Facebook held its annual stockholder meeting yesterday, providing an overview of the current state of the social media giant and addressing questions about future projects. One of the key motions of the main agenda points was the decision keep controversial investor Peter Thiel as a member of Facebook's board of directors. Thiel has been in the news of late for bankrolling the legal campaign of former wrestler Hulk Hogan, who was recently awarded more than $115 million in damages from online publication Gawker as part of a sex tape scandal. It was widely expected that Facebook may seek to cut ties with Thiel because of the case, but investors voted to keep him as part of Facebook's advisory team (Facebook's entire board was re-elected).

In addition to the main meeting points, Facebook's management team also held a Q and A session with investors in which they addressed several areas of the business - most of the information presented wasn't necessarily new, but Zuckerberg and Co did provide a few interesting insights into how they work and where The Social Network and their various platforms, like Instagram and WhatsApp, are headed in future.

Long Term Vision

Zuckerberg re-asserted Facebook's mission to "give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected", saying that they're looking to build products that provide every person in the world with a voice and "the ability to share everything they care about with the people they care about". Zuckerberg went on to underline Facebook's current user numbers - 1.65 billion people using Facebook every month, including more than a billion using the platform on mobile devices every single day, and more than $5 billion revenue in the last quarter.

Zuckerberg said that they think of their growth strategy in three different time horizons - three years, five years and ten years. Zuckerberg noted that they have some projects that go on beyond that ten year frame, but that the majority of their investments, at present, are within those three scales.

Their immediate focus, Zuckerberg said, is on improving and expanding the experience for people using the Facebook app, noting that while their current audience is big, it could be bigger:

"...there's 7 billion people in the world, and, from our perspective, you may look at it and say that 1.65 billion people are on [Facebook], that's a lot, [but] I look at that and think we have 5 billion people left to connect".

Zuckerberg said that over a five year period, Facebook's planning to make some of their newer initiatives a bigger part of their overall business, specifically noting the development of Messenger, Whatsapp, video, Instagram and, interestingly, search.

Search has long been a difficult area for Facebook - the most notable project in this area was 'Graph Search' which never quite provided the functionality they wanted. Zuckerberg has noted several times that they're looking to expand their search capabilities on the platform and make it a more significant part of their overall service, though thus far, the only major update was the change to search released last October, which made it easier to find relevant content and posts from your connections.

If Facebook's able to refine and improve search, that could be a major concern for Google - and, of course, refining search makes sense, if Facebook can provide you with more tools on this front, they can keep you on platform for longer. And really, Graph Search was an interesting and valuable concept - Facebook has the capacity to do something big on this front, and given Zuckerberg's mention of it as a major focus, we'll likely see updates coming soon.

As part of their ten year plan, Zuckerberg re-iterated the focus of internet.org - connecting the rest of the world who are not currently able to access the internet:

"Today, less than half the people in the world are connected to the internet. We think that if this is something that we invest in as a company, it'll not only be very good for the world and for all these folks who will get access to all the opportunities of the internet, but over the long term it'll be valuable for our business as well because we'll also be able to address and build a larger community."

Zuckerberg also highlighted their longer term investments in AI to help them develop their messaging apps and show more relevant content in News Feed, while they're also investing in building the next generation of computing platforms.

"We want to make sure that the next big computing platform that comes along is fundamentally social and has people built in as the base of that because that that's how we're going to serve out community best over the long term."

Trending Topics Controversy

The management team was questioned about the recent Trending News controversy, in which it was suggested that Facebook had been selectively editing their Trending News section to highlight or ignore certain stories. Facebook's Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan noted that:

"Facebook is a platform for all ideas, that's the vision that Mark has had for the company from the very beginning, and so when concerns were raised as to whether this particular feature in Facebook was living up to that value and ideal, we wanted to get to the bottom of it immediately."

Kaplan said that they immediately undertook an investigation as a result of the accusations laid against them, and they determined that there was "no systemic bias" in the product. Kaplan also noted that they met with conservative groups to ensure they were effectively addressing all concerns as thoroughly, and transparently, as possible.

On a related note, the management team also addressed a question about the way news is shown to users on the platform and the "echo chamber" effect, as it's become known, where people just end up having their own views reinforced because the News Feed algorithm shows you more of what you like, and likely agree with.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg noted that Facebook actually broadens the kinds of views users hear by enabling them to connect with more people beyond their immediate friendship groups and family, thus providing users with exposure to more diverse viewpoints.

Sandberg also noted that more people are staying in touch internationally:

"More people are connected to someone outside their borders today than were a year ago, than were a year before that, and that's another proof point that as we're able to create more human connections, we're able to connect with more people with more diverse voices."

A recent Facebook Research chart which shows estimated average degrees of separation between all people on the network

Zuckerberg's Future Plans

Zuckerberg also answered a question about his future as the man in charge at Facebook, in relation to his growing philanthropic efforts.

"Do you plan to really have hands on running of Facebook for decades to come even though you're obviously going to be involved in charities, or do you see yourself graduating to like a Bill Gates role where he's more involved with the charities than running Microsoft?"

Zuckeberg's response:

"Yes, to the original question - I plan on being involved in running Facebook for a very long time."

Virtual Reality

Zuckerberg also discussed the future of virtual reality and how Facebook plans to make the technology more social. Zuckerberg noted that Oculus is working on a project called Oculus Touch which is "the hands counterpart to the headset" which will enable users to reach out and grab things and change virtual spaces.

Zuckerberg said that they've developed a ping pong game as a basic example of how the system works, which enables users to play ping pong in a full immersive virtual space - and feels like you're there with the other person.

"I'm really excited about how VR is going to bring people together in new ways and give you this feeling of presence like you're there with people who you might not have the opportunity to be there with in person, in real life"