Madrid
Updated:06/03/2022 02:00h
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Sheryl Sandberg is history. Fourteen years after landing on Facebook (company, metaverse through, now known as Meta), the one in charge of monetizing the time that the user spends plugged into any of the ‘apps’ of the digital emporium has taken the exit door, leaving the witness in the hands of the Spaniard Javier Oliván, who, from now on, will act as director of operations and second in command, second only to Zuckerberg.
The Huescan, trained as an engineer in the last half of the nineties at the University of Navarra and in business at the American Stanford, will now be in charge of ensuring that the advertising business, the main (and practically only) Meta’s livelihood lives up to Zuckerberg’s ambitious plans, especially when it comes to building the metaverso. That black hole that, at least for the next five years, will not report more than losses of billions to the company.
“When Oliván joined the company, in 2007, Facebook was very small, at that time it would only have about 50 million users,” he explains in conversation with ABC Ferdinand Czech, Professor of Communication at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR). “In fact, it has always been said that he was one of the promoters of the purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook. He is a very close person to Mark Zuckerberg for many years. A very good friend of yours,” continues the expert.
In the statement shared by Zuckerberg as a result of Sandberg’s departure, the chief executive states that Oliván’s role, with a seniority in the company close to 15 years, will be “more traditional as director of operations.” The Spaniard, who to date operated as Meta’s Vice President of Expansion and Infrastructure, will have to battle to try to ensure that the advertising business, which has slowed down in recent quarters, continues to offer the necessary performance.
“The challenge he faces is clear: the drop in the company’s advertising revenue. Meta is accusing him a lot. She must find new advertising possibilities within the company’s ecosystem. He has worked a lot on interoperability between the different services offered by Meta, so from a corporate point of view, the move makes a lot of sense”, says Checa.
It should be remembered that, during the first quarter of 2022, the company’s advertising profits exceeded 32,639 million dollars at the end of 2021 at 26,998 million. The worst Meta data for precisely a year. According to the company, an important part of the blame for these results lies with the new privacy tools established by Apple on its devices, which prevent ads from being as targeted based on the profile of the Internet user as in the past. The social networks of the technology company have also found in TikTok, possibly the favorite platform of the young user, a tough rival in the fight to keep the Internet user’s attention.
monetize the well
If the benefits are no longer what they were, the challenges facing Meta are not the same as they were a few years ago. The company is currently allocating a very important part of its profits to the creation of this new virtual world known as a metaverse that, at least in the medium term, it will remain a bottomless pit of losses. At least, that’s what Zuckerberg hopes. Just as he hopes that, when the time comes, perhaps at the end of the decade, the invention will become the company’s great source of business; capable of moving tens of billions of euros per month.
While that’s happening, the pit continues to gobble up a significant chunk of Meta’s ad revenue. In 2021 alone, overall losses were $10 billion. In the first quarter of 2022, they were at the gates of 3,000 million. Oliván, as director of operations, will be one of the main people in charge of bridging the gap. Something that, for the moment, it is not very clear how it is going to achieve, as explained to this newspaper by Edgar Martín-Blas, executive director of Virtual Voyagersthe company behind the creation of the platform for concerts and performances by Horizonmain prop of the metaverse of Meta.
“Land sales in the metaverse are evolved, as are item collecting and auctions. That moves hundreds of millions today. What is needed is to increase the payment for content, for games and others, and work on the issue of advertising, which is very complicated, “says Martín-Blas. “Meta did an experiment a year ago where they commissioned developers to embed classic advertising into metaverse games. It was such a horror that the project had to be stopped. Placing Coca Cola-type advertising during such an experience just didn’t work,” he adds.
The director of Virtual Voyagers points out that, for the time being, It’s not entirely clear how Meta will end up monetizing its virtual world.l. However, he points out that, in the short term, the gold will probably go through content sponsorships: «The brands will be the ones that pay for the content, with concerts and other sponsored experiences. The path is for any company to be able to create content in the metaverse in a simple way.”
Beyond this, it will be important that, finally, the Meta metaverse, Horizon, begins to be globally available. Something that, for the moment, has not happened. “Horizon is still in beta, they are still polishing the platform. The launch, in any case, must be imminent”, explains Martín-Blas. With the opening of its virtual world, the possible number of users will increase, and with this, surely, the interest of brands to invest in Zuckerberg’s plan.
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