen in our life too.
So be aware and be happy :)