Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced at the company’s annual AR / VR conference on Oct. 28 that the social media giant is changing the name of the holding company and will now be called Meta. It’s not simply a name, but a warning sign of the far-reaching goals of the social media giant.
Zuckerberg announced the company’s manifesto on the “metaverse,” a digital world built over our own world, framed by VR headsets and extended
“We think the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet. We’ll be able to be present. It’s like we’re there with people, no matter how far away we really are. from each other “
– said the CEO, according to The Guardian.
The company received not only a name but also a new logo. A blue infinity symbol symbolizes the holding, which will include Facebook, its largest subsidiary, and apps such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and the Oculus virtual reality brand.
In recent earnings reports, the company has already announced the virtual reality segment has grown so significantly that it will now report its revenue separately, dividing its products into two categories. These categories include the “application family”, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, as well as “reality lab” products, including AR, VR, and related hardware.
One billion people in ten years
Zuckerberg expects the metavezum to reach one billion people in the next decade. The platform would allow users to personalize their avatars and digital spaces by decorating their digital office with images, videos and even books. According to the presentation, users can virtually invite their friends, two people can go to a concert together even though they are on the other side of the world, and colleagues can give presentations at work from a distance.
“When I send a video to my parents with my kids, they’ll feel like they’re there with us at that moment, not lurking through a small window, ”Zuckerberg illustrated the metaverse. However, he acknowledged that the company still has a long way to go. “The metaverse can best be understood if you experience it yourself, even though it doesn’t fully exist yet,” he said.
Zuckerberg said Facebook also launched a beta test of two metaverse projects last year. Horizon World allows users to invite their friends into their digital world, and Horizon Workrooms does the same in a professional environment. He also said that Facebook plans to explore additional NFTs and crypts to make digital media more accessible, and even works on gaming applications.
It would attract crowds of developers
The company will continue to offer services and hardwire to developers at low prices or for free, thus trying to attract critical mass to the platform. The company is also spending $ 150 million on developers to create new apps, games and immersive programs in the metaverse. “We want to serve as many people as possible, which means we’re working to make our services cost less, not less,” the Facebook CEO said.
The echo of the announcement was quite mixed because many was assessed that the company just wants to divert attention from the scandals that caused a real PR disaster for Facebook. A series of reports have been made recently, based on internal documents leaked by Frances Haugen, a former senior employee of the company. These revealed toxic business practices and inside information about long-term negative effects on public health. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been the subject of several congressional hearings, and in 2019, the FTC imposed a $ 5 billion fine on it for “deceiving” users. And at the time, we hadn’t talked about Facebook’s very backward moderation practices. it only shows how unrelated Facebook is to real people, “said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, according to The Guardian.
Haugen said in a recent statement it was “shocking” to hear how much the company is investing in the metaverse while its security efforts have failed. The company spent $ 10 billion on the metaverse in 2021, while the security department received $ 5 billion, the British daily writes. “To quote Frances Haugen, let’s imagine what Facebook could achieve by devoting even a fraction of its meta version to proper content moderation to enforce the most basic standards of truth, fairness, and progress,” Ahmed said.
Others have warned that the launch of the Facebook metaverse could mean a new space in which the company has a monopoly amid antitrust concerns. Zuckerberg tried to get ahead of such privacy and security concerns on Thursday. Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president of global affairs, acknowledged that the company was criticized for failing to anticipate the long-term effects of its problems. “There are still years left until the metaverse, as we imagine, is fully realized. This is the beginning of the journey,” Clegg said according to The Guardian.
Not Zuckerberg’s invention
The metaverse is certainly not an invention of Facebook or Zuckerberg, as it has long been a matter of debate among developers as to whether it can be circumvented at all. There is no doubt, however, that the concept has been at the forefront of interest since Facebook began to spark its plans for this digital reality recently. FastCompany yesterday asked 28 experts how they see the state of the metaverse. Just a few short quotes.
According to Matthew Ball, CEO of venture capital and consulting firm Epyllion Industries, what is amazing about platform changes of this magnitude is that they are unpredictable. Innovation is recursive. An ingenious technology is created that inspires further innovation, leading to new behaviors and opening up new uses. Suddenly, something that no one thought we needed — such as a lasting, real-time simulation of the world — will seem indispensable.
Yat Siu, Managing Director, Game and Block Chain Company, Animoca Brands his president sees that reality will exist in the spectrum from physical to virtual (VR), but we spend much of our time somewhere between these extremes, in some form of augmented reality (AR). Augmented reality will be a normal part of everyday life. Virtual peers provide information, commentary, updates, and advice on currently relevant issues in both virtual and real space. These sides of reality do not compete with each other, but reinforce each other.
Tyler Ishida, Vice President, Consumer Electronics, Sony Electronics, noted that the meta-version may seem as real to participants due to the resolution and quality of today’s technology. like “real life”. All of this points to an immersive fun experience that engages all our senses while staying true to the creator’s intent. I see consumer entertainment aspects of the metaverse becoming the main driving force, and plenty of other applications are easy to imagine: education and research, industry, even IT and security.
Sam Hamilton, blockchain-based metaverse creator according to him, this world will be captivating and all-encompassing, but at the same time it will have an impact on the physical world in terms of finance, goods and services, gaming, education, governance, and more. What will not be is a centralized experience. The centralized metaverse is not a metaverse, it is a video game. So the authentic metaverse will be a shared, collaborative space supported by a decentralized structure. We can witness the structure of the world as it happens. The old rules do not apply.
There could be serious problems
Carolina Milanesi, president and chief analyst at Creative Strategies, says that metaverzum can be anything, an escape to an alternative reality that is fun and engaging, but it can also be absolutely hellish, where the current problems of misinformation and abuse by Facebook will be much more real. He said Facebook will primarily use it to generate additional revenue from consumers.
Ibrahim Baggili, director of the Institute of Technology at the University of New Haven, drew attention as an active researcher in the security and forensics of VR systems that if the metaverse were created , we need to explore and assume how to abuse it. Their research has already identified VR’s practical security vulnerabilities as it is suitable for new types of attacks. These include controlling a person’s movement in the VR without their knowledge or consent. Otherwise, they can enter the “rooms” of private environments, look out for people without their knowledge or consent. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, when you think ho What will be possible with the misuse of the technology.
On the Gameindistry portal, the conclusion of the compilation analyzing the metaverse was as follows. For now, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what a metaverse can actually be, but investors agree there’s a lot of money in it. Some experts liken it to what was experienced at the beginning of the dot-com boom. They feel that something important is happening in the virtual worlds, and something new big can develop from the metaverse. However, as in the early dotcom era, our analogy from the past can only be applied imperfectly to the metaverse.
Bart Schouw, chief evangelist at Software AG in the Information Age, puts it more boldly and precisely. “Unlike the universe, the metaverse is not created with a big bum, but if there is a breakthrough, it will bring a whole host of new solutions and unlimited creativity. The metaverse is where consumers look for games and entertainment, and businesses are likely to meet virtual reality encounters. will be discovered for enhanced collaboration, and training will be taken to the next level with fully simulated environments.The metaverse, long considered a futuristic dream, will quickly become a reality.
Let’s add that not just a single Facebook-Meta meta-universe can be built, but many, ie instead of a universe, a multiverse can be born in digital reality, one day.
