Mark Zuckerberg is clear about what the future of the social network that he built several years ago will be or should be. And yes, it will possibly surprise you at the same time that you will see many similarities with proposals that novels and movies have shown us over the years. The company wants turn facebook into a metaverse, in a parallel reality where the use of mixed reality will play an important role.
What is a metaverse or metauniverse
Before moving forward, it is necessary to be very clear what is all this metaverse or metauniverse. If you like science fiction, surely both terms will not catch you by surprise. What's more, it may be that even without being a fan of this type of content you already have a close idea of what it implies because in the cinema we have seen proposals such as Ready Player One where basically its protagonists lived in one.
However, the definition of metaverse could be said to be more or less recent and refers to a virtual space where a group of users can meet in order to be able to interact with each other as if they did in the real world. Of course, with some rules and limitations, but also with unthinkable possibilities in the real world.
Thus, for example, from movies to online video games like the old Second Life and even Fortnite could be considered a metaverse. Because they allow millions of users to gather who can interact with each other, access a multitude of options and bypass real limitations such as the pain that could be experienced in the event of someone attacking you or fearing death, since it would be a matter of restarting and that's it.
The Facebook Metaverse
Now that you know what a metaverse is, the next question should be why Mark Zuckerberg wants to create his own. Well, the answer lies in the current state of Facebook as a social platform. In addition to the scandals over privacy and misuse of its users' data over the years, it seems that the arrival of other platforms and ways of consuming content has also affected them.
Especially they are the youngest. they spend more time on networks like TikTok than on Facebook. This is something that has been very well identified as a problem for the future, because when the bulk of current users begin to reach a certain age and it no longer seems interesting to be there posting statuses, photos, commenting in groups, etc., what will they do if the young They are on much more agile platforms and with other types of more current formats for them.
Well, that is the problem that Mark Zuckerberg wants to tackle at the root. And to achieve this there is no other option than evolve and that it becomes something different from what we currently know, a simple social network. That idea or future is the metaverse, a place where the company can offer its users a different environment where they can meet and interact with other users, attend events, buy in stores. etc All this with a different approach to the classic interaction that we have had for years through the use of text messages mainly.
The big problem or challenge is that it is a complicated adventure, but if any current company could carry it out, it is Facebook and for various reasons. The first is that it already has the most important thing of all: a very broad user base. It may not be as much of a soldier as it was years ago, but it's still important and there are the numbers to prove it.
The second is that it has the financial muscle to undertake a development of this level. Because creating what you now have is not the same as an environment where the use of mixed reality is essential.
And finally, Facebook also has the right technology so you don't have to start from scratch. Because they acquired Oculus years ago and after months of work, the Oculus Quest 2 are one of the most attractive options on these issues.
So you could say it has it all. It has users, it has development capacity and it has the necessary hardware to not depend on anyone but themselves and to be able to reverse that current situation where users spend more time watching other people's content posted on TikTok than video how to create something on other networks or simply interacting with other users as if you were doing it in person.
Therefore, despite being a very important technological challenge It is evident that if they are not capable of achieving it, nobody could do it in the short or medium term.
The risks of living in a metaverse
Scene from Free Guy, a movie where Ryan Reinolds stars as the avatar of someone who practically lives in a virtual universe
The fact that the idea of turning what the Ready Player One novel and film proposes into reality is very attractive to all of us who love technology does not mean that we should stop thinking about it. the risks of something like that.
Because, as you already know from all these scandals uncovered years ago, you have to be very careful with how Facebook could take advantage of all the information that is generated. Information that would be much closer to reality, because the user could interact in that virtual space as he would in real life.
So, despite being a project that will still take years to develop, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start considering situations that could occur to be prepared. So there would be no regrets about possible scandals in the future if the rules are established correctly now. Although that is more difficult than creating the metaverse itself.