I know what you must be thinking. How can Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg save my child’s life? Sure, he’s the Facebook owner and has a lot more influence than he even realizes. Could he really save a child’s life or other nation’s youth however? It seems that he is trying.
While it is not massively impressive, Zuckerberg is basically just helping to pioneer an application that is for a pilot project of delivering educational materials in Rwanda. While it may not be much, Mark feels that he is helping and does feel that this can be a Global cause. Mark also suggests that he is a major influence in getting Global Internet Access which critics claim to be bunk.
Basically the story goes like this, Facebook along with a few partners decided to launch a website called Internet.org last year. The website’s goal was to make Internet available to at least two thirds of the world that is not yet connected to the Internet. To their credit, Facebook has done a lot of hard work in trying to get it all going.
Here’s the bad part, they really haven’t reached the goal they set out on. Facebook use alone in some countries automatically triggers higher costs for local Internet providers by forcing them to go after data through higher priced undersea cables.
Most thought that Zuckerberg would be announcing something that would be additional to this issue at the Mobile World Congress. He had nothing of note regarding it however, which left many to wonder how he called himself a pioneer in the field. Really, Zuckerberg spoke about focusing on his plan to get Facebook onto more mobile devices.
The strategy would be to simply few mobile influence carriers to offer free Facebook access . This is smart, as it would be a way to get new customers in for carriers while also helping Facebook too. However, it could also be seen as a way to trick newcomers who already have cell service into clicking on certain links and getting charged for data. In turn, it again helps the cell company as well as Facebook.
This is called “free access with upsells” according to Zuckerberg. It’s basically trick work with pretty much horrid business tactics involved. Yet it is smart, so while it makes sense business wise it’s certainly saving no one. Don’t think that companies outside the United States are not biting, as Globe in the Philippines and Tigo in Paraguay currently employ the plan.
Data sales went up big time with the two, as the users accessed Facebook unknowing of the data issues that could come from it. So knowing all of this and telling some stories, as spun as they could be, Zuckerberg basically is at the Mobile World Congress to sell this idea to others. He was denied by some beforehand. So now he was looking for three to five carriers to join in on this who will potentially help things spread.
Obviously Facebook is a billion dollar product and literally over a billion people use the social media platform. Sadly Zuckerberg does not want to stop here. He knows the fact that Facebook has a high mobile base, and getting more people in due to that is a big deal, no matter where they are from. Plus when he makes advertisers happy, it only makes Facebook and him more money.
The company made a 19 billion dollar purchase recently, which might be pocket change for them. The product, WhatsApp is not hitting as Facebook intended it to do. Obviously the CEO Mark Zuckerberg is being blamed for the issue . To make money back from this if it were to fail, Facebook would need to make more money from it all.
Mobile carriers from across the world would of course help the cause. Where he seemed to lose people according to sources at the event, was when he told people about how all of this could relate to banking, agricultural information, education, and health care.
Obviously this was to link it all back to the charitable side to this whole thing. You know, because tricky business strategy hidden behind a good cause is obviously not possible. I mean, how many businesses have done this, especially reputable one’s that plenty of people know, right? Oh yeah.
At the end of the day, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are not saving a soul. If anything, he’s hurting by trying to trick people into paying more money than they can afford. So you tell me, does that sound like a good soul or will he need a punch to the face for such an action? Really, some might pick the latter.