Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased a “return to OG Facebook” as a part of his key objectives for 2025 in Wednesday’s This fall earnings name with buyers. Whereas the corporate was quick on particulars as to what particular modifications lay in retailer, it’s clear that Meta is in determined want of youthful Fb customers to maintain itself for the following technology.
Requested about his plans for the “OG Facebook,” Zuckerberg replied that it was considered one of Meta’s focus areas for the yr forward and one thing the corporate deliberate to each spend money on and spend time on.
“I think there are a lot of opportunities to make [Facebook] way more culturally influential than it is today,” he famous.
The exec additionally warned buyers that these modifications to Fb might require some tradeoffs by way of “maximizing business results in the near term” — a sign that revenues could possibly be affected. He stated the product modifications would start to roll out inside half a yr or so.
“I think some of this will kind of get back to how Facebook was originally used back in the day,” Zuckerberg stated, whereas tight-lipped on another particulars.
Declining curiosity in Fb amongst younger folks is turning into an issue for the tech big, particularly as its core grownup customers proceed to age.
In keeping with a research by eMarketer launched final August, U.S. Gen Z customers ages 18 to 24 spend much more time on TikTok, adopted by Instagram and Snapchat — twice as a lot time, in truth, in contrast with the overall U.S. grownup inhabitants. In the meantime, a 2024 survey by Pew Analysis discovered that U.S. teenagers’ (13-17) use of Fb had dropped sharply through the years from 71% in 2014-2015 to simply 33%.
Usually, what appeals to Gen Z isn’t even the social networking elements of Fb; it’s the extra utilitarian options like Fb Market.
Meta has lengthy been conscious of those challenges, having launched a Gen Z-focused redesign of its growing older social community in October 2024, promising higher emphasis on area people info, movies, and Fb Teams, amongst different issues.
The corporate now goals to construct on these modifications with an extra refresh of the Fb product in 2025, although its capability to compete with Gen Z’s most well-liked app, TikTok, stays unsure.
What’s extra, Gen Z customers have despatched a powerful sign that they’re prepared to maneuver on from Meta, if TikTok have been to stay banned within the U.S. As an alternative of returning to Meta’s platform, younger folks downloaded RedNote, one other Chinese language app just like TikTok, forward of and in the course of the briefly enforced U.S. TikTok ban.
It might be troublesome, if not not possible, for Fb to ever-again entice youthful customers by returning to its “OG” roots. The corporate had already tried to reignite its unique feeling of exclusivity by launching a aspect of Fb referred to as Campus in 2020 that solely catered to varsity and college college students. That effort was shuttered a yr and a half later after failing to take off.
Meta has additionally dabbled in utilizing different providers, like on-line courting, to lure in new customers with little success.
In the meantime, new social networks are being constructed on the open social net, powered by protocols like ActivityPub, utilized by Mastodon, and AT Protocol, utilized by Bluesky, permitting folks to take again management over their information and social connections from the centralized, billionaire-controlled platforms owned by Huge Tech. As these networks, develop, they’ll develop into competitors for efforts like an “OG Facebook.”
Meta has been working to protect buyers from Fb’s decline for years.
In This fall 2019, Meta (then referred to as Fb) launched new stats for buyers referred to as household every day energetic folks and household month-to-month energetic folks. Later, in Q1 2024, Meta took steps to distance itself from per-app metrics by eliminating every day energetic and month-to-month energetic customers in its quarterly reviews in favor of its household of apps’ metrics.
In its submitting on the time, Meta stated the choice was meant to raised showcase how many individuals engaged with all of its merchandise, not simply Fb and Messenger. In all probability, it served one other function, too: to cover Fb’s decline inside Meta’s bigger “family” group of apps.
