Welcome to a mid-week edition of #TheDailyThree, a weekday recap featuring 3 top stories in digital + a few thoughts. While today was somewhat of a slow news day, Facebook made some fairly big headlines. We’re devoting the whole roundup to them.
1. Facebook had the slowest quarter over quarter growth in 3 years, with overall usage down by ~50M hours daily. Zuckerberg swears that it's all part of the plan for users to reduce time spent on the channel but increase the quality of time spent.
2. Part of this was done by decreasing impressions of viral videos, which Facebook describes as “passive consumption of content.” The obvious issue is that decrease in time spent on the site will inevitably result in higher ad costs as reach will be harder to come by.
3. While Facebook still brought in $13 billion in revenue + $4.3 billion in profit, a 19% increase, the figures were well short of the 60% investors were expecting. It’s hard not to think that Mark's “meaningful connections” comments were simply damage control.
