Meta Cutting Back on Growth Plans to Counter Less-Than-Robust Growth

It’s no secret that the company formerly known as Facebook has a lot going on in terms of research and development.

But we typically don’t bring you stories about Meta cutting back in that area or even experiencing anything less than robust growth.

Well, we reported the VR division’s unimpressive performance so far a couple of months back and it seems like that was a harbinger of things to come as the social media giant is pushing massive cuts to hiring and elsewhere to head off competitive pressures.

This much was outlined in a memo obtained by The Verge from Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox. A major factor impacting Meta’s revenue is a changing landscape with regard to privacy and payments likely referencing Apple’s shifting stance on the subject. To rectify the situation, Meta plans on monetizing and pushing Reels even harder in the coming months which lines up exactly with the kind of stuff we’ve covered here on this blog.

Some notable changes include shifting Portal from consumer to commercial customers and a larger push to monetize and expand monetization across various platforms.

From the memo:

“Our biggest revenue headwinds continue to be signal loss and the current macroeconomic situation, but we see opportunities to make high-impact investments to meet those challenges head-on. On Ads, the key priorities are monetizing Reels as quickly as possible and investing in AI, which we expect to continue to be a major driver of our business. For Commerce in H2, we’re doubling down on Shops Ads to mitigate signal loss and create an exceptional onsite experience. Business Messaging will be the most important new opportunity to grow revenue — the key priorities here are click-to-messaging ads, paid messaging, and software and tools.”

You can read the rest of the memo over on The Verge at this link.

Where do you think Meta should focus its efforts moving forward? Instagram and Reels? Virtual reality? Good old Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

We have some other photography news for you to check out at this link right here.

[The Verge]