Meta’s quest for revenue
Meta is losing a whole bunch of money, and water is wet. We know this. The Facebook company has been haemorrhaging money for years — but now the amount is large enough that people are starting to take notice. Meta’s first-quarter earnings were published last week and revealed that it lost close to $4 billion in revenue. So what’s causing the holdup? WhatsApp? Facebook? Nope. Reality Labs, Meta’s VR/AR play, is the real culprit.
That’s according to GamesIndustry.biz, who reported that Meta’s Reality Labs pulled in $440-million over the last three months, though its operating losses were hovering around the $3.85-billion mark. Somehow, this is an improvement over 2023 figures in the same period, which saw Reality Labs shaken down for $3.99-billion.
Fortunately (for Facebook), the company’s other services are doing just fine in the revenue department, which all play their part in offsetting Reality Labs’ continual losses of around $1 billion per month since June 2022. Despite the month-on-month losses, Meta reiterated that Reality Labs was here to stay.
“We continue to expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts and our investments to further scale our ecosystem,” said Meta.
Following this, Meta announced its intent to increase the budget spent on AI in 2024, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg noting that it would be years before the larger spend ($35 to $40 billion) would pay dividends for the company, and that major losses were expected over the next couple of years.
RGB ≠ Pandemic
In hindsight, maybe RGB wasn’t the best defence against COVID-19. Look, we get it. When Razer first announced its Zephyr mask, then titled ‘Project Hazel’, we were desperate for a bit of fun in our lives. Even if it did look a bit ridiculous (and cost $100), we were on board with the idea. It turns out the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)… isn’t, and reckons Razer owes its customers refunds totalling roughly $1.1 million.
It’s got nothing to do with Zephyr’s looks, and everything to do with the filters shoved in there. Razer claimed it used N95-grade filters, though, according to the FTC, never had them submitted for testing and continued selling them with that marketing. That part is important. Later, YouTuber Naomi Wu did a teardown video that exposed the mask’s filter claims, and Razer promptly scrubbed any mention of the N95-grade filters in its marketing.
“These businesses falsely claimed, in the midst of a global pandemic, that their face mask was the equivalent of an N95 certified respirator,” said the FTC’s Samuel Levine in a statement. “The FTC will continue to hold accountable businesses that use false and unsubstantiated claims to target consumers who are making decisions about their health and safety.”
On top of the $1.1 million in refunds the FTC is attempting to pry from Razer, it’s also slapping it with a $100,000 civil penalty, and banning the company from ever using “COVID-related health misrepresentations” and other “unsubstantiated health claims.”
Studio Ghibli scores a 4K Blu-Ray and steelbook release
Award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli fame is back. How Do You Live? or the far more crude English title The Boy and the Heron has finally made its way to South Africa. If you don’t want to deal with the cinema industry’s absurd ticket and popcorn prices, it’ll hit digital storefronts in June, followed by a physical release a month later. It’s also pencilled in for a launch on Max (and Netflix)… eventually.
25 June is the date to mark in your calendars if a digital release is all you’re after. The Boy and the Heron will be available across all the major providers: Google PlayMovies, Amazon and Apple TV. For a price, of course. Personally, with how the physical media industry is going, we’d wait to pick up Studio Ghibli’s official 4K UHD Blu-ray, DVD or steelbook edition that’s launching on 9 July.
Picking up the steelbook edition will set you back $45 (R850), but you’re getting a whole lot of content to go with it. It arrives with both the DVD and 4K Blu-ray versions of the film, as well as interviews with the team behind the film. Oh, and a poster that you probably won’t find elsewhere. Each purchase of the movie (digitally or physically) includes both Japanese and English audio, and matching subtitles.
So that’s why people post on Threads
We’ll admit that Threads, Meta’s opposition to Elon Musk’s X.com, didn’t quite grab us when it first launched in 2023. And we aren’t the only ones. According to a report from Engadget, the Meta-owned social media is offering creators thousands of bucks for posting and garnering interaction on the app. It’s all part of an invitation-only scheme that Meta has remained silent about thus far.
Qualifying for a piece of the pie depends on “the performance of your Threads post” or “the number of posts you create” according to the programme’s support page on Instagram. Creators aren’t being paid a flat rate, either. Different accounts are offered different incentives, with some being paid “up to $5,000” for hitting over 10,000 views on a post.
As if cash rewards weren’t a large enough incentive, Meta recently secured Taylor Swift’s social media account package, meaning “she” will use Threads to promote her album. It’s a smart move on Meta’s part, which is looking to attract the singer’s massive fanbase with custom animations and “easter eggs”.
