Meta Platforms Product Developments

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  • WhatsApp Business crosses 200 million users, up from 50 million users in 2020.

  • Starting from today, WhatsApp Business users will be able to create Facebook and Instagram ads without a Facebook account.

  • Soon, WhatsApp will launch a new paid messaging feature that will enable small businesses to reach customers more efficiently.

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  • Meta plans to allow EU users to directly download apps through Facebook ads.

  • The new scheme is set to start as a pilot with a handful of android developers before the end of this year.

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  • Meta rolls new video features such as the ability to adjust speed, reverse or replace a clip.

  • It is also also renaming its “watch” tab to “video” tab to bring all video experiences in one place.

  • Meta is also bringing Reels editing tools to main feed videos to enable artists create short and long videos in one place.

  • Meta will also allow users to comment on Instagram Reels they watched on Facebook through the video discovery.

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  • Meta is ending news tap in Facebook in early December in the UK, France and Germany.

    “We will not enter into new commercial deals for news content on Facebook News in these countries and do not expect to offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future," a Meta spokesperson said.

  • Meta said this is part of its ongoing efforts to better align its investments with products and services that people value the most.

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  • Meta Platforms said it will launch WhatsApp Channels in more than 150 countries in the coming coming weeks.
  • WhatsApp Channels is a broadcast service that enables users to receive private messages from thought leaders, artists, sports teams and other organizations.
  • WhatsApp Channels are seperate from chats and who you follow are not visible to other users.
  • WhatsApp will recommend to users Channels based on their regions.
  • Users will also be able to filter channels using “new”, “most active”, and “popular” filters.
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  • Meta Platforms denied a Financial Times report that said WhatsApp teams are discussing whether to introduce ads in chats to boost revenue, but no final decision has been made yet.

  • The report added that Meta is thinking of introducing an ad-free WhatsApp subscription.

    “This @FT story is false. We aren’t doing this,” WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said in an X post.

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  • Meta Platforms said it will soon expand Meta Verified to businesses in Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
  • It said that testing will start in the coming weeks for Facebook and Instagram, but expansion to WhatsApp will come in the near future.
  • Meta Verified business subscription will cost $21.99 USD/month per Facebook page or Instagram account, or $34.99 USD/month for both.
  • The subscription will come with benefits such as a verified badge, impersonation protection, account support and features that help businesses stand out.
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  • Meta Platforms launches WhatsApp payment feature in India.
  • The move follows the introduction of the feature in Brazil and Singapore. The feature will enable users to buy goods and services from local businesses via a chat.
  • India has 400 million WhatsApp users.
  • WhatsApp users will use the feature for free while businesses will pay a processing fee similar to that of credit cards.
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  • WhatsApp introduces Flows, a new feature aimed at improving experience for merchants and users.

  • With Flows, users can book a train seat, order a meal or book appointment without leaving the app.

    “Shopping & e-commerce is one of the biggest verticals we want to focus on. The goal is to enable business messaging in a way that businesses and people can do a lot more right in the chat thread. We are trying to build rich experiences within the chat, and that’s where Flows comes in,” Nikila Srinivasan, VP of business messaging at Meta, told TechCrunch.

  • Meta said Flows will use the existing conversations payment model.

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  • On Wednesday, Meta Platforms announced that broadcast channels will be coming to Facebook and Messenger in the next few weeks.
  • Admins to Facebook Pages can start broadcast channels to engage more deeply with their followers and anyone can join the channels.
  • Only the creator of the broadcast channels can create the broadcast, but anyone can react to it.
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  • Meta said there are now more than 1 million Instagram subscriptions to creators.
  • Launched just over a year ago, Instagram subcriptions to creators enables creators to earn predictable income by providing exclusive content for subscribers.
  • The company said it will start promoting Instagram subcriptions to creators in Instagram’s feed, by putting a “subsribe” button at the top of every post.
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  • Meta makes end-to-end encryption for personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook a default feature.
  • The encryption will come with additional features such as the ability to edit messages, disappearing messages and higher media quality.
  • Meta already had a feature that tells users to turn on end-to-end encryption.
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  • Meta said it will scrap dedicated Facebook news tap in the United States and Australia in early April as part of its efforts to direct investments to products and services that are mostly valued by users such as short form video.

    “The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. has dropped by over 80% last year. We know that [people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content— they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests. As we previously shared in 2023, news makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, and is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people,” Meta said.

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  • Tom Alison, Head of Facebook participated in the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference held yesterday. Overall, his comments on Reels, generative AI and ad products were positive.
  • What stood out to me is the new recommendation architecture that they are building. He said in the past, each product such as Reels or Feeds were served by their own recommendation architecure. But now they are building a single recommendation architecture that will power all the products. The new model led to an 8-10% increase in Reels watch time, which proved that it was “learning from the data much more efficiently than the previous generation.” (min 8:37-12:00)

https://event.webcasts.com/viewer/event.jsp?ei=1659142&tp_key=d816a7c1a0

Summary of the conference

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  • Meta launches an updated fullscreen video player on Facebook which offers a consistent vertical design for all video lengths including Reels unlike in the past when you could see horizontal videos or videos that played in a Feed-like playe .
  • The player has new controls such as fullscreen mode for horizontal videos, a slider for skipping longer videos and features for pausing, jumping back or forward 10-seconds.
  • Meta added that it will also bring more relevant video recommendations in the updated player.
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  • Meta says over 40 million US and Canadian young adults are daily active users in Facebook, the highest number in three years.
  • It added that they have made changes to their core product with these young adults in their mind.
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  • Instagram is testing a feature that will prevent users from skipping ads.

    “We’re always testing formats that can drive value for advertisers. As we test and learn, we will provide updates should this test result in any formal product changes,” A Meta spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider.

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WhatsApp now has 100 million MAUs in the United States

  • CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that WhatsApp now has 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and its daily audience is growing by double digits.
  • The news indicate that WhatsApp is gaining ground in U.S where Iphone’s iMessage is extremely popular.
  • The news also comes at a time when Apple is planning to introduce Rich Communications Services (RCS) in its iOS 18 this year, a feature that will improve functionality of messages sent between Iphone and Android, hence reducing the need for third-party apps such as WhatsApp (RCS won’t have end-to-end encryption though).
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  • Meta brings Meta Verified to WhatsApp Business in India.
  • The company said millions of small businesses in India uses WhatsApp Business App.
  • WhatsApp has over 400 million users in India.
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  • Meta rolls out Instagram Teens accounts which has built-in protections for the under 16 users.
  • The account will require a parent’s permission to change the built-in protections.