The metaverse is the new frontier where Facebook wants to do business

Zuckerberg announced a breakthrough for the social network. An estimated 5 billion investments are made to develop an economy based on advertising and the sale of digital objects

(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images) "In the coming years I expect people to switch from seeing us mainly as social media company to a metaverse company ". With these words Mark Zuckerberg revealed the new area of ​​interest for Facebook, a platform that already has 3.5 billion active users per month. After some clues circulated in recent days, the CEO and founder provided some details on the new project, during the conference on the quarterly results, which highlighted a turnover of 29 billion dollars, of which 28.5 from the sale of spaces advertising.

Energy and investments, not yet quantified, will be catalysed by a new team just set up, which will have to develop the idea of ​​digital worlds, where people can meet in a sort of virtual transposition of the social network or an "internet personified". Facebook hopes to improve the performance of Oculus, transforming it into a pair of glasses that are more agile and lighter than the current viewer, to experience a sense of real presence, "the quality that more than others defines the metaverse," explained Zuckerberg.

Moreover, just before introducing the speech, he mentioned the upcoming launch of a pair of smart glasses in collaboration with RayBan, in collaboration with Essilor Luxottica. In any case, the device will be developed in such a way as to have a low purchase cost and the greatest possible distribution. The goal is to reach a wide audience, so that the community can give life to a thriving digital economy within the metaverse, where the main revenue lines for Facebook will be advertising, the sale of virtual objects between creators and users, as well as the possibility of living virtual experiences. "Creators and digital objects will play a huge role in how people can express themselves through avatars," explained Zuckerberg and all of this will lead to "new experiences and economic opportunities".

"A large part of the metaverse experience is teleporting from one to the other, taking your entire inventory of digital assets with you and there will be a large investment from people," he added. An estimated $ 5 billion in spending a year for Facebook developing the metaverse has not been confirmed or denied by CFO David Wehner. Facebook thus joins the big players who have set their sights on the new virtual world.

The others who invest in the metaverse

The metaverse on which Roblox has built an entire platform even ending up on the stock exchange (38.2 billion market cap), it provides rewards for creators who help create and inhabit a virtual economy powered by its own cryptocurrency (Robux). The company aims to involve an adult audience, offering live events, educational experiences, meetups, virtual concerts.

The other player is Epic Games, which a few months ago raised a billion dollars to develop its vision : “A sort of 3D social media in real time in which, instead of exchanging messages and images asynchronously, we interact together in a virtual world, sharing gaming or social experiences”. About 12.3 million players have already attended rapper Travis Scott's virtual concert on Fortnite, for example.

Words that are now echoed by Zuckerberg, who also recognized the need for new chips, protocols , standards and devices, in the next few years: “Some experiences that I envisioned well before launching Facebook are only starting to become possible now. In many ways, the metaverse is the supreme expression of social technology ".


Social Network - Jul 29

According to Zuckerberg, videos account for almost half of the time spent on Facebook


What Twitch Will Do Now He's 10 Years Old


Why billionaires' space race is raising more criticism than compliments

Topics

Facebook Augmented reality Virtual reality Social media Social Network globalData.fldTopic = " Facebook, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Social Media, Social Network "

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.