An elusive dream seems to be the Metaverse – Mark Zuckerberg does not give up…

A year ago the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerbergannounced the renaming of the parent company from Facebook to Meta and at the same time the creation of a new project that will change the image we have of the internet, placing us in a 3D visualization of the space that we can explore through the digital avatar we will have. “We are convinced that the Metaverse will be the successor of the Internet, as if we are in the same space with people regardless of how far we are in reality,” he emphasized at the time.

His bombastic statements a year ago about the coming virtual future hardly reflect today’s reality. Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, still relies on advertising revenue through those platforms. Mark Zuckerberg stressed that change will take time. In a recent interview with the technology website “The Verge”, he said: “It doesn’t mean these things are ready in two or three years.” However, the group is determined to progress this venture taking as much time as it takes.

The Metaverse is a money “consuming” machine

However, the venture seems to be a money-eating machine so far. In the first half of this year alone, Reality Labs – the division that deals with Metaverse and the creation of virtual reality glasses – posted a loss of 5.77 billion. dollars. Overall, however, Meta’s profits decrease significantly as in the first half of 2022 meta-platforms recorded profits of 22.65 billion. dollars against 28 billion of the previous year.

The difficulties are varied. On the one hand advertising companies are reducing their marketing expenses due to high inflation and the precarious economic situation. On the other hand, Apple’s privacy measures are costing Meta billions. App providers like Facebook must now ask iPhone users for permission if they want to track their behavior across different services and apps. Therefore many rejected it and in this way online advertising business models, which were based on this “tracking”, were wrecked.

However, the founder of Facebook assured that there will be no cuts in Metaverse’s investments. On the contrary, saving measures are taken in other sectors. Meta now hopes that it will be able to excite companies through the virtual reality model, where companies will be able to house their businesses. He pointed out that the 200 million computers bought annually could at some point be replaced by advanced virtual reality glasses. But all this in the future…

Big competition for the future of the internet

Mark Zuckerberg is glad that he was able to present his future venture a year ago and not now that he is under pressure. But how long it continues to pursue that dream will largely depend on how profitable Facebook is. The parent company Meta, however, is nothing more than a simple guest on the platforms of Apple and Google, and the competition is not negligible.

Already the multinational company Nvidia, which specializes in artificial intelligence, operates the “Omniverse” platform where companies can create visual effects and simulation systems to improve their processes. “In our opinion, Metaverse is the successor of the Internet” notes the manager of the company Nvidia, Rev Lebaredian. However, the transfer from a two-dimensional world to a three-dimensional one requires many specifications from the participants.

At the same time Apple, which is in conflict with Meta, has been developing its own equivalent “Metaverse” for years, although the concept may not be called that. Apple, according to analysts and media sources, is expected to produce virtual reality glasses – similar to those of Meta – which will be able to record through a camera the user’s environment, providing him with more details. If that happens, then the fight for the Metaverse will be back in the spotlight.

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