欧洲数字平台技术与创新（英）

Innovation boosts business productivity, which is essential for delivering long-term economic growth. To explore how digital tools and technologies shape change by enabling innovation, we conducted a survey of software developers that investigated Meta’s role in app creation, both on Meta’s own platforms and across other platforms in the wider ecosystem. For our survey, we performed 10 in-depth interviews and surveyed 217 software developers across eight EU countries in May and June 2022. We included developers with experience developing on Meta platforms and those without but who had experience with Meta maintained open-source tools. Further, combining a review of the academic literature with bespoke case studies and the survey evidence, we discuss how Meta impacts business innovation and customer communication.

Our research demonstrates that Meta drives significant innovation through the following channels: helping external programmers develop complementary applications to Meta platforms;
supporting open innovation; and providing technologies that enable companies to deliver their own business innovations.

Complementary innovation: new apps linked to Meta’s platforms

By making development tools available, Meta helps external programmers develop new applications that are complementary to its platforms. Using a bespoke software developer survey, we found that 83% of third-party developers agreed Meta’s impact on their efforts to code was quite or very positive. Meta tools reduce the cost of developing new applications, leading 81% of developers to agree that Meta lowered the risks associated with software innovation. Furthermore, 98% of users of Meta Audience Network said that it had had a significant impact on their ability to generate income, thus facilitating their progression to becoming self-employed entrepreneurs.

Open innovation: enabling cross-platform software innovation

Meta also supports open innovation—innovation not directly linked to Meta’s platforms—in various ways. Results from our software developer survey showed that 58% of those who participated in Developer Circle events—events hosted by Meta to bring developers together and encourage collaboration—rated their participation as having significant or very significant value. In addition, Meta provides open-source tools such as React and React Native to the developer community, which 80% of surveyed developers rated as important for their work. As a result, these tools were widely used: 83% of surveyed developers who created applications for non-Meta platforms reported using these open-source technologies.

Business innovation: Meta helps businesses to innovate

The case studies we conducted further highlighted how Meta tools and technologies drove business innovation. To help increase brand awareness and customer engagement in creative ways, arfected, a small business, uses Spark AR to create augmented reality filters for its clients to post on Instagram. To gather ideas for new products, Blabloom, a retailer of sustainable products for young children, uses Facebook to ask customers what products they think are missing, and adds the products to their range. Nestlé, a multinational food and beverage company, uses Workplace to reach out to its global workforce to collect ideas to more effectively address business challenges—for example, on how to reach its sustainability commitments. Babbel, a leading developer of language-learning software, analyses consumer responses to material posted on Facebook and Instagram, and uses the insight to tailor its products and its offers. And OneBonsai, a firm that provides virtual reality training solutions, has used software and hardware developed by Meta to significantly reduce the resources needed by its clients to train their staff.

This report illustrates how digital platforms, such as those operated by Meta, can play an important role in Europe’s digital transformation as they support innovation in a wider ecosystem. A more digitalised economy can offer immense benefits for European society by boostingproductivity and increasing the competitiveness of Europe’s economy, 1 resulting in higher economic growth in the long term and thus raising living standards in Europe. 2 It could thus be beneficial for public policy to ensure a supportive environment for digital platforms.