What is the metaverse, and do I have to care?

guest · Oct 4, 2021

What is the metaverse, and do I have to care?
One part definition, one part aspiration, one part hype
October 4, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/22701104/metaverse-explained-fortnite-roblox-facebook-horizon

InIn recent months you may have heard about something called the metaverse. Maybe you’ve read that the metaverse is going to replace the internet. Maybe we’re all supposed to live there. Maybe Facebook (or Epic, or Roblox, or dozens of smaller companies) is trying to take it over. And maybe it’s got something to do with NFTs?

Unlike a lot of things The Verge covers, the metaverse is tough to explain for one reason: it doesn’t necessarily exist. It’s partly a dream for the future of the internet and partly a neat way to encapsulate some current trends in online infrastructure, including the growth of real-time 3D worlds.
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But let’s get to the fun part. Will you start checking your Facebook feed in Fortnite with a pair of augmented reality glasses? Will your friends invite you to cyber-brunch instead of normal brunch? Time to jack in and figure it out.
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THEN WHAT IS THE REAL METAVERSE?
There’s no universally accepted definition of a real “metaverse,” except maybe that it’s a fancier successor to the internet. Silicon Valley metaverse proponents sometimes reference a description from venture capitalist Matthew Ball, author of the extensive Metaverse Primer:

“The Metaverse is an expansive network of persistent, real-time rendered 3D worlds and simulations that support continuity of identity, objects, history, payments, and entitlements, and can be experienced synchronously by an effectively unlimited number of users, each with an individual sense of presence.”
Facebook, arguably the tech company with the biggest stake in the metaverse, describes it more simply:

“The ‘metaverse’ is a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you.”
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A more cynical spin is that “metaverse” lets companies dodge negative baggage associated with “the internet” in general and social media in particular. “As long as you can make technology seem fresh and new and cool, you can avoid regulation,” researcher Joan Donovan told The Washington Post in a recent article about Facebook and the metaverse. “You can run defense on that for several years before the government can catch up.”
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There’s also one very simple reason: it sounds more futuristic than “internet” and gets investors and media people (like us!) excited.
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Rasheed187 · Oct 10, 2021

Not this 3D crap again. I remember way back you had Cosmo Player which I thought was kinda cool, but VRML never became a thing.

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/png-the-definitive/9781565925427/14_chapter-06.html

ronjor · Oct 17, 2021

Apparently, it's the next big thing. What is the metaverse?

BBC 17 Oct 2021
To the outsider, it may look like a souped-up version of Virtual Reality (VR) - but some people think the metaverse could be the future of the internet.
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In fact, the belief is that it could be to VR what the modern smartphone is to the first clunky mobile phones of the 1980s.
Unlike current VR, which is mostly used for gaming, this virtual world could be used for practically anything - work, play, concerts, cinema trips - or just hanging out.
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hawki · Oct 19, 2021

"Facebook plans to hire 10,000 in EU to build 'metaverse'

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Facebook Inc plans to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union over the next five years, the social media giant said on Monday, to help build the so-called metaverse - an online world where people can use different devices to move and communicate in a virtual environment..."

https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-plans-hire-10000-eu-build-metaverse-2021-10-17/

guest · Oct 20, 2021

Facebook reportedly plans to change its name to focus on the metaverse
October 20, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/f...to-change-its-name-to-focus-on-the-metaverse/

Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name to focus on building the metaverse, according to a report by The Verge.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg will unveil its new name at the annual Connect conference on October 28, but it could announce the new name earlier, as reported by The Verge.
Facebook, which has the ambition to be known for more than social media, announced Sunday that it plans to recruit 10,000 jobs in Europe for the next five years to help build the metaverse the company sees as a key component of its future.
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In July, Zuckerberg said that Facebook’s future lies in the virtual metaverse, in which users will live, work and play inside.
“We don’t comment on rumor or speculation,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
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xxJackxx · Oct 20, 2021

Nope, I don't have to care about anything...

Rasheed187 · Oct 23, 2021

xxJackxx said: ↑

Nope, I don't have to care about anything...
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Correct, it seems like Facebook is trying to distract people from all of the bad press. They are also soon planning to announce a name change for the company, it's probably going to be ''Horizon'' or something. But I also don't believe in this metaverse 3D internet crap, it has already been tried before.

guest · Oct 25, 2021

Facebook invests billions in metaverse efforts as ad business slows
October 25, 2021
https://www.reuters.com/technology/...timates-apples-privacy-rules-bite-2021-10-25/

Facebook Inc (FB.O) said on Monday it will start publishing the financial results of its augmented and virtual reality labs as a separate unit, where it is investing billions in its ambitions to build the "metaverse" and as it reported that its main advertising business faces "significant uncertainty."

The CEO has said Facebook in the coming years will be seen not as a social media firm but as a company focused on the metaverse. The buzzy term refers broadly to a shared virtual environment which can be accessed by people using different devices. read more

"This is not an investment that is going to be profitable for us any time in the near future," Zuckerberg told analysts. "But we basically believe that the metaverse is going to be the successor to the mobile internet."
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Facebook is spending at least $10 billion this year on its metaverse division
October 25, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/25/22745381/facebook-reality-labs-10-billion-metaverse

Facebook plans to spend at least $10 billion this year on Facebook Reality Labs, its metaverse division tasked with creating AR and VR hardware, software, and content.

“We are committed to bringing this long-term vision to life and we expect to increase our investments for the next several years,” the company wrote in its third-quarter earnings release this afternoon. Facebook sees AR and VR as being core to “the next generation of online social experiences.”
It’s also a move to, perhaps, distract from what else is going on in Facebook’s earnings today.
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guest · Oct 28, 2021

This company is making digital humans to serve the metaverse
October 27, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/27/22746679/soul-machines-metaverse-digital-humans-labor

In a stark white browser tab, Sam — a young blonde woman with perfectly shaped lips — asks me for the solution to 2+2.
Sam isn’t a real person — she’s a digital human created by Auckland-based tech company Soul Machines. Designed to have a short conversation with visitors about herself, she runs on a proprietary “digital brain” and studies my expressions via webcam.

When we think of the metaverse, popularly depicted as a game-like virtual environment where humans use avatars to live, work, and play, we’re often the main characters. But it’s Soul Machines which will be filling the metaverse with what co-founder Greg Cross refers to as a “digital workforce” — a stream of bespoke Sams who will form the equivalent of NPCs in nascent digital worlds, as well as extensions of ourselves.
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Right now, Soul Machines mostly makes digital people for customer service and public outreach, but they’ve also worked with will.i.am and Carmelo Anthony;
The company has digital people repping the World Health Organization, Maryville University, Westpac bank, the New Zealand police, and SK-II skincare. Ruth is a digital baking coach who works for Nestle.

“At some point in the future,’ says Cross, “you might be able to create a digital version of yourself or multiple versions of yourself, and they can go out and do stuff, make money for you, make money for your company, while you’re doing something else that’s a whole lot more fun.”
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guest · Oct 28, 2021

Oculus users are getting a new metaverse home
Horizon Home includes new social experiences
October 28, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/28/22750569/facebook-oculus-horizon-home-social-vr-space-connect

Facebook is announcing a new, “more social” home space for Oculus users. Called Horizon Home, it looks a lot like the virtual home that people already have in their virtual reality headsets. But users will be able to invite friends to hang out and watch videos or start multiplayer games together, and they’ll eventually be able to customize their space, although that’s “a little further out.” Horizon Home will launch in an Oculus update soon.

Home joins Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms — as well as events app Horizon Venues, previously known as Venues — as part of Facebook’s “metaverse” hub.
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hawki · Oct 28, 2021

"Facebook rebrands as Meta to emphasize ‘metaverse’ vision

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the 'metaverse'..."

https://apnews.com/article/facebook...ogy-business-5ad543ab7780caae435935f0aca9fac6

Chuck57 · Oct 28, 2021

They're tired of people calling them 'Farcebook,' or 'Fascistbook.'

xxJackxx · Oct 28, 2021

Still don't care...

Seriously though:

Facebook plans to spend at least $10 billion this year on Facebook Reality Labs
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Good to see them spending that kind of money on what is important.

plat · Oct 28, 2021

hawki said: ↑

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the 'metaverse'..."
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He's so full of it.

There is no resemblance between the words "Facebook" and "Meta." Therefore, it's gonna be easier for the mainstream public to "forget" all the bad stuff associated with Facebook. It's like starting off "tabula rasa" but we know better, right? uBO ain't got an Anti-Facebook list for nothing.

Although I would look dimly on a name-change to "anti-Metaverse" list.

Krusty · Oct 28, 2021

xxJackxx said: ↑

Nope, I don't have to care about anything...
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+ 1.

Socio · Oct 28, 2021

A more cynical spin is that “metaverse” lets companies dodge negative baggage associated with “the internet” in general and social media in particular. “As long as you can make technology seem fresh and new and cool, you can avoid regulation,” researcher Joan Donovan told The Washington Post in a recent article about Facebook and the metaverse. “You can run defense on that for several years before the government can catch up.”
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So it basically allows them to censor, force lockstep narratives and spread fake news unfettered without repercussions?

Daveski17 · Oct 29, 2021

The bigger question is what is the metanarrative to the metaverse? The even bigger question is do I care?

xxJackxx · Oct 29, 2021

If everyone would stop using this garbage it would all go away. Put down the iPhone and play some board games or go outside.

Trooper · Oct 29, 2021

xxJackxx said: ↑

If everyone would stop using this garbage it would all go away. Put down the iPhone and play some board games or go outside.
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+1 So sick and tired of hearing about GarbageBook

guest · Oct 29, 2021

Facebook’s Meta Reboot: Do We Really Want to Live in Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse?
October 29, 2021
https://variety.com/2021/digital/ne...ncement-mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-1235100356/

In a presentation Thursday at the Facebook Connect conference, Zuck announced the corporate name change. He pitched the metaverse (which, for now, is mostly hypothetical) as a game-changer:

“In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up. This will open up more opportunity no matter where you live. You’ll be able to spend more time on what matters to you, cut down time in traffic, and reduce your carbon footprint.”
Are you sold on living in “The Matrix” yet?
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The not-really-hot take is that Zuckerberg wants to change the subject. According to this theory, Meta represents Facebook’s response to getting flash-flooded by negative stories in recent weeks about how the company has failed to take action to curb harmful content [...]

Zuckerberg denied this presumed motive in an interview with The Verge. The spate of negative news stories based on leaked documents, he said, “had nothing to bear on this. Even though I think some people might want to make that connection, I think that’s sort of a ridiculous thing. If anything, I think that this is not the environment that you would want to introduce a new brand in.”
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In any case, what’s more interesting to me than corporate-reputation optics is this: Is there truly a mass market for the metaverse?

Yes, many people have grown more accustomed to living virtually during the pandemic, and for better or worse everyone knows how to log in to Zoom now. But I wonder how many of us want to get more deeply entrenched in a digital existence.
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guest · Oct 29, 2021

What even is the metaverse?
The future, no matter the glossy videos, is unclear.
October 29, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/facebook-metaverse-meta-explained-or-not-120032885.html

For most of this year, Facebook has been talking about its plans for the metaverse, pledging to lose a lot of money in order to bolster its ambitions in the space. Yesterday, the company announced that it would rebrand its corporate identity to “Meta” in order to double down on this commitment. (And, you know, the other reason.)

The metaverse, as Meta describes it, “is a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like virtual and augmented reality.” Given the number of companies who are now starting to talk about the metaverse in very real terms, we have to answer one, very obvious question: What the Hell is a metaverse?
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Everything that follows is, to a certain extent, meant to be read with the right number of ahs, ahems, polite coughs and other caveats. After all, a number of companies have started using the term in order to bask in the reflected glory thrown out by the metaverse hype train. Much like “Web 2.0,” “The metaverse” has a loosey-goosey definition that is being used to define whatever is coming next for the internet.
A virtual world that mirrors our own? Metaverse.
A way to buy and sell NFTs of Elon Musk dressed as a dog? Metaverse.
A new way of creating commerce and communications? Metaverse.
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It’s likely that when we look back at the metaverse a decade or two from now, should it actually happen, it’ll look vastly different to what its boosters predict.

In many ways, companies like Meta are trying to put together this jigsaw without much of an idea of what it’s going to look like when it’s finished.
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xxJackxx · Oct 29, 2021

Do We Really Want to Live in Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse?
Again, no.
It's probably a good way to dodge any lawsuits against "Facebook". Spin off another company and declare the first one bankrupt.

guest · Oct 31, 2021

John Carmack issues some words of warning for Meta and its metaverse plans
"But here we are, Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time..."
October 29, 2021
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021...-a-skeptical-note-over-metas-metaverse-plans/

Oculus consulting CTO John Carmack has been bullish on the idea of "the metaverse" for a long time, as he'll be among the first to point out. But the id Software co-founder spent a good chunk of his wide-ranging Connect keynote Thursday sounding pretty skeptical of plans by the newly rebranded Meta (formerly Facebook) to actually build that metaverse.

"I really do care about [the metaverse], and I buy into the vision," Carmack said, before quickly adding, "I have been pretty actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that we have tried to spin up internally in the company from even pre-acquisition times." The reason for that seeming contradiction is a somewhat ironic one, as Carmack puts it: "I have pretty good reasons to believe that setting out to build the metaverse is not actually the best way to wind up with the metaverse."
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Today, Carmack said, "The most obvious path to the metaverse is that you have one single universal app, something like Roblox." That said, Carmack added, "I doubt a single application will get to that level of taking over everything."
That's because a single bad decision by the creators of that walled-garden metaverse can cut off too many possibilities for users and makers. "I just don't believe that one player—one company—winds up making all the right decisions for this," he said.
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"But here we are," Carmack continued. "Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made."
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aztony · Oct 31, 2021

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta
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What's in a name..or more aptly a name change? In this case a resetting of the optics!

guest · Nov 1, 2021

Privacy in the new Metaverse
The future may or may not be the alternate reality paradise that Mark Zuckerberg and company promised us
October 30, 2021
https://www.androidcentral.com/privacy-new-metaverse

The artist formerly known as Facebook is now Meta. We here at Android Central heard a lot about the promising future of the all-new Metaverse from the company on Thursday. But one area, in particular, was noticeably glossed over: user privacy and security.

That's never a good thing and is especially bad whenever a company tries to rebrand or assure consumers how it plans to change and make improvements in the future. This, of course, goes double when that company is Facebook. Facebook used to be the darling of the tech world, but has recently fallen into a new role where nobody trusts it. Honestly, it's the company's own fault.
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It's still Facebook
The company has a new brand, but the players haven't changed. And when you have the track record that Facebook does — that's not very comforting.
Everyone hates Facebook because, deep down, nobody trusts Facebook. Except for the bulk of its users, which is a real problem.

Zuckerberg and the company did mention that Meta cares about user privacy and safety. I didn't believe him because I've never been given any reason to trust Facebook. No new name will change that. This internet 3.0 experiment isn't just going to be run by Facebook, either.
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