Facebook’s Catastrophic Blackout Could Cost $90 Million in Lost Revenue

[cybersofts]

Facebook suffered its worst-ever outage on Wednesday 13th March. The downtime, which also hit related products Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, lasted for at least 14 hours.

The blackout hit millions of users across the globe and caused Facebook stock to tumble 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Every minute that Facebook is offline costs an enormous amount of money. By extrapolating from the company’s 2018 revenue figures, we can estimate that yesterday’s blackout could cost Facebook up to $90 million in lost revenue.

    We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

    — Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019


Facebook Loses $6.3 Million for Every Hour of Downtime

In 2018, Facebook reported $55.8 billion in revenue. Broken down into days, hours, and minutes, it looks like this:

    Annual: $55.8 billion
    Daily: $152.9 million
    Hourly: $6.4 million
    Every minute: $106,700

With Facebook’s services down for up to 14 hours, we can estimate that the social media giant faces an $89.6 million loss in revenue from advertisers.

Of course, the figures are not 100% accurate. The blackout appears to be partial, and we don’t yet know how many users were fully affected. But even if it’s a half or quarter this figure, that’s an enormous loss.


Facebook Stock Plunges 2%

The potential loss of revenue is enough to worry traders. Facebook stock plunged 2 percent in after-hours trading as investors digested the impact of the outage.



Facebook stock is down over 2 percent in pre-market trading after an epic blackout. Source: Google Finance


Until Facebook reveals more about the downtime and implications on revenue, traders are anticipating the worst.

It comes after Facebook’s strong 31 percent stock run in 2019 alone.


Facebook’s “Worst Ever” Downtime

Facebook acknowledged its blackout at 5.49pm UTC with a tweet. Yes, the irony of Facebook taking to Twitter to update its users is not lost on us! Many users trying to access the service received the error message:

    “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible”

According to Downdetector, the error reports peaked overnight, with most issues resolved by morning.



Facebook downtime reports peaked at 2 am UTC. Source: Downdetector


Facebook confirmed the downtime was not a result of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, in which malicious actors flood the servers. The full reason for the disruption has not been released.

    We're focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.

    — Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019


Is Facebook Back Online Yet?

As of Thursday morning, Facebook appears to be back online for most users. However, there are still pockets of disruption in Europe, Japan, and the US according to Downdetector’s heat map.



Global map depicting the massive outage. Source: Downdetector


Instagram is back online, announcing the news with an Oprah Winfrey gif.

    Anddddd… we're back. pic.twitter.com/5E8UdlcsPJ

    — Instagram (@instagram) March 14, 2019


Should We Trust a Facebook Cryptocurrency?

As CCN has reported, Facebook is working on the launch of “FacebookCoin.” It’s a stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar, that would allow peer-to-peer payments within its Messenger app. One analyst at Barclays claims it could give the company a $19 billion revenue injection.

This blackout, however, proves that Facebook isn’t ready to offer a reliable cryptocurrency. Not being able to update your status is one thing. Not being able to access your money is another, much more serious problem.

Take this as a reminder that one central company should hold central power over your money.


Reference: https://www.ccn.com/facebooks-blackout-90-million-lost-revenue

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[Tamilson]

Wow. I wonder if we ever find out who was behind it?

More likely someone from their team. We all ain't sure what was behind it but it just indicate that anytime all our information will be out for sale. Who knows?

I found this and quite satisfy to its speculation.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/03/14/was-the-facebook-outage-a-cyber-attack/#100f8e745223

And about their own coin, I bet that will bring more doubt.

[kaya11]

Do you think the reasons are of this black out are related to it's plan to launch their own crypto currency? I think Mark would announce the reason or maybe they would just keep it secret for the better being their company? If one day they have launch their crypto coin and this happened on that time, not only 90 mil USD would be gone in an instant.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

And about their own coin, I bet that will bring more doubt.

Is that Facebook coin not P2P like regular cryptos are?  I read someone else's thread about it, but it wasn't clear to me how it was supposed to work.  If it's just an electronic form of cash that can go down whenever FB's servers do, then there's no real need for it IMO.

Crazy to see how much FB loses when their website crashes--that's not an insignificant amount of revenue we're talking about, and it'll probably be reflected in their quarterly earnings.  I'm not sure I'd ever be comfortable investing in a stock that could be affected by a website crashing.  That's one of the reasons why I've never bought social media stocks or those high-flying internet stocks of the late 90s.  There's too high a chance of the tech failing for a relatively mundane reason--and this article demonstrates that pretty clearly.

[MakeMoneyBtc]

We don't know yet why Facebook was down for so long, but since it wasn't online for a few hours I am sure they are working on something big since they wouldn't afford losing dozens of millions of dollars just for adding some new small features for its users. So whatever they are working on, be prepared to see something new in the next coming days or weeks.

[dothebeats]

Knowing how much money these social media sites are getting, I don't think they (Facebook Inc.) will be hurt with that loss. The amount of money they are getting from their ads and other services is simply incomprehensible, so revenue-wise, they can 'shoulder' the loss and carry on. $90-M loss is just an estimate loss from the side of Facebook, though I believe many businesses and services have lost their fair share of their own revenues, too, so it really is catastrophic for the social media giant to be in a 14-hr blackout wherein a lot of businesses rely their connects, audience, shares and sales on.

As for the Facebook coin, I'm not quite sure what will it really do nor whether it will be available outside the Facebook platform. If it's just another form of 'FB Credits' thingy then IMO there's really no need for it to be transformed into a cryptocurrency.

[Aveatrex]

And about their own coin, I bet that will bring more doubt.

Is that Facebook coin not P2P like regular cryptos are?  I read someone else's thread about it, but it wasn't clear to me how it was supposed to work.  If it's just an electronic form of cash that can go down whenever FB's servers do, then there's no real need for it IMO.

The Facebook coin they are working on is not just a regular cryptocurrency.It will be a stable coin pegged to fiat currencies just like USDT (this means that Facebook would be the issuer of the coin and therefore there is a clear level of centralization here).From my understanding,if Facebook's servers go down the coin would probably still be functional but useless as it can't be used to shop on Facebook if it's down.They are also planning on giving the possibility for users to send each other the coins.

[blockman]

Now I have an idea that the coin they will launch is a stable coin. I'm surprised that they have lost that much, man it's millions of dollars within 14 hours. They are the largest social networking site and it shows on how huge they are making with their ads.

As for the Facebook coin, I'm not quite sure what will it really do nor whether it will be available outside the Facebook platform. If it's just another form of 'FB Credits' thingy then IMO there's really no need for it to be transformed into a cryptocurrency.

I remember those fb credits but it seems not effective on their part. And with the popular of cryptocurrencies, they have to ride on it to remain updated on what's with the trend.

[Crypdon]

They can afford to lose a few million, this is pocket change to them. However, their reputation is in tatters in that it is not a 100% stable platform, even with all their billions

[Botnake]

Found the reason why I experience some down time during this time.

That's a hell of a money they loss in just a short time, they need to improve their system to avoid this from happening again, it's
not only the opportunity to earn has loss but slowly their reputation is affected, lately they have been facing big problems that affects their reputation.

[sheenshane]

Found the reason why I experience some down time during this time.

I also annoying at that time I thought my net has a problem.
Facebook became the mainstream app for social media field and definitely will lose a big amount of cash if they will have an outage. I have felt how much people were dependent on Facebook. The time Facebook was out, the people reacted like it was the end of the world. Facebook earns from the ads and an ad with a length of 10 seconds is an equivalent of 100usd. so what do you think?

[traderethereum]

Should We Trust a Facebook Cryptocurrency?

Reference: https://www.ccn.com/facebooks-blackout-90-million-lost-revenue

You can trust them if you want but related with that news, I think that they already get a big profit before and although right now, they say that they are losing million dollars, it doesn't mean that they are really losing
They still have huge money in their bank account
We need to wait until they release their coins in the market and meanwhile, we could follow on every update from Facebook so we could know what exactly the Facebook coin.
If they say that their coin will be one of the stable coins, then I don't think so because it means their coins can be like Tether, USDS, USDC or else.

[Lucius]

Personally I do not care if Facebook lost everything in one day, since it has a very bad impact on young people who just spend too much time in virtual world with virtual friends. Although some will say that this is normal, same as playing games or watching TV, research shows that all of this has developed together into one great addiction. Considering how Facebook manage users data, I was never like them too much. It is free service, but they make billions on users data.

If title say 90$ million lost, what you think about 130$ billion lost in 2 hours from last year?

[Kevin77]

If you think facebook makes all of that money thanks to being online every single minute of every single day than you are quite wrong.

First of all yeah the bulk of their money comes from ads and when you are offline you can't show ads which makes you lose money so they did lost a ton of money that is for sure but do not think that facebooks (as in company not just website) only income is ads, they do a lot of stuff with data and providing info for rich enough people asking which is a lot of money for them and it is involved in that 55 billion so they did probably lost a lot of money but not in the 90 million dollar range.

Additionally, this is facebook they can lose a bit of money while not caring about it, having a tech company down for 14 hours is of course horrible and they wouldn't want it but that 14 hours loss in 90 million is not the biggest trouble, its the "people will find other stuff to care instead of focusing on our products" fear that is the most important stuff.

[1Referee]

They can afford to lose a few million, this is pocket change to them. However, their reputation is in tatters in that it is not a 100% stable platform, even with all their billions

Reputation damage = financial damage in the long term. It makes their competitors stronger because if even a small number of people switch to other platforms, it's already a big win for the smaller competitors in that market segment. In other words, this might be a billion dollar mistake in the long run.

Facebook has gotten a whole lot of negative press in the last 12 or so months. I have noticed how people around me closed their account. I must admit though, Facebook strategically took over Instagram which is somewhat of the most popular social media platform nowadays. If people look to switch from Facebook to Instagram, they're still dealing with Facebook.

[eaLiTy]

Facebook suffered its worst-ever outage on Wednesday 13th March. The downtime, which also hit related products Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, lasted for at least 14 hours.

The blackout hit millions of users across the globe and caused Facebook stock to tumble 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Every minute that Facebook is offline costs an enormous amount of money. By extrapolating from the company’s 2018 revenue figures, we can estimate that yesterday’s blackout could cost Facebook up to $90 million in lost revenue.
 Facebook Loses $6.3 Million for Every Hour of Downtime
Until Facebook reveals more about the downtime and implications on revenue, traders are anticipating the worst.

There is nothing much to reveal here, they had a server misconfiguration and so is the reason some of the users were not able to access the platform, it is a serious down time without a doubt and that is costing them millions in daily revenue and the poor network engineers will have a hard time for their blunders.

As CCN has reported, Facebook is working on the launch of “FacebookCoin.” It’s a stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar, that would allow peer-to-peer payments within its Messenger app. One analyst at Barclays claims it could give the company a $19 billion revenue injection.

This blackout, however, proves that Facebook isn’t ready to offer a reliable cryptocurrency. Not being able to update your status is one thing. Not being able to access your money is another, much more serious problem.

Take this as a reminder that one central company should hold central power over your money.

If they are planning for a centralized currency then these sort outrages might happen with the network, it all depends upon convenience, if the people are willing to use the facebook currency, so be it and majority will look at the convenience and not the novelty of the content. In the market we already have some stable coins, facebook coin will be another challenge and at the end of the day it is good for the end user.

[hugeblack]

I think the reason for this is a new attempt to link their applications to each other. Mark Zachburg's problem is that he wants to control all the new Internet applications, driven by the money he earned from Facebook.

It does not matter how much money is lost as long as people still trust Facebook and use its applications.
I expect Facebook to solve this problem and come out strong but the issue of privacy has become worrisome.

[usorin]

Facebook suffered its worst-ever outage on Wednesday 13th March. The downtime, which also hit related products Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, lasted for at least 14 hours.

The blackout hit millions of users across the globe and caused Facebook stock to tumble 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Every minute that Facebook is offline costs an enormous amount of money. By extrapolating from the company’s 2018 revenue figures, we can estimate that yesterday’s blackout could cost Facebook up to $90 million in lost revenue.

    We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

    — Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019


Facebook Loses $6.3 Million for Every Hour of Downtime

In 2018, Facebook reported $55.8 billion in revenue. Broken down into days, hours, and minutes, it looks like this:

    Annual: $55.8 billion
    Daily: $152.9 million
    Hourly: $6.4 million
    Every minute: $106,700

With Facebook’s services down for up to 14 hours, we can estimate that the social media giant faces an $89.6 million loss in revenue from advertisers.

Of course, the figures are not 100% accurate. The blackout appears to be partial, and we don’t yet know how many users were fully affected. But even if it’s a half or quarter this figure, that’s an enormous loss.


Facebook Stock Plunges 2%

The potential loss of revenue is enough to worry traders. Facebook stock plunged 2 percent in after-hours trading as investors digested the impact of the outage.



Facebook stock is down over 2 percent in pre-market trading after an epic blackout. Source: Google Finance


Until Facebook reveals more about the downtime and implications on revenue, traders are anticipating the worst.

It comes after Facebook’s strong 31 percent stock run in 2019 alone.


Facebook’s “Worst Ever” Downtime

Facebook acknowledged its blackout at 5.49pm UTC with a tweet. Yes, the irony of Facebook taking to Twitter to update its users is not lost on us! Many users trying to access the service received the error message:

    “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible”

According to Downdetector, the error reports peaked overnight, with most issues resolved by morning.



Facebook downtime reports peaked at 2 am UTC. Source: Downdetector


Facebook confirmed the downtime was not a result of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, in which malicious actors flood the servers. The full reason for the disruption has not been released.

    We're focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.

    — Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019


Is Facebook Back Online Yet?

As of Thursday morning, Facebook appears to be back online for most users. However, there are still pockets of disruption in Europe, Japan, and the US according to Downdetector’s heat map.



Global map depicting the massive outage. Source: Downdetector


Instagram is back online, announcing the news with an Oprah Winfrey gif.

    Anddddd… we're back. pic.twitter.com/5E8UdlcsPJ

    — Instagram (@instagram) March 14, 2019


Should We Trust a Facebook Cryptocurrency?

As CCN has reported, Facebook is working on the launch of “FacebookCoin.” It’s a stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar, that would allow peer-to-peer payments within its Messenger app. One analyst at Barclays claims it could give the company a $19 billion revenue injection.

This blackout, however, proves that Facebook isn’t ready to offer a reliable cryptocurrency. Not being able to update your status is one thing. Not being able to access your money is another, much more serious problem.

Take this as a reminder that one central company should hold central power over your money.


Reference: https://www.ccn.com/facebooks-blackout-90-million-lost-revenue

The title of the topic sounds realistic considering the amount of commercials on facebook and all the other products.

[kryptqnick]

I use facebook, but I don't think it's okay that they gave away personal information of millions of users which possibly led to changes in the global politics. I also don't forgive facebook's ban on crypto advertising, and making a stable regulated 'crypto' to benefit from the technology and yet stay in control as much as possible - that's not a fair game. I wouldn't trust this coin, and I also can hardly imagine a case when I'd need it. I never use any non-free facebook things at all, and for sending money to people I use either online banking or Bitcoin.

[buwaytress]

I struggle to understand why this is relevant outside of an economic context. This brings zero angle to the cryptocurrency debate (FBcoin or whatever it's called). Most importantly, even if there's an angle, Bitcoin moves on, not because of, and not despite, corporate cryptocurrency.

10 years and counting, Bitcoin has never been down, offline, or crashed. FB has much to catch up with before it can even think to compete.

[leonair]

The downtime of Facebook could cost more lost in revenue if they didn't take action as soon as possible and I think they solve it within 14 hours, outages in any kind of in demand industries are inevitable and besides Facebook has a billion users so for me it's quite understandable not unless it will happen again soon.

Does anyone knows when was the last outage of Facebook happened?