Facebook officially changed its name to Meta, and a new era of Metaverse began

Today's Topic: Facebook officially changed its name to Meta

All in Metaverse, Zuckerberg is betting on a future.

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Text｜Juny Editor｜Lianzi

At 7 a.m. Western time, it was just dawn in Silicon Valley. The company logo at the former Facebook headquarters in Silicon Valley is covered with a curtain. The staff pulled up the barrier in front of the sign, quietly waiting for the Facebook Connect conference to be held today.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, the live broadcast of Facebook's annual Connect conference officially began. Zuckerberg led the entire event, explaining Facebook's understanding of the metaverse, its strategic planning, and the current progress in the metaverse in a detailed and complete manner.

At 11:13, Zuckerberg said, "Today, we have one more important thing to share with you." He walked down the stairs slowly and came to Facebook's office area. He said: "Facebook was once a company that was born on a college campus to use technology to connect people. But now, we can finally put people at the center of our technology and start a larger socioeconomic formation. I believe , the Metaverse will be the next big chapter of the internet.”

"To reflect who we are and what we want to build, we've decided to rebrand our brand. Over time, I hope that in the future we'll stop being just a social platform and be seen as a metaverse company . "

On October 28, 2021, seventeen years and eight months after its establishment, Facebook officially announced its strategic transformation. The former thumbs up logo was removed and replaced by a new logo similar to "infinity" and a new name - Meta.

A new metaverse era has officially begun.

Facebook Silicon Valley Headquarters changed the company icon and name, the picture comes from Twitter

｜What does Zuckerberg want in the Metaverse?

It should be an open secret that Facebook is going to transform the metaverse, and the rebranding is also expected by many people. After all, as a social product under Facebook, the name can no longer cover what Zuckerberg and his team are doing over the years. If the past few years were still in the exploration stage of Zuckerberg's preparations and trial and error, now, Zuckerberg has undoubtedly made up his mind and planned the company's future, and at the same time believes that now is the most suitable time to attack .

Saying goodbye to Facebook and embracing the metaverse is Zuckerberg's big bet for the company's next decade. And from Zuckerberg's narration at the Connect conference today, we also have a deeper understanding of the metaverse world he wants to build.

First, let's review the concept of the metaverse again . To put it simply, the so-called metaverse means that everything in the real world can be projected into the virtual world, and the money earned in the real world can be earned again in the virtual world, even with a larger boundary and scale than the real world .

And the Meta that Zuckerberg envisioned is exactly the same. It has already left the field of social networking, and its goal is to build a new digital virtual world. In his explanation today, we can see that Meta will exert its strength in various fields such as social interaction, games, work, and education, covering all aspects of people's daily life.

Social: Customize space and avatar, use Messenger video calls in VR

At the beginning of the conference, Zuckerberg introduced the new VR function added to his Horizon platform - Horizon Home.

You can build your "home" as you like in VR. For example, design the gathering space between you and your friends as a space capsule, and everyone’s avatar can also be freely defined and selected. You can “pinch” yourself, a cartoon character with a flamboyant personality, or even a robot image. Friends can gather together, watch movies, play games, or use the Horizon Venues function to participate in an immersive concert or virtual performance.

In addition, Facebook has further updated the Messenger function on Quest, further expanding the social connection between the real and virtual worlds. Now you can make Messenger calls to friends directly in Horizon, and chat with them in the real world in the virtual world.

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Games: "Grand Theft Auto" launched on Oculus, further expanding the boundaries of the game

Zuckerberg said that the realization of various functions of the metaverse is still in the early stage, but games are undoubtedly the entry point that can be most understood and accepted by ordinary consumers.

Previously, VR games such as Beat Saber and Population on Quest have won the love of many people, and now Meta will further expand the lineup of VR games on its platform. Following the launch of "Resident Evil 4" just last month, today, Zuckerberg announced that the famous big IP "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" will also be launched on Oculus Quest 2 in VR form for the first time. At that time, players will shuttle in the open world based on cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas, which will be more immersive and exciting.

In addition, Zuckerberg also showed more visions about playing games in the metaverse, not just limited to a certain game itself, but embedded in daily life. For example, play chess with friends through augmented reality, fencing with friends together, play basketball with friends through VR, and so on. These game-like fitness features will soon be available on Oculus, allowing you to work out against AI or friends in a new world.

Regarding more upcoming game features, Zuckerberg said that Oculus will hold a dedicated game showcase in 2022.

Work: Slack, Dropbox, etc. launched Horizon and launched the Workrooms enterprise model

In terms of work, Facebook launched the function of Horizon Workrooms not long ago. Although it has attracted a lot of attention, many people think that it is just a gimmick and lacks practical scenarios.

But this time Meta has pushed the concept of metaverse office one step further. In order to make your work in the VR world more convenient and efficient, Zuckerberg announced today that he will integrate more 2D applications that can be used for multitasking in Horizon Workrooms, including Slack, Dropbox, Mural, Pluto TV, etc. In the future, some Oculus applications will also blur the line between VR and 2D applications. For example, Horizon Workrooms will support Zoom calls in the near future.

Apps supported by Oculus

In addition, the new business offering will bring Quest for Business work capabilities to Quest devices, including logging into Quest 2 with a work account, and providing businesses with account management, IDP and SSO integration, mobile device management, and more. The feature will begin testing this year, enter the public beta phase in 2022, and be generally available in 2023.

In the personal Horizon Home, Facebook also adds the function of personal office space in addition to the daily leisure and social functions. You can also customize your work space, and you can also use integrated functions such as Slack and Dropbox.

Education: Creating an immersive learning experience, setting up a $150 million content development fund

In addition, Zuckerberg believes that the arrival of the Metaverse will also reshape the way of education in the future. VR and AR will become a powerful teaching tool.

Facebook hopes to build a robust learning ecosystem in the Metaverse, and has set up a $150 million dedicated fund for this purpose. First, it will create an immersive educational experience. For example, if you want to learn planetary knowledge, after wearing AR glasses, huge planets will appear in front of you, and you can zoom in and out to see their textures and characteristics clearly. If you want to learn ancient architectural knowledge, you can directly "travel" to that era, experience and witness how great buildings were built.

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In addition, Facebook will also focus on cultivating AR/VR content creators in the field of education. They are currently working with Unity to teach people the skills, tools, etc. needed to create educational VR content. Institutions collaborated.

｜Who is the metaverse picture scroll unfolding for?

Regarding who can participate in the Metaverse, how the Metaverse operates, and its business model, Zuckerberg also explained at today's conference-"In the future, our Metaverse will serve as many people as possible." People, including ordinary people (People), creators (Creators) and business organizations (Business).”

First of all, it is easy to understand at the level of ordinary people, that is, users who will use various services of Metaverse in the future. But this user base will be broader than Facebook's previous user base, and it will offer features far beyond social. People can choose work, games, social networking, learning, and entertainment under the framework of functions it provides. Of course, each section contains business opportunities, such as digital advertising, product sales, tickets, and so on.

Of course, Facebook also knows that it is almost impossible to build such a huge ecosystem by itself, so it will include more creators and developers to build the grand blueprint of Meta together.

Today, Facebook announced the Presence Platform, designed to help developers build mixed reality on top of the Quest platform. Presence Platform consists of three products: the Insight software development kit (SDK) for developing mixed reality experiences; an SDK that makes it easier to add hand interaction to applications; and an SDK that helps build voice input experiences.

In addition, Facebook has built a complete set of vocational training courses and certification paths. More than 22,000 creators have signed up for the previously launched Facebook AR Curriculum program. Today, Facebook announced that the company plans to expand the original course into the Spark AR Curriculum and launch a formal Spark AR certification program.

Developers who participate in the training and pass the assessment will receive Spark AR certification and be issued a Spark AR Creator Certificate. In the future, his works will likely become part of the Metaverse and share revenue with Facebook. Currently, the first assessment for Spark AR will be held in November, and new registrations will be open to the public soon.

There must be many people who are concerned, how will future enterprises make money in the metaverse? In this conference, Facebook also gave an example of an aromatherapy shop operating in the future metaverse. It can expand the store concept in the real world, such as making a big garden with butterflies dancing around, and then embed the products that need to be sold in it, which will further stimulate consumers' desire to buy.

｜New developments in hardware: a new generation of high-end headsets and the first AR smart glasses

If the Metaverse world wants to prosper, it first needs more people to be able to enter this world, and hardware equipment is the foundation of everything. Although the high-profile new generation of Quest did not appear today, Facebook also shared their latest progress on hardware devices.

First, Facebook announced a new high-end virtual and augmented reality headset called Project Cambria. It has thinner optics and smarter sensors and reconstruction algorithms that allow your avatar to maintain natural eye contact with other users in the metaverse, accurately reflect the wearer's facial expressions, and have full-color mixed reality capabilities, etc., thereby providing users with a more realistic experience when interacting in the virtual space.

Regarding the final pricing and release time of this headset, there is not much information revealed this time. Zuckerberg only said that it plans to release it next year, and the price will not be cheap.

The Cambria headset can accurately reflect the wearer's facial expressions, eyes, etc.

Facebook also announced its first augmented reality smart glasses, code-named Project Nazare. In a brief mock concept, Zuckerberg described a typical scenario: You put on your glasses, the Whatsapp app floats in front of you, you send a message to a friend, invite them to your game, accept the invitation AR avatars of friends will soon appear in your room.

However, Zuckerberg also said that their goal is to make Nazare the same weight and size as everyday glasses, but Nazare has not yet reached the standard for official release, and it may take a few years to officially meet with everyone.

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From the progress of this hardware equipment, we can also see that the lightweight, intelligent and popularization of the basic hardware equipment of the Metaverse is still a big stone on the road of Facebook Metaverse. Although Zuckerberg gave us a vision of the bright future of the metaverse and the huge market space today, how to make people willing to accept and enter the metaverse is the first problem they need to solve in the next step.

And this entanglement of dream and reality seems to be reflected in Facebook's stock price today (its stock symbol will change from FB to MVRS on December 1): it rose by about 4% at one point, and finally fell back to 1.5%. People are surging in the center of one product vision after another released by Zuckerberg, but after calming down, they feel that the Metaverse is still so far away from them.

The road to the Metaverse is doomed to be long and difficult, but from the company’s name change, we can also see Zuckerberg’s determination to break his wrist: he personally shut down the Facebook era he created, and started anew towards the dream of a new digital empire.

And this time, this will be the last time we report on it with Facebook, and its name will be Meta in the future.

Such a huge company can turn around on such a large scale. I really admire it. Do you have any friends who want to build a "MetaCapital" together! ! !

Facebook officially changed its name to Meta, and a new era of Metaverse began

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