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Six reasons Meta is in trouble — www.nytimes.com

The news last week that Meta was having a bit of a bumpy time didn't come as a complete shock. This piece in the New York Times has a go at explaining why - from Apple, Google and TikTok to metaverse investment, looming regulation and anti-trust rulings. But basically growth can't continue for ever.

What did surprise me was some of the 'Facebook is doomed' narrative that quickly appeared after the news broke that user numbers were down for the first time. Jeff Jarvis took to Twitter to express his belief that within a couple of years we'll all be laughing at the idea Facebook was ever a threat to democracy and that it couldn't go the same way as MySpace and Alta Vista.

Meta isn't MySpace and this isn't 2010. Meta still has 1.9 billion users and rapid growth across multiple platforms outside the Western bubble. As much as we'd all love to see the wings of this particular network clipped, dreaming that it's done is exactly that... a dream.

News Corp cyber-attack: firm says it believes hack linked to China — www.theguardian.com

New Corp has had a rough week too. A hack of emails at the Murdoch company has raised fears for the safety of journalists’ confidential sources. This is obviously serious, especially with the perpetrators allegedly linked to China. But it did raise a rueful smile to think of the owners of the scandal-ridden News of The World complaining about being hacked.

For the first time, Amazon reveals $31.2 billion revenue from advertising — www.thedrum.com

In much better news, for Amazon at least, advertising revenues have risen to more than $30 billion. The company included advertising numbers in its latest earnings results, the first time ad revenues have been broken down. Maybe surprisingly ads, although accounting for just 7% of revenue in 2021, brought in more money than subscription services. Keep an eye out for expansion in this area of Amazon's business.

Of course young people can afford a home, says daughter of Baroness — www.thetimes.co.uk

Normally when we include links we want you to read the stories we share. Please don't read this one, it's ridiculous and yet another example of how out of touch much of the British media is. Listen instead to our interview this week with Sophia Waterfield who rather than this tiresome aristocratic bollox wants to see proper working class representation in the media.

This week's podcast:

Editor and Founder of Paranting Magazine Sophia Waterfield on creating a new type of lifestyle magazine — voices.media

In this episode we hear from Sophia Waterfield, editor and founder of Paranting Magazine. It’s a magazine for parents, but for parents that don’t have time for some of the aspirational BS that a lot of lifestyle magazines cover. We spoke about the name, funding a start-up with the aim of actually paying freelancers – oh, and accents.

Sean and Sally bought the Media Voices team a virtual coffee last week. — ko-fi.com

Big thanks to all our supporters, but especially Sean and Sally who chipped in last week. You can be a supporter too. Just head over to our KO-FI page and make a one-off contribution or sign up to support us every month. Every contribution help us to keep doing what we do and plan for more in the future. Thanks again Sean and Sally ❤️