Meta makes announcement about future of Facebook
Illustrative photo (Unsplash)
When you think about the 20-year-old social network Facebook, its popularity among young adults is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Of course, Meta wants to change this, and the company is once again announcing to the world its intention to refocus its platform to attract this demographic group, citing the technology blog Engadget.
Meta's statement
In his post, Tom Alison, who leads the Facebook app at Meta, says that the service is changing to reflect an "increased focus on young adults" compared to other users.
Facebook is still for everyone, but in order to build for the next generation of social media consumers, we’ve made significant changes with young adults in mind," he wrote.
Almost three years ago, Mark Zuckerberg declared his desire to make young people the company's "North Star." Both Alison and Zuckerberg have talked about reorienting the Facebook app towards a discovery-focused feed rather than connections between users.
This shift is already well underway. Alison mentioned that the company's achievements in artificial intelligence have already improved recommendations for Reels and the news feed, and that "advanced recommendations technology will power more products" over the next year.
He added that there is also an increase in closed content sharing among users, with more people sharing videos (though there's no mention of rumors about the return of messaging functionality to the main app).
What are the prospects
Notably, Alison's note does not mention the "metaverse," which Zuckerberg once saw as a central part of the company's future. Instead, he says that "leaning into new product capabilities enabled by AI" is a key goal, along with attracting young users.
This is also not surprising, given that Meta and Zuckerberg have recently tried to reframe some of the company's ambitions in the metaverse as advancements in AI technology.
However, it is unclear how successful Meta will be in its efforts to gain the trust of young people. Alison says that Facebook has seen "five quarters of healthy growth in young adult app usage in the US and Canada" with 40 million daily active users among young people.
This is still a relatively small percentage of the 205 million daily active Facebook users in the US reported by the company in February.
