Sponsored by Rockwater

Team Zuck/Sheryl were back together! And back-pedalling!

In the last four days of testimony in the Meta divestment proceedings, there have been some wild claims that could have come straight from the sequel to ‘Careless People’.

Let’s get into what happened and the possible outcomes.

Also in this edition:

• Level-setting Digital Rights Management

• TikTok Gets into the Creator Notes Game

• Patreon Launches Live Video

• Job ops from Substack, TikTok, and Passes.

• …and a dank creator economy meme by yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Meta Betta Divest

Another year, another round of Meta brass getting hauled to Washington D.C. to fight for their business.

This time, they’re battling an FTC claim that Meta’s effectively a social media monopoly. And with good reason: 3 billion monthly active users is more than 50% of global internet users.

But it feels like Zuck has been fighting since the election: turning back the clock on their DEI initiatives, talking ‘masculine energy’ with Rogan, sponsoring Trump’s inauguration, and even sponsoring this weekend’s White House Easter Egg Roll.

He’s bent over backwards and forwards to win Trump’s favor.

So what’s happened in the trial, and has their kowtowing to power worked?

To answer the second part first: not even a little bit.

But the collective mistakes of other Trump enemies should have taught that lesson.

Every television network, university, and politician that broke their long held convictions to win Trump’s favor has been met with more complaints, lawsuits, and insults.

In other words, once you’re on Trump’s naughty list, you can’t get off of it through a few compliments and payouts. It’s 100% longterm subjugation or it’s just wasted brand equity.

Okay, now to the trial. Some of my favorite moments.

• Meta’s first argument out of the gate: TikTok is similarly valued. This also happens to be their strongest point. “Fine, break up Facebook, but that just gives a Chinese company even more leverage to own this industry.” I don’t think any U.S. politician is excited about that.

• On day 2, Zuck admitted that one major reason for buying Instagram was to take a competitor off of the market. This is the most damning point, as it’s the very definition of anti-competitive behavior. He also, in a roundabout way, said he bought WhatsApp for the same reason.

• Zuck, allowing his ego to get in the way again, talked about the $6 billion attempted acquisition of Snap and said they would be in a better position if they took the deal. Yikes. Not only is that a hard one to believe, especially as Snap is so directly competitive with both WhatsApp and Instagram, but we all know how this story ends: when the acquisition fell through, Zuck’s platforms just copied their Stories feature button-for-button.

• On Day 3, the eye rolls started getting extreme. Zuck started spending a lot of time talking about the pressure of competition from YouTube. I find this very hard to believe, as the viewer intention, demographics, creation, and consumption are wildly different, except, of course, in situations where Meta properties copied YouTube’s formats (hint: that happened a lot.) It’s like inventing a sport called ‘racquet court’ then claiming ‘tennis’ is a huge competitor.

• Sheryl took the stand and that…didn’t help. She started by saying the launch of Google+ in 2011 was worrisome as it was almost an “exact replica of Facebook.” This, for anyone that has a memory, simply isn’t true. Facebook was far more of a ripoff of MySpace than Google+ was of Facebook. I would argue it was more of an extension of Gmail with some basic social group features.

• On Thursday, the final day of week one testimony, Jim Goetz of Sequoia Capital claimed WhatsApp saw Facebook as a competitor, further cementing that the acquisition was anti-competitive.

We’ll hear a lot more this week, but where does this leave us?

Quite simply: there’s a good chance Meta will have to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp.

And I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world. Even for Meta.

The Facebook brand is actively bad for the other two platforms, as Facebook is completely toxic to most kids. Without that stigma and more autonomy to be more customer-focused, something Meta has struggled with for decades, they may be able to stop following/copying successful competitors and start innovating again.

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GROW 1%:

Phil Ranta’s weekly social media growth newsletter with one actionable tip to grow.

This week’s ‘Grow 1%’ is titled The Anatomy of a Profile and discusses how a viewer learns about a brand from a profile page.

Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the entire edition in the link above:

The human body is a delicate ecosystem.

The lungs bring oxygen into the blood, the heart pumps blood to the brain, and the brain keeps you alive by making the body function and navigating the physical world.

There are also parts of the body that are not essential. If you lose a leg, you may not be able to escape a bear in the wild, but in our modern world, you can still function and thrive.

I see social media profiles the same way: as an anatomy where all parts function together.

Let's look at Zach Justice's Instagram:

This is something you've seen a million times, but there's a lot of anatomy here that tells a story.

📸 Avatar: Young, cool, aloof...this is your 'face' and should visually tell the story of your content.

🛟 Stories 'ring': The rainbow ring around the avatar means there's been a posted story within the last 24 hours! Think of this as the 'energy' part of the anatomy. This shows the profile is kinetic and recent.

📇 URL / Name: 'zachjustice' instead of 'crazzzyzach123'. It screams that his personal brand IS his brand. This is the sense of identity. It's simple, professional, and shows that he means business.

Continue reading here.

FAME & FORTUNE:

There are so many great digital rights management companies, meaning companies that take-down or monetize instances of copyrighted content re-uploaded on other platforms. I love SuperBAM for YouTube and Ceartas for platforms like Telegram and Reddit. But did you know Facebook had built-in digital rights management you can self administer? It’s very easy, and you can learn more here.

TikTok is following X and Facebook by launching Footnotes, a feature where the community can fact-check itself. Anyone who has followed Community Notes on X knows that it’s, let’s say, prone to massive errors, but it’s a wonderful way to pass the buck on moderation!

Patreon, who has recently come under immense competition from other fan-subscription platforms like Passes, Fanfix, and even OnlyFans, has gotten the memo and launched native live streaming, a popular feature on other competitive platforms. Many Patreon stars already did community live streaming on platforms like Discord, but providing a native experience feels like a natural fit.

Neptune, a social app currently in beta with 400,000 users on the waiting list, is planning to launch in the App Store this week. The platform is akin to TikTok, but with more algorithm controls so creators aren’t constantly regretting dwelling on that America’s Got Talent dance routine a little too long.

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Substack needs a Head of Creator Partnerships who will likely spend a lot of time teaching

TikTok is looking for a Creator Management Lead, TV/Film because DiCaprio needs someone to teach him the ‘Paging Doctor Beat’ dance.

Passes wants a Creator Acquisition Specialist. The easiest way: a Erewhon smoothie and a fishing net.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.