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Blog: Meta

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy, audio and social.

Threads versus X: Algorithmic USP and the benefits of a cross-platform offering

Hanna Kahlert

22 Sep 2026

Business Strategy Social media Creators

In a September interview with Sources , Mark Zuckerberg dropped the finding that Threads is as big – or at least closing in on – X, the platform it was designed to compete with. The platforms’ respective monthly active user reported numbers are 550 million for X, as of May 2026, and 500 millio...

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How Meta’s biggest legal battle yet could redefine social media

Hanna Kahlert

26 Aug 2026

Business Strategy Social media Social

Meta may soon be forced to change its platforms, which will hold consequences for social media’s future. As of August 2026, a coalition of 29 US states is going to court with Meta in California, alleging a breach of several consumer protection statutes.

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Meta launches paid subscriptions: is the era of free social media at an end?

Hanna Kahlert

2 Jun 2026

Business Strategy Facebook Instagram

After months of testing, Meta has announced three new paid subscriptions: Instagram Plus, Facebook Plus, and WhatsApp Plus. Features will vary according to platform. Instagram Plus focuses on public signalling, analytics, and engagement: creating new follower lists, seeing who has re-watched stories...

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20:25 vision: Meta Connect looks to the post-smartphone future

Hanna Kahlert

23 Sep 2025

Product Strategy Social Meta

Meta Connect 2025 (September 17-18) went all out on glasses and AI, outlining an idealistic future –although brought down to earth throughout by bugs and “WIFI troubles” (per TechCrunch ). To align with the public announcements of upgrades, pricing, and new features, Meta has also been pushing...

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Who wins the social spiral? Consumers’ relationship with social platforms is changing

Hanna Kahlert

28 Aug 2024

Social media telegram X

There is no shortage of takes on the role of social platforms in our daily lives, from former influencers lamenting the end of Twitter’s golden era to researchers studying social media’s impact on teens’ mental health .

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Regulatory decisions around AI will shape the future of digital ecosystems

Hanna Kahlert

27 Sep 2023

AI regulation Social

Looking back, the Francis Haugen testimony spelled a turning point for social platforms. It represents a moment where they, and tech more generally, went from being able to ‘build fast and break things’ with no one really paying attention, to an environment where not only users were watching clo...

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The X rebrand is Twitter’s Meta moment… but there’s already a Meta

Hanna Kahlert

26 Jul 2023

Twitter Threads libra

Meta’s launch of Threads has been the biggest challenger to Twitter’s social standing to date, with record-breaking uptake in its first weekend. However, Twitter still had an edge: an online culture that would be hard to regrow or replicate; existing creators and content ‘style’, and a brand...

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The future is interoperability: Why Threads could beat Twitter through the Fediverse

Hanna Kahlert

12 Jul 2023

Strategy Meta instgram

While Elon Musk has been posturing public beef with Mark Zuckerberg (challenging him to a cage match, practicing with former MMA champions, public callouts on Twitter, requesting very personal measurements), Zuckerberg has responded in a more traditional way (aside from his own training pictures) wi...

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Less is more, but it’s already all ‘too much’: The rise of digital disengagement

Hanna Kahlert

5 Jul 2023

Social Twitter TikTok

A new Europol report has predicted that as much as 90% of all content on the internet could be ‘synthetically generated’ (made or modified by AI) by 2026. That is a two-and-a-half-year window and closing, with the end result being only a small minority of online content having been conceived of,...

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Social platforms are going niche: the end of copycat features

Hanna Kahlert

28 Jun 2023

Social Reddit Facebook

It has long been a recurring strategy for social platforms to borrow one another’s successful features – to the benefit of the incumbents, and the difficulty of new players trying to break through.

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Meta’s VR push should focus on the reality of the average consumer

Ben Woods

25 Apr 2023

Meta Apple virtual reality

The tipping point for virtual reality headsets remains elusive. Last year’s market hype around the metaverse suggested widespread adoption was within reach, only for Sony to reportedly dial down its production plans for the PlayStation VR2.

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Why TikTok and the future of social is now on trial

Hanna Kahlert

5 Apr 2023

TikTok Social Twitter

The last two weeks have seen social platforms, especially TikTok, abuzz with clips of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s hearing before the US congress, answering lawmakers’ questions about the social media app’s data protections for users and its relationship with China.

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The Meta push for efficiency

Ashleigh Millar

16 Mar 2023

Meta Instagram Facebook

This week (14th March), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a memo for his employees entitled “ Update on Meta's Year of Efficiency ”, forewarning its upcoming strategy changes, organisational restructuring, and job cuts (10,000 of them).

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Are subscriptions the future of social apps?

Hanna Kahlert

22 Feb 2023

Social Subscriptions Twitter

When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he was publicly faced with a seemingly impossible ask: make the iconic, culture-defining, long-standing social app (consistently) profitable. At the time of acquisition, Twitter did not have the same thriving ad business as Meta, and so Musk was forced to look at al...

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Blue ticks and adverts and meta (AI)!

Ashleigh Millar

14 Feb 2023

AI Media and Marketing Marketing Strategy

Another Super Bowl Sunday (and half-time show) has left us as quickly as it arrived. [SPOILER] Chiefs won 38 to 35, Rihanna’s “surprise guest” was in fact her baby bump, and Fox Sports reported that ad spots during the game cost circa $7 million per 30 seconds.

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The future lies beyond tech – a long(er) read

Hanna Kahlert

14 Dec 2022

metaverse NFTs VR

As entertainment companies start planning their next big steps for the coming year, the success and failure of their strategic decisions will hinge on one big, and perhaps surprising, existential question : is this it for the tech industry? Planning for 2023 seems to mean planning for disruption, an...

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Tumult at Twitter shines a light on a deflating tech bubble

Hanna Kahlert

17 Nov 2022

tech Meta Twitter

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has had a rocky start. A lack of a clear corporate and product strategy has alienated advertisers and users alike. Twitter’s brush with profitability is now being replaced by serious concerns over the platform’s long-term future direction.

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Is Microsoft the flywheel for Meta’s VR efforts?

Karol Severin

13 Oct 2022

Xbox Meta VR

Xbox and Meta announced a partnership bringing the Xbox Game Pass and cloud gaming experiences to Meta Quest 2 VR headsets. Meta Quest 2 users will be able to enjoy Xbox’s cloud gaming experience without the need to own an Xbox console.

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User-centric versus feature-centric: the future of social platforms

Hanna Kahlert

12 Oct 2022

Meta Snapchat attention inflation

TikTok shook the social world two years ago by introducing its classic user-generated content (UGC) video feed and a suite of creator tools, thereby becoming a runaway success. Since then, innovation has slowed.

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Andrew Tate, the manosphere and social media platform responsibility

Ashleigh Millar

30 Aug 2022

andrew tate hunter moore manosphere

Millennials among us may remember Hunter Moore, a man that Rolling Stone aptly named “the most hated man on the internet” , and who is now the subject of Netflix’s recent documentary series of the same title.

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