it always seemed weird to me that fb, that sort of defined "casual interaction", was doubling down on such an immersive technology. the "metaverse" described by Rosedale & Ondrejka was nothing if not immersive.
I think having IG and FB is a liability for them. Imo Epic Games is making better choices right now with their acquisitions and marketing strats. Seems more appealing to me.
Wasn't that book supposed to be a bit of a dystopian/cautionary tale against VR? I thought the resolution of the character arc was that the guy decides to take the headset off and engage in the real world more.
There's no question that there's some kind of vision involved, but what part of this is conceivably philanthropic? FB and Zuckerberg have an immediate vested interest in capturing the maximum of attention spans of these people.
>> “A good vision for the metaverse is not one that a specific company builds, but it has to have the sense of interoperability and portability”, Mr Zuckerberg said, adding that there should be protocols like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) internet standards for defining how experiences will be built.
Except defined by Facebook, so not really anything like W3C.
oh man. there have been at least three efforts i'm aware of to standardize the metaverse in the last 30 years. none of them really went anywhere. fb was invited to participate in the last one i paid attention to (VWRAP), but they politely declined.
And now they'll take all the ideas from the previous efforts, pick the ones that will make them the most profit (revenue - development costs) and tada a new propriety, privately controlled ecosystem that slowly replaces whatever is out there. See, for example, Open Graph replacing Dublin Core.
Are there any facebook products that have "the sense of interoperability and portability"? Seems like most of their properties strive for the opposite...
I got a quest 1 for as a gift a couple years back. They frequently automatically installed updates that break mods. Now, my headset is currently bricked and I need to figure out how to factory reset or something to fix it.
Maybe its just indifference, but given facebook's history it feels intentional.
Both Twitter and Facebook had much more open and developer friendly APIs in their early growth stages, which they slowly reduced as their reliance on 3rd parties diminished, as they in-housed features and killed off third party integrations, and in FB's case, after they got fucked by their permissive APIs and open standards in the Cambridge Analytica debacle.
Hyperscale tech was smart in the way they designed their business to wrap around existing anti-trust law (via creating captive markets inside of larger markets and spanning multiple market categories).
We'll see if they're smart enough to outflank Antitrust 2.0, or if they make the same mistakes as Big Railroad / Oil -- assuming they're more powerful than government and/or believing their own PR about how they're not a monopoly.
I know the article mentions that it goes “beyond AR and VR”, but all that means is that Facebook will have flat pancake screen versions of their meta verse apps
>>> "“I think [it] is probably going to resemble some kind of a hybrid between the social platforms that we see today, but an environment where you’re embodied in it”, Mr Zuckerberg also said. One of the benefits of this ecosystem would be that, “if you go back 20 or 30 years, a lot of people’s individual opportunities and experience was dictated by their physical proximity”, and that easy movement through a virtual space could avoid such barriers."
He seems to be saying they're getting (more) into the Black Mirror game.
Metaverse seems like the new buzzword for the VC companies. Nowadays everyone is building metaverse type games just because of Roblox but reality is it is a limited market with high competition and only few players are interested about such games.
Yet again it’s the old jwz point of people focusing on the irrelevant tech details of why something’s successful. Roblox isn’t successful because it’s a ‘metaverse’, it’s successful because it’s got a crapload of games that shut my kids up.
Seems there could be a business for corporate style services within a meta verse now that more people are working remotely. Think meetings, conferences, etc. I know second Life did this before all the degenerates moved in...
Does he really believe his own bullshit? I mean, I realize FB is literally the internet in some countries, but that's because they are essentially the only water in the desert so to speak. FB needs competition, badly.
This is so prevalent that there are many study groups on facebook just because of that: it is the only place they can "freely" exchange ideas, and voluntaries from other countries (without these limitations) help by copying and pasting info and documents so others can 'freely' download it.
Another way of saying this is "Ad Company wants to be present during every part of your life (and all those pesky non-Ad Company users they can't currently reach), so they can surveil and monetize your entire existence, finally completing the panopticon."
I think and have thought for along time we are indeed headed for a few competing "metaverses", but having ruminated on the topic for a long time, I could tell you all kinds of reasons a metaverse created by someone like facebook will inherently not be the one metaverse aka the one that actually makes a paradigm shift.
Ive pitched metaverse style training systems to the department of education for example. There is a lot of really good progress to be had in the space.
If done right, a good metaverse will be the next WoW. Thats billions of dollars. Im not surprised facebook is doing this, Im surprised they all didnt start their own metaverse programs much sooner...
Facebook the company or Facebook the platform? The thing with Facebook owning Instagram is even as Facebook itself becomes less and less relevant to younger generations, the company still owns the platform those younger generations favor. And as Instagram inevitably becomes itself irrelevant, I'm sure Facebook will just buy the next social media platform.
If Facebook buys the next TikTok as a small startup when they have minimal market share then the federal government would have no legal basis to block a sale.
In light of all the details that has come out with regards to buying out Instagram to prevent them from being a competitor, it's a massive uphill regulatory approval climb even if money is not an issue.
I think Instagram has more staying power than TikTok as TikTok users start aging and the next generation moves onto their own platform. There's a good chance I'm wrong, but my guess is that publishing videos of yourself as a primary communication format gets less appealing with age as social circles shrink.
Personally as a 31 year old male, I could never get into Instagram. Always just felt like a shopping catalogue posing as social media, and the discovery is terrible, no matter how much data I try to feed it.
I love TikTok though, and not only do I feel like it "got me" after only a few hours of use without hearting anything or having any friends that use it. I've learnt about a lot of local events, restaurants and days out - in a way that seems way more organic than Instagram paid influencers.
Honestly, their algorithm has been great for me, in a way that only really Spotify has rivalled.
^ this. I would think of snapchat as a competitor to instagram, but not tiktok. You don’t go on tiktok to talk to your friends or see what’s up. Tiktok is the new 9gag rather.
I still wish Oracle took over TikTok. It would have been an amazing plot twist. Would they come up an Oracle style licensing agreement for all the tweens on TikTok?
Just like how Gen Z realized much faster than millennials that the economy and their future is hogwash, they would learn the consequences of agreeing to an Oracle license agreement much faster than their older peers.
Young people look at Instagram the same way they look at Twitter: it's a platform filled with millennials and older people that take it way too seriously.
Things are different this time around, I don't think we can assume that... probably no company has ever had access to so much cheap money combined with the global reach they have.
Yeah but (1) it is not the only one and (2) what you bankrupt Facebook will be a different leverage, not access to cheap money (or access to even cheaper money?)
ITS NOT META IF IT'S CLOSED. It's only a constellation of services.
Facebook is welcome to become whatever Zuckerverse it can be.
But they do not seem to have the play-well-with-others ability to encompass multiple different universes of possibility. They will remain distinctly within their own singular sphere, best I can tell.
My fake FB account just shows TikTok videos and left wing propaganda and its even paid post promotion. I don't know how the advertisers make money off of that.
I loathe Facebook - but trying to say Mark Zuckerberg is an idiot at this point is pretty hilarious. A bachelor's level of academic training is essentially irrelevant by the time you're thirty - a master's by the time you're thirty five. Academic credentials are a very silly thing to get out the rulers over.
Let us see about the rumors that Apple will launch Apple glasses this fall. If I wanted AR I much rather have it from Tim Cook than Zuckerberg, and Apple knows how to build hardware. Zuckerberg does not.
Like you, I will probably buy Apple’s new AR headset. Both of us are privileged enough to be able to easily afford it, but can most people do the same?
Before you dismiss Facebook’s hardware effort, you should actually try the Oculus Quest 2. At $299 for a full, standalone VR system; imo it even beats some PCVR VR headsets on more than just price.
I can't edit the above comment, so I am adding this as a reply.
I had completely forgot that Facebook had a VR headset. When I said they didn't know how the built hardware I was thinking of their attempt to build an Android phone.
I hate to be the one to bang on about standards, but the cyberpunk vision of the Metaverse -- and I am aiming at kind of a bog-standard middle ground of it -- will depend on some very open standards that are decentralized at the core, starting at Snow Crash and ending in the John C. Wright "The Golden Oecumene" sense of things.
Anything but an open and radically-decentralized interoperable set of standards and you're Running On Someone's Specific Hardware. That means that they and the country (or other municipal structures) might have opinions on what you can run on their hardware, and thus the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse will be invoked at the start.
As you slide toward less interoperability and more corporate/government control, you're going toward the Johnny Mnemonic territory (maybe without the cyberdolphin). You'll have to hack your way around the place, and that means that the ordinary folks are left out. They might not have the smarts, the hardware, the wetware, and so on.
Further levels of control and you're into Second Life -- one platform, one company, but perhaps some local rules/anarchy. And if you're still thinking of the children, the Metaverse eventually looks like Club Penguin. You can finally rest assured that the concept is functionally dead when we are all sending each other only various emojis of unrealistic skin tones.
So, the question then becomes, does anything in the Facebook/Zuckerberg history suggest where on that spectrum we will land?
As a side note, I believe that pretty much any version of this Metaverse means targeted ads. On the controlled side, the people running the hardware will want money, and that means ads. On the uncontrolled ads, randos will want money, and that means that they'll do whatever they can to sniff your activity and monitor you, and then send you ads.
Aside from what I mentioned, you're looking at Bruce Sterling, maybe a little Stross. I hesitate to recommend Doctorow -- he is faddishly distracted and senselessly optimistic. Vinge's
"True Names" stands out. Maybe When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One for the AI side of things. The amusing Headcrash, writings by Pat Cadigan, Jeter's deliciously dystopian Noir is a favorite if you want to see how bad it might get. Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams, but that one has been a while.
The founding text is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992). It's short, funny, entertaining, and full of new ideas in a freewheeling early 90's spirit. The list in the comment you are replying to is not bad, since most interactions you will ever have with someone about a metaverse will hinge on shared descriptions you have with them of a metaverse, so whichever books you hear about the most are by definition the most useful ones to read.
Almost everyone has read or heard of Ready Player One (2011), which contains extensive descriptions of its own corporate dystopic metaverse, albeit one that I find insufferably cliche and unoriginal.
Metaverse descriptions are descended from the first cyberspace descriptions in Neuromancer (1984) which is a beautiful book worth a read.
will depend on some very open standards that are decentralized at the core
There's a performance problem. The open Web only works because we have enough compute power to tie up multiprocessor computers with a few gigaflops per CPU and gigabytes of RAM to display 2D text with a few pictures on the screen. A good 3D game world pushes the limits of what current hardware can do. The level of inefficiency associated with Javascript/HTML/CSS won't work for an interesting 3D world. It was tried. See X3D.
Oh, I have no illusions about how well the radically decentralized business works out. It is wildly inefficient, the content could be anything, and so on. Think Freenet. And I have watched the VR promise die enough deaths to make a cat envious.
This makes a lot of sense. And given the Oculus, they already have a pretty decent foothold in the AR/VR world.
So as a reaction for Apple becoming “the” gatekeeper for a metaverse platform, Facebook is now doubling down on becoming “the” metaverse platform. Whatever that means.
I wonder whether Facebook is going to try to accomplish this using their existing social networks, or do some acquisitions in the space.
I doubt Facebook really needs to worry about Apple's upcoming AR/VR push. They're the people who sell $300 VR headsets, if anything they should be encouraging Apple to drive the price of their headset up.
I seriously hope enough people are still grounded enough in this reality to reject AR/VR bullshit besides as a fun playground like VRchat or what have you. Integrating either or both into daily life would be fucking godawful.
To me, VR is really cool. I wouldn't want to give it up. It functions as a game console with a different input/display device. I'm not too keen on the metaverse concept, and I don't use it for social stuff.
Agreed on that, but I don't want it to become like a smartphone where it almost becomes a necessary component of a majority of your waking life. I already take in enough digital content and am tracked by enough things as it is.
To be fair, given that FB are the 4th biggest company in the S&P 500, almost everyone on this site is probably a shareholder through their retirement plan.
This sort of disruption will probably be considered virtual terrorism one day... Imagine the CIA torturing some poor soul over dicks in the zuckerverse.
Given that Israel already called a "new type of terrorism" when an ice cream company didn't feel comfortable working on the country anymore, then I'd say that we are not far from that at all
One has to tread very carefully when mentioning Israel in any context.
That said, I couldn't follow the logic of that; how exactly is it that Ben and Jerry's deciding not to sell ice cream in the occupied palestinian territories a "new type of terrorism" against Israel? (esp. as the B&J factory is apparently in Israel).
Basically Israel is the real life embodiment of Seinfeld's uncle Leo who says anything and everything is antisemitism except it's also terrorism.
These labels have existing very negative meanings that they would both like to court with their own behavior and accuse others of thoughtlessly.
I feel like that singular statement is like watching an entire country jump the shark and that we ought to stop taking their phone calls. They have absolutely nothing we need and they don't require our help to survive anymore.
Anti BDS laws in US states are so baffling to me. The idea that American citizens could be criminalized for choosing not to do business or invest in a foreign power would be laughable if so many current politicians weren't supporting it.
> The spread of anti-BDS laws in U.S. states is largely due to the lobbying of the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), an umbrella group of Israel lobbies headquartered in Jerusalem that has received funding from the Israeli government.
They are just mad that that their claim to fame in the consumer packaged product industry is a company that puts bubbles in water and not something better like delicious ice cream. /s
That's a good point. I suppose that Snow Crash is only a fun story as long as it's fictional. If reality comes too close to it, it would stop being fun and start being depressing.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 286 ms ] threadSource: https://www.businessinsider.com/oculus-gives-all-its-employe...
Except defined by Facebook, so not really anything like W3C.
Maybe its just indifference, but given facebook's history it feels intentional.
Say what you want about MS and Google, but they left a lot of money and opportunity on the table for others.
Facebook... notsomuch.
Which works fine when you start with a first mover platform. But doesn't work nearly as well when trying to grow a platform from nothing.
Here's hoping the effort crashes into the ground.
We'll see if they're smart enough to outflank Antitrust 2.0, or if they make the same mistakes as Big Railroad / Oil -- assuming they're more powerful than government and/or believing their own PR about how they're not a monopoly.
Normal person: What does that mean?
Marketing droid: "The metaverse does not have a specific definition"
https://twitter.com/juliey4/status/1205393085145874433
https://www.oculus.com/facebook-horizon/
I know the article mentions that it goes “beyond AR and VR”, but all that means is that Facebook will have flat pancake screen versions of their meta verse apps
He seems to be saying they're getting (more) into the Black Mirror game.
Dystopian metaverse. https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11087890/mark-zuckerberg-...
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...
And not:
https://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html
Still cheaper than daycare!
https://vrland.io
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/facebook-free-...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/27/facebook-...
Therefore, it becomes the "only" Internet.
They even have cases of piracy movies being shared/available within theses sites.
Ive pitched metaverse style training systems to the department of education for example. There is a lot of really good progress to be had in the space.
If done right, a good metaverse will be the next WoW. Thats billions of dollars. Im not surprised facebook is doing this, Im surprised they all didnt start their own metaverse programs much sooner...
The race is on, may the best win.
TikTok is what the kids are using now - and they're valued at about half of what FB is valued at, so unlikely that FB will be able to buy them.
Maybe FB will buy whatever replaces TikTok.
It's unlikely that the government would permit such a sale.
I love TikTok though, and not only do I feel like it "got me" after only a few hours of use without hearting anything or having any friends that use it. I've learnt about a lot of local events, restaurants and days out - in a way that seems way more organic than Instagram paid influencers.
Honestly, their algorithm has been great for me, in a way that only really Spotify has rivalled.
That’s the point, tiktok is 9gag, instagram is snapchat/facebook/twitter
Just like how Gen Z realized much faster than millennials that the economy and their future is hogwash, they would learn the consequences of agreeing to an Oracle license agreement much faster than their older peers.
More accurately, it's a potential national security threat, but not yet an actualized one.
If they're allowed to. There's a lot more antitrust scrutiny now than when they bought Instagram.
So good thing Snapchat didnt sell to Zuck
Facebook is welcome to become whatever Zuckerverse it can be.
But they do not seem to have the play-well-with-others ability to encompass multiple different universes of possibility. They will remain distinctly within their own singular sphere, best I can tell.
Before you dismiss Facebook’s hardware effort, you should actually try the Oculus Quest 2. At $299 for a full, standalone VR system; imo it even beats some PCVR VR headsets on more than just price.
I had completely forgot that Facebook had a VR headset. When I said they didn't know how the built hardware I was thinking of their attempt to build an Android phone.
Without naming Apple specifically, Zuck managed to communicate an intense fear that Facebook would be locked out of Apple's upcoming AR platform.
Is the 'metaverse' inevitable? Or is it merely sci-fi wishful thinking?
If 'interoperability' and 'decentralization' means that you can't avoid targeted advertising, I'll pass.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-c...
Anything but an open and radically-decentralized interoperable set of standards and you're Running On Someone's Specific Hardware. That means that they and the country (or other municipal structures) might have opinions on what you can run on their hardware, and thus the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse will be invoked at the start.
As you slide toward less interoperability and more corporate/government control, you're going toward the Johnny Mnemonic territory (maybe without the cyberdolphin). You'll have to hack your way around the place, and that means that the ordinary folks are left out. They might not have the smarts, the hardware, the wetware, and so on.
Further levels of control and you're into Second Life -- one platform, one company, but perhaps some local rules/anarchy. And if you're still thinking of the children, the Metaverse eventually looks like Club Penguin. You can finally rest assured that the concept is functionally dead when we are all sending each other only various emojis of unrealistic skin tones.
So, the question then becomes, does anything in the Facebook/Zuckerberg history suggest where on that spectrum we will land?
As a side note, I believe that pretty much any version of this Metaverse means targeted ads. On the controlled side, the people running the hardware will want money, and that means ads. On the uncontrolled ads, randos will want money, and that means that they'll do whatever they can to sniff your activity and monitor you, and then send you ads.
Almost everyone has read or heard of Ready Player One (2011), which contains extensive descriptions of its own corporate dystopic metaverse, albeit one that I find insufferably cliche and unoriginal.
Metaverse descriptions are descended from the first cyberspace descriptions in Neuromancer (1984) which is a beautiful book worth a read.
There's a performance problem. The open Web only works because we have enough compute power to tie up multiprocessor computers with a few gigaflops per CPU and gigabytes of RAM to display 2D text with a few pictures on the screen. A good 3D game world pushes the limits of what current hardware can do. The level of inefficiency associated with Javascript/HTML/CSS won't work for an interesting 3D world. It was tried. See X3D.
We can sure hope.
So as a reaction for Apple becoming “the” gatekeeper for a metaverse platform, Facebook is now doubling down on becoming “the” metaverse platform. Whatever that means.
I wonder whether Facebook is going to try to accomplish this using their existing social networks, or do some acquisitions in the space.
Zuck and Apple both recognize this and are both working on it.
The winner will be similar to an iPhone level win in terms of shift, it’s hard to know how close viable hardware is though.
Even Roblox and Minecraft support VR now
Who matters besides the shareholders? /s
That said, I couldn't follow the logic of that; how exactly is it that Ben and Jerry's deciding not to sell ice cream in the occupied palestinian territories a "new type of terrorism" against Israel? (esp. as the B&J factory is apparently in Israel).
These labels have existing very negative meanings that they would both like to court with their own behavior and accuse others of thoughtlessly.
I feel like that singular statement is like watching an entire country jump the shark and that we ought to stop taking their phone calls. They have absolutely nothing we need and they don't require our help to survive anymore.
And people complain about russian interference...
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2006-12-20-second-life-millionaire-...
I am disappoint, HN ;)