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California-based Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has appealed against an order by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to sell animated images platform Giphy, which it acquired for $400 million in May 2020, Reuters said in a report.

The company said there is not enough evidence to support the finding that the deal could prove anti-competitive for the display advertising industry.

A Meta spokesperson said, “We are appealing the CMA's Giphy decision and will seek a stay of the CMA's order to divest...The decision to block the deal is wrong on the law and the facts, and the evidence does not support the CMA's conclusions or remedy.”

The regulator announced the Giphy-sale order last month after it rejected the remedies offered by the Facebook owner. The CMA said the remedies would require continuous monitoring.

Giphy offers a library of looping videos, most of which come from its social media platforms WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Its GIFs are also used by people using Snapchat (SNAP), Twitter (TWTR), and TikTok. As a result, the CMA thinks Meta could force its rival platforms to provide more user data or limit their access.

In response, Meta said it would not limit its competitors’ access or gather more data from the users of Giphy’s GIFs as they do not feature any online tracking mechanisms like cookies or pixels.

Further, Meta’s decision to close Giphy’s advertising business, which was a potential source of competition, is also concerning for the competition regulator.

The company’s shares closed up 1.5% on Thursday at $335.24.

Analyst Ratings

Overall, the stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 29 Buys and 6 Holds. The average FB price target of $406.31 implies 21.2% upside potential. Shares have gained 25.4% over the past year.

Website Traffic

TipRanks’ Website Traffic Tool, which uses data from SEMrush Holdings (SEMR), the world’s biggest website usage monitoring service, offers insight into Meta’s performance.

According to the tool, compared to the previous year, Meta’s website traffic registered an 8.8% decrease in global visits in November. Moreover, website traffic has declined 4.2% year-to-date versus the same period last year.

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Waymo, the Alphabet Inc-owned self-driving auto-technology company, and ByteDance's social video app TikTok on Thursday joined the companies no longer attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in person early next month due to rising COVID-19 infections.

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Facebook-owner Meta is appealing Britain's ruling that it must sell animated images platform Giphy, saying the evidence does not support the finding that the deal is a threat to its rivals or could impact competition in display advertising.

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Back in June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his ambitious new idea of expanding into the world of blockchain technology. Months later, he announced that Facebook would rebrand to Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: FB), or Meta for short, to reach beyond social media’s horizons.

To this end, Meta plans to build a range of maximalist and interconnected virtual experiences tying together the various platforms it already owns.

While the announcement sent ripples throughout the blockchain and real-world ecosystems, there hasn’t been much visible progress in this promised virtual land except for the Meta logo update.

In the meantime, the migration of users towards virtual worlds is accelerating outside of Meta’s domain as funds pour into the space at a frenetic pace to support the new tools and platforms making this digital experience possible. 

Building Social Commerce Backbone of Metaverse

Social commerce, representing the idea of in-platform or in-app purchases, is arriving in the metaverse courtesy of SPACE, a platform designed to connect multiple metaverses.

Following a recent $7-million funding round from investors including Dapper Labs, Coinfund, Animoca Brands, Digital Currency Group, and HoF Capital, Space aims to bring together different virtual worlds spread across individual blockchain networks through its unified trading hub.

To create an accessible yet immersive metaverse experience for brands and users, SPACE seeks to unify knowledge, pool resources, and equitably distribute rewards. The platform has already rolled out its Early Access Alpha version to over 10,000 users. Users can join virtual spaces to chat, interact, explore, and trade with other users in the same room using the Alpha version. 

The initial “spaces” comprise what is immediately available in the current metaverse, including art, fashion, and music. SPACE will eventually evolve in tandem with the Metaverse, facilitating and implementing new methods of virtual commerce.

Furthering Cross-Chain Metaverse Development

The Metaverse is all about interoperability, or more simply put, a high degree of interconnectivity between different platforms and networks. Moralis, a back-end blockchain development platform, will soon release its Software Development Kit (SDK) to expand upon this idea. The new SDK angles to speed up development work ten-fold, and several projects have successfully leveraged the beta version.

Effectively, the SDK simplifies the development process of highly scalable and cost-efficient metaverse applications and Web3 games. For instance, Moralis SDK can be plugged into Unity, a leading game development studio, helping developers quickly incorporate Web3 features within their metaverse applications. Already, the Moralis infrastructure supports more than 65,000 teams with their Web3-based backend development projects. 

A Budding Petaverse within the Metaverse

Adding yet another layer to the metaverse’s virtual experience is DOGAMÍ, a play-to-earn NFT game that intends to merge pet ownership with gaming.

Coming off a recent $6-million funding round from Ubisoft, Animoca Brands, and The Sandbox co-founders, DOGAMÍ is one of the top-grossing play-to-earn games within the Tezos ecosystem.

DOGAMÍ has created the first petaverse -- a virtual world specifically designed for pets -- effectively integrating triple-A NFT gaming with investing and pet ownership. 

Powered by the Tezos blockchain, DOGAMÍ users can adopt and raise their own 3D dog companions and earn $DOGA tokens to buy consumables, build wardrobes, purchase tickets to events, acquire badges, and breed DOGAMÍ. Furthermore, within the petaverse, players can also interact with each other and their pets through augmented reality (AR)-enabled mobile apps.

Filling In Virtual Space

While audiences await something more concrete from Meta’s promised metaverse, non-Meta projects are already demonstrating they can fill the void, as the availability of funding and development tools grows concurrently.

With mainstream brands like Epic Games and Adidas also showing interest in these developments, the metaverse is positioning itself as the future of immersive experiences, even without Meta’s potentially outsized impact. 

Disclosure: At the time of publication, Reuben Jackson did not have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article represents the views and opinion of the writer only, and not the views or opinion of TipRanks or its affiliates  Read full disclaimer >

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