Metaverse

Can Meta Save Itself?

by The Metaverse

Opinion Piece (Updated 8 Nov 22)

Meta (principally led by MZ) has been making a lot of noise this past year around what they are planning for their Metaverse creation. We touched on a recent interview with Joe Rogan and summarised a few of their plans early in September. However, the question that is currently being bandied about is whether or not MZ has been spending too much time with his tech contemporaries and potentially losing touch with the general public? 

The BBC published an article highlighting the downward spiral of Meta’s shares since February, and its first quarterly revenue decline in July – with no new users being added in the US and Europe. Similarly, The Spectator showcased how failings in both tactical and strategic moves have chipped away at users and investors confidence in the company and their ability to innovate. MZ has shifted his focus away from the daily running of the company and seemingly putting all his energy into building the Meta version of the Metaverse. All this shifting is potentially resulting in a loss of core business focus and ultimately leading to a downsizing of business costs through large-scale staff layoffs, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on 6th Nov 22. The WSJ interviews (see the top of the WSJ article) with a few tech founders seems to indicate that they view the metaverse as a gaming platform that is unlikely to enter into the realm of the general public or business world. They believe the money MZ is investing in his version of the metaverse build is akin to the expenses one would pour into a ‘pet project’ and not a great business decision.

Every company has a lifecycle, and unless they are able to innovate regularly, and in the right areas, a company will either gradually (or very swiftly) find themselves on a rather sticky wicket. Although there are many potential benefits to the metaverse for businesses – it often takes a more ubiquitous use of new technology on a personal level, before it starts to infiltrate the professional realm. 

Is Meta investing too much focus and resources in metaverse technology? There is always risk in developing new technology, and much hype has already been generated by this new potential as having a high future return on investments. Is the metaverse something that will enhance consumers lives to the degree that they will buy into it? Or, are consumers starting to see some of the negative mental health consequences of too little time spent face-to-face with others and too much time with virtual others – and potentially, therefore pulling back on past and current levels of tech use? 

You can read a PDF of the articles by clicking on these links to the BBC article PDF or Spectator article PDF.

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JR & MZ

MZ and Meta’s vision for their Metaverse creation

by The Metaverse

There is a lot of speculation about what ‘the Metaverse’ will be. Although we have some idea of what it may look like, there are some variations on the theme based on the vision of the developing tech giant. 

For Meta, this metaverse future ideal is controlled via MZ, who recently revealed his vision for the future of the human-digital-connection. 

Joe Rogan recently interviewed Mark Zuckerberg on his vision for the Metaverse. You can watch this interview at the Daily Motion here. 

The Times ran a great summary of this interview of MZ’s vision in a recent write-up of the interview*. This includes: 

  • launching a new VR headset – increasing non-verbal avatar expressions and feelings of ‘presence’ with others in VR
  • a future that includes AR glasses where people interact with the physical world via digital overlays
  • normalising holograms that can be beamed into a geographically distant office 
  • more realistic avatars
  • directly competing with passive TV ‘screen time’ allowing people to actively virtually socialise with others

Although there are a lot of upsides to hologram (Star Wars-like) usage. There are some potential downsides that need to be considered. These could be (but are not limited to):

  • personal and company security
  • potential issues around hologram based cyberbullying or cyberstalking
  • the ability to harvest real-life data

The potential of the metaverse is both interesting and intimidating. The race is on for big tech companies to be the first to develop this future. 

* if you can’t access the original interview, you can read a PDF of the article here. 

You can also view an explanation of MZ’s view of the Metaverse as well as an interview with him and Tim Ferriss.

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Avatars and MetaHumans

Should we be calling Avatars MetaHumans?

by The Metaverse

There is something quite amazing and awe-inspiring about how talented designers and creators of new digital technology are. The box office success of the Avatar movie is a testament to this.

In line with this, the creation and use of 3D Avatars as an online representation of a human in a virtual environment is not a new phenomenon for gamers. There are some really interesting studies that showcase how these avatar representations can be very helpful in improving overall self-esteem. The Ideal Elf and The Proteus Effect are well-cited examples of the research done in this area. 

With the current rise in awareness of the Metaverse as the technology heralded as replacing the current internet, there seems to be a bit of a love-affair with how we represent ourselves online in the future. In line with this, there is new terminology in the naming of these online human representations of ourselves as ‘Meta Humans’. How these are created can be seen in the video below.

As much as I admire and celebrate this incredible creative talent, from a psychological point of view, I would suggest that the terminology used may have unintended consequences on us as humans that we have not yet considered. I would suggest that these could be: 

  • The Facebook has recently renamed itself ‘Meta’. Although I suspect that this is to gain a head-start associative mental link to the future of the interactive online world, it is a worry that the ‘MetaHuman’ naming convention is so closely linked to the Facebook holding company renaming.
  • Avatars are human representations, they are not in-and-of-themselves humans with all the biological, social and communal nuances that make us uniquely human. How and to what extent will this blurring of the cognitive boundaries between how we view and interact with a physical human and an avatar affect our future self-image and that of others in the metaverse?
  • We are already aware of The Online Disinhibition Effect that comes from us acting very differently in an online world to how we act in an offline world, how will engaging in a Metaverse with an avatar representation either increase or decrease our disinhibition to treat others in socially unacceptable ways? 

There are a number of other concerns I have with the MetaHuman naming convention, but they are currently inklings of worry that I have not fully identified or am able to clearly articulate. But what I do feel strongly about is how quickly we are rushing headlong into an new phase of online interactions without fully considering all the unintended consequences (along with all the potential benefits, of course) that may come from doing so. 

We really do need more researchers and academics in this field of CyberPsychology. With the rapid compounding advances in digital technology, there is too much to research and not enough people diving into this critical area of human psychology and behaviour. 

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Pokemon Go MetaVerse

Pokemon Go’s Creator Isn’t a Fan of the Immersive Metaverse

by The Metaverse

Pokemon Go’s creator, Niantic CEO John Hanke, has stated grave concerns around the proposed immersive nature of MZ’s metaverse plans. In an interview with Wired, he set out his plans for Niantic’s version of the metaverse. 

He believes that an augmented reality version has much greater mental and physical health benefits than the immersive virtual reality version. In a similar way that Pokemon Go encouraged children and families to get out into nature, his plans are to enhance reality by layering on virtual images in ‘the merger of pixels and atoms’ and ‘where bits meet atoms’. 

He used the example of historical events being ‘played out’ over the current geographical space, or virtual arrows highlighting the direction of travel. 

His overall aim is to enhance reality, get people off the couch and out into nature/the real world, and improve overall mental health, rather than encouraging them to stay indoors and immerse themselves in a virtual world. 

There is no doubt that his motives are financial, but they also seem to be humanistic and empathetic. 

If you cannot read the original article, you can view a PDF of that article here. 

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