(OPINION) The following is an excerpt that I want to share from the recent announcement from Mark Zuckerberg and the direction of Facebook’s future. I will share more insight about this in a “Prophetic Insight” later today on our podcast.
The company explained in a press release that its plans for the metaverse will feel like a “hybrid” of today’s social experiences that can “sometimes be expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world.”
“It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world,” the company said. “We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet.” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter that the next social platform that the company creates will be “even more immersive.”
“The defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence,” he explained. “In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine — get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create — as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.”
He continued: “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 parent’s living room to catch up.” In his letter, Zuckerberg detailed that creating a space where possibilities are endless would mean that some objects no longer need to be physical.
“Think about how many physical things you have today that could just be holograms in the future,” he said. “Your TV, your perfect work setup with multiple monitors, your board games, and more — instead of physical things assembled in factories, they’ll be holograms designed by creators around the world.”
Interacting with these virtual items requires new technical infrastructure, like augmented reality glasses, virtual reality experiences or other types of screens, which is part of Facebook’s development strategy. “This isn’t about spending more time on screens; it’s about making the time we already spend better.” In addition, Facebook said it plans to sell its devices “at cost or subsidized” to make them available to more people. READ MORE
