Technologies

Meta shares plummet after disappointing earnings, user drop

Weaker-than-expected earnings overshadow the performance of Meta’s AR and VR business.

Facebook parent Meta’s stock fell more than 26% on Thursday after disappointing fourth-quarter earnings and a drop in daily users underscored how much the company relies on social media as it develops its metaverse ambitions.

Meta shares fell $85.24 to close at $237.76. The collapse in share price wiped out almost $240 billion from the social network’s value. The fall was the largest single-day drop in market value for a US company ever, according to Reuters.

The fall came after an earnings report Wednesday in which the company missed profit expectations and showed a quarterly drop for the first time in the number of daily active users on Facebook. Meta also said the augmented and virtual reality business at the heart of its metaverse plans is generating revenue but is unprofitable.

In the fourth quarter, Meta posted revenue of $33.7 billion, beating analyst expectations of $33.4 billion. However, it earned $3.67 per share, falling short of the $3.84 per share projected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Facebook also reported a decrease of roughly 1 million daily active users, suggesting the social network may be reaching the peak of its growth.

The performance shows how Meta, which rebranded last year as part of a push toward the metaverse, remains reliant on digital advertising on the Facebook social network and its photo service Instagram. Meta is staking its future on a new, immersive iteration of the internet known as the metaverse. The company’s rebranding fueled hype around the online spaces where people will be able to work and socialize as digital avatars.

The company’s metaverse project, however, is in early stages and investments in it are eating into the company’s profits. Reality Labs, the AR and VR unit housing the Oculus headset that will help anchor the push into the metaverse, generated $877 million in fourth-quarter revenue but lost $3.3 billion.

«While we expect Meta to ramp up testing ads and commerce within its metaverse offerings this year, those efforts will be highly experimental and not likely to drive much revenue in the near term,» said Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, which was formerly eMarketer.

Like other tech companies, Meta has warned that privacy changes imposed by Apple could make it harder for businesses to measure the effectiveness of their ads on Facebook and Instagram. The company also said it expected «headwinds» caused by inflation and supply chain disruptions that affect advertiser budgets.

Facebook and Instagram users are also spending more time on the platform’s short-form video product, Reels, which doesn’t generate as much revenue as the company’s News Feed or Stories where people can post content that vanishes in 24 hours. That’s partly because Reels doesn’t include as many ads compared to News Feed or Stories.

«I’m confident that leaning harder into these trends is the right short-term tradeoff to make in order to get long-term gains. We’ve made these types of transitions before with mobile feed and Stories,» Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with analysts Wednesday.

On top of that, Facebook is facing more competition from other apps such as short-form video app TikTok. Facebook’s daily active users in the fourth quarter fell from 1.93 billion to 1.92 billion, with the quarterly drop mainly coming from developing countries.

Though the metaverse concept has been around for years, Meta has been hiring engineers and purchasing VR apps to bolster the creation of its virtual worlds. At Christmas, the Oculus app required to set up the Quest headset topped Apple’s App Store, suggesting that people had purchased the headsets over the holidays as a gift. The social network is also working on augmented reality glasses and, with Ray-Ban, released its first pair of smart glasses to shoot photos and videos.

Meta’s efforts to build more digital realms has been bumpy. The company still faces criticism that it doesn’t do enough to combat misinformation, hate speech and other types of offensive content, problems that will only grow more complex in the metaverse. The US Federal Trade Commission and multiple states, led by New York, are reportedly investigating potential anticompetitive practices by Oculus. This week, Meta shuttered its Diem cryptocurrency project after regulatory pushback.

The challenges haven’t stopped Meta from pushing forward with its futuristic vision of what it thinks will be the successor to the mobile internet.

«If last year was about putting a stake in the ground for where we’re heading, this year is going to be about executing,» Zuckerberg said.

Technologies

Tinder Users Must Start Logging In With Their Faces, Starting Nationwide

The social app now has new US requirements including face identification to help quell longstanding problems with catfishing and more.

US Tinder users will find a new feature when they open up the dating app starting Wednesday: A mandatory Face Check on their phones will be required before they can log into their profiles.

The Face Check step will begin with a new request to record a video of your face, a more casual version of setting up Apple’s Face ID login. Tinder will then run checks comparing your face data to your current profile pics and automatically create a small face badge for your profile. We already know how it works, because Tinder has already launched the feature in Canada and California before the full US rollout.

The technology, powered by FaceTec, will keep biometric data of the user’s face in encrypted form but discard the scanning video for privacy. Tinder will be able to use the face data to detect duplicate accounts, in an effort to cut down on fake profiles and identity theft.

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Tinder’s facial recognition rollout is also made to prevent catfishing, or people pretending to be someone else on Tinder to scam or blackmail them. But that also points to a deeper problem on the rise in dating apps — a growing number of bots, many controlled by AI, are designed to glean personal information or fool users into scammy subscriptions, among other problems.

Tinder’s working against these bots on several fronts, including this Face Check push as well as ID Check, which requires a government-issued ID and other types of photo verification.

The dating app also recently released a feature in June to enable double-dating with your friends, which Tinder reports is especially popular with Gen Z users. If you’re worried about the latest hazards on Tinder, we have guide to safety practices.

A representative for Tinder did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, Oct. 23

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 23.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Like some weather, memories and I.P.A.s
Answer: HAZY

5A clue: Statement that’s self-evidently true
Answer: AXIOM

7A clue: Civic automaker
Answer: HONDA

8A clue: What fear leads to, as Yoda told a young Anakin
Answer: ANGER

9A clue: Foxlike
Answer: SLY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Verbal «lol»
Answer: HAHA

2D clue: Brain signal transmitter
Answer: AXON

3D clue: Hits with a witty comeback
Answer: ZINGS

4D clue: Sing at the top of a mountain, maybe
Answer: YODEL

6D clue: Name of the famous «Queen of Scots»
Answer: MARY

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 23 #599

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 23, No. 599.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be Halloween-themed, as the answers are all rather dangerous. Some of them are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Please don’t eat me!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Remember Mr. Yuk?

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

POND, NOON, NODE, BALE, SOCK, LOVE, LOCK, MOCK, LEER, REEL, GLOVE, DAIS, LEAN, LEAD, REEL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: