Happy Halloween! In a week where Russia imposed an Austin Powers-esque fine on Google so big that you’d literally need all the money in the world to pay it, there were more grounded financial stories in social media with a range of quarterly earnings. The near-term future looks incredibly bright for a few platforms, notably Reddit and Snap.
Elsewhere, Meta has made some significant moves this week, while there are a range of other updates from the wonderful world of digital. Let’s get to it!
‘Tis the season for Quarterly Earnings! These are always great points in the year to get an overview of the state of play for different platforms. The headlines were:
- Reddit’s user growth and revenue surged in Q3, driven by growing interest in its ad offering. I’ve written before that I think this is under-utilised and considered by brands, so it’s great to see a few more taking advantage of the targeting opportunities. Verdict: Great!
- Meta’s Q3 2024 earnings report showed a significant 19% revenue increase to $35 billion, driven largely by advancements in AI technology and ad sales. This increase seems to follow Meta’s successful integration of AI across its platforms, working to enhance ad targeting and performance. The jury’s still out on Advantage+ for more complex activity, but ad spend is clearly being poured into the platform. Verdict: Unconvinced, but the numbers are hard to argue with.
- Investors were cautiously optimistic following Snapchat’s quarterly earnings reveal; there was a sizeable increase in paid subscribers, while revenue was up 15% with a reduced overall net loss. Shares were up 9%, which is a useful indicator that they had a good quarter. Verdict: A surprisingly bright future
- Elsewhere, the big headline from Google’s earnings call is that YouTube’s ad revenue was up 12%. We’re seeing more and more digital ad spend diverted away from core platforms; YouTube, Snap and Reddit are hardly upstarts, but at least in my experience with clients, they often don’t form part of the core mix, so it’s interesting to see. Verdict: Google continues to dominate
- Obviously in a new world order, X doesn’t need to do a Quarterly Earnings call, but one reveal from the Meta call was that Threads is apparently on track to overtake X next year in terms of active monthly users. I don’t necessarily see that in my own experience of using the platform (at least within my world, it only seems to be publications posting, rather than peers), but your mileage may vary. However, X is now reportedly worth less than Truth Social, so it definitely isn’t going brilliantly. Verdict: Uh oh
Meta developing AI-powered search engine
Meta made a couple of other announcements this week; firstly, that they are reportedly developing their own AI-powered search engine, aiming to lessen reliance on Google and Microsoft.
This pivot could reshape the ad landscape and diversify search options, as well as offering some potentially very interesting targeting opportunities for media buyers. There was also an announcement that a news-focussed AI powered chatbot will be powered by Reuters.
Further Reading:
One of the big themes in the last few years has been that Elon Musk wants to turn X into an “everything” app, or at the very least something to rival PayPal (his original vision for PayPal back in the day was, essentially, an everything app called X). Well, this seems to be on hold, with the withdrawal of a payments processor application in New York.
Netflix has added a clipping feature designed to enable easy sharing to social platforms.
Finally, and excitingly for those of us who nerd out over how AI can make us better at our jobs, Google is reportedly experimenting with tools which will enable the automation of certain tasks in Chrome.
That’s it! If you found this interesting, I would appreciate it if you shared it with your friends and colleagues.
If you’re feeling particularly generous, I won’t stop you from buying me a coffee. Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next week!