After months of cloak-and-dagger subterfuge – that had many a VR hardware firm second-guess the Menlo Park massive – today saw the latest annual Facebook Connect take place online. And for the first time in years, there was not a single hardware launch to be seen.
Instead, the entire focus was on the metaverse and how the social media company could reposition itself to capitalise on both software and hardware advantages to help bring about the burgeoning metaverse frontier of which its CEO is so enamoured.
Not least of which is rebranding Facebook to become Meta.com. The latest post on about.fb.com is now titled, ‘Introducing Meta: A Social Technology Company’
The first entry reads, “Today at Connect 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta, which brings together our apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
“The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes 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. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company.
“Our annual Connect conference brings together augmented and virtual reality developers, content creators, marketers and others to celebrate the industry’s momentum and growth. This year’s virtual event explored what experiences in the metaverse could feel like over the next decade — from social connection, to entertainment, gaming, fitness, work, education and commerce. We also announced new tools to help people build for the metaverse, including Presence Platform, which will enable new mixed reality experiences on Quest 2, and a $150-million investment in immersive learning to train the next generation of creators.
“Our corporate structure is not changing, however, how we report on our financials will. Starting with our results for the fourth quarter of 2021, we plan to report on two operating segments: Family of Apps and Reality Labs. We also intend to start trading under the new stock ticker we have reserved, MVRS, on December 1. Today’s announcement does not affect how we use or share data”.
For a full report on the Oculus Connect Keynote 2021 and the future of the metaverse, please see TheVirtualReport.biz.
Steve is an award-winning editor and copywriter with more than 20 years’ experience specialising in consumer technology and video games. With a career spanning from the first PlayStation to the latest in VR, he's proud to be a lifelong gamer.
