9 ms·

Facebook creates new unit to build a “metaverse”

41 points by lsllc 5y ago

mempko 5y ago
Anyone remember the Croquet Project? Built with Smalltalk. Pretty cool object model for 3d, multi-user worlds. Connected via portals, the 3d equivalent to links. Built-in IDE. P2P. Didn't realize it but still going 20 years later! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project https://www.croquet.io/ https://www.croquet.io/ https://croquet.io/sdk/docs/index.html https://croquet.io/sdk/docs/index.html
villgax 5y ago
Lol, no one under 40 uses Facebook for what they intend. It's mostly for birthdates & having the last string to the people who are in between friend-acquaintance relation.
- paxys 5y ago
  They use Instagram, which is even more profitable.
adpirz 5y ago
Feels like we’ve left the station and our climbing to the first hill: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle I imagine we’ll get a lot of V1s, especially once Apple releases their AR gear, but we’re about 15 years out from the plateau which will likely resemble the smartphone market. My guess.
- peterlk 5y ago
  We are currently in the "information superhighway" era of the metaverse. Everyone wants to have a proprietary metaverse that looks pretty much like IoT visualization or an open world mmo. What we need is a "browser" and common protocols. The biggest impediment to the metaverse at the moment is the size of 3D assets. A "website" in the metaverse looks very much like a game, but games are really big. There are solutions to these problems, but there's a lot of engineering work to do between here and there.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
scyclow 5y ago
Curious how this will interact with the likes of CryptoVoxels, Decentraland, and The Sandbox.
- Animats 5y ago
  Nobody goes there. They just speculate in assets. Decentraland has between 200 and 300 concurrent users. Highest I've seen is 318. CryptoVoxels had about a dozen when I just logged in. Sominium Space had 22 the last time I looked. Haven't tried The Sandbox. In comparison, Roblox has about 1.8 million concurrent users, and Second Life runs about 30,000 to 55,000. All the crypto worlds are duds as places to visit. I'd wondered if the crypto people would implement a good blockchain-based asset portability system used by multiple worlds. Nah.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  NVIDIA Omniverse?
  - Animats 5y ago
    Now that's interesting. It's collaborative work in 3D programs. Like shared text editors, but for 3D.
HKH2 5y ago
> Zuckerberg also said it was "not something that any one company is going to build." Of course not; there will be many walled gardens.
themodelplumber 5y ago
The new metaverse will be encased in a proprietary "security meta-metaverse" inside of an "analytics meta-meta-metaverse," and will include a "meta-meta-meta-meta-like button with up to six different emotions attached, including a new predatory emotion based on our founder's unique outlook on life," according to advance PR.
miketery 5y ago
Good luck. The positive way forward is an open source identity service that’s separate from these publishers (Facebook, TakeTwo, etc). People will flock to whatever metaverse they want, on demand. Look at GTA V, what an incredible world. Beyond the creative aspect of creating a compelling metaverse, the primary challenge is fraud and abuse.
- mycall 5y ago
  Matrix home servers could provide the identity service with connectors to Facebook, TakeTwo, etc.
- Nbox9 5y ago
  Despite all of the flaws we have been doing very well with email, sms, and oauth for identity. I’m unsure how a more complex identity platform will offer any more real benefit.
robertwt7 5y ago
This is very exciting, was considering to get Oculus quest 2 but then all of the apps in the store seems to be heavily dominated by games. This might be a game changer where majority non gamers will finally have a reason to get a VR. As a developer I'm also intrigued to see the api and whats the possible outcome of this. Not sure when is the launch date, but personally VR hasn't been that exciting before (for the past decades??).
gdsdfe 5y ago
So he's building a new second life??
- trash3 5y ago
  More like roblox and Minecraft had a baby
4wsn 5y ago
It sounds very ambitious and very vague. We know and I'm sure FB knows that this isn't going anywhere interesting, so what're the 700 openings for? If it weren't for the hires and the market being comically inflated I'd have written it off as PR to help the stock out. Or is it just Zuckerberg getting jealous of Musk and wants to get on the bandwagon of hypey messianic bullshit? Might want to take some charisma classes first.
- SN76477 5y ago
  Sounds like a privatized internet to me.
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    How so?
- echelon 5y ago
  Have you been on VRChat? The stuff is insane already, and I can't fathom what it'll look like in 10-15 years. These companies are at war trying to capture our attention on smartphones. Imagine what they'll do to win when we're all plugged in. AVR is coming, increasingly enabled by the ever faster processors and higher resolution sensors. It'll undo anyone in the lead that can't keep up. People doubted the Instagram purchase back in the day. I think we'll look back on this too as being prescient.
  - 4wsn 5y ago
    > These companies are at war trying to capture our attention on smartphones. Imagine what they'll do to win when we're all plugged in. I don't disagree that they're competing for attention, nor that the field is perfect for someone to come along and show us something we weren't expecting (like VRChat; made by two people). But this is Facebook, not DARPA or Skunk Works. Their core offerings are a website, a photo sharing app they acquired, and a messaging app that they also acquired. This is fundamentally an advertising company. The wildcard was a consumer hardware company that they also acquired. This is not DNA that can innovate a 'metaverse' into existence. You can't just grab a couple of executives, a bunch of mid-level managers, and a few hundred developers and demand that they innovate and expect anything to come out of it.
Tempest1981 5y ago
More on the metaverse, 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27930791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27930791 (380 comments)
- lsllc 5y ago
  What was interesting about this submission is that Facebook have now created a business unit for this so I don't think it's fair to characterize as a "dupe".
komali2 5y ago
> Bosworth wrote, "but to achieve our full vision of the Metaverse, we also need to build the connective tissue between these spaces — so you can remove the limitations of physics and move between them with the same ease as moving from one room in your home to the next." Ya know what makes for robust, user-friendly, highly varied, and tenacious technological connective tissue? Interoperability [1]. Remember when you could plug third party chat applications into Messenger? Seems crazy that it was ever possible. I've no faith whatsoever that Facebook will be a good steward of this new space. [1] https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/ https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-a...
vosper 5y ago
When bad things happen in the metaverse you can pretend it doesn't matter, because everyone knows that stuff isn't really real; nothing serious happens in the metaverse. Just like how it took 20 years for (some?) people to realise that "online" and "offline" aren't actually separate worlds. Getting bullied or abused in the metaverse? Oh, don't sweat it, it's just the metaverse, it's not real life. Seems like a good insurance policy for Facebook's future.
- petre 5y ago
  Right. https://m.dw.com/en/hana-kimura-suicide-of-japanese-wrestler-blamed-on-online-bullying/a-53567834 https://m.dw.com/en/hana-kimura-suicide-of-japanese-wrestler...
- minikomi 5y ago
  This reads like this classic (sardonic) Tyler the creator tweet: https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/285670822264307712?s=19 https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/28567082226430771...
- bluebubble56 5y ago
  I like to think we've learned some lessons on how the online world impacts the offline world that will cross over into the metaverse vs. real life. Especially since the metaverse will more closely resemble real life than an AOL chat ever did. Remains to be seen, I guess.
encryptluks2 5y ago
The only metaverse that will survive is one built around decentralization and open standards.
tengbretson 5y ago
Did Kanye West get hired as CEO of Facebook and I just missed it or something?
throwmeaway88 5y ago
Any metaverse that doesn't allow Hitlerland is doomed to fail.
paxys 5y ago
Sci-fi tells us that this is the next logical step in social networking and human interaction. Whether Facebook (or anyone else) can pull it off or not remains to be seen.
sounds 5y ago
You know, if I were able to convince a FAANG company to actually take us a step closer to a metaverse, it wouldn't be to, metaphorically, give the masses fish. It would be to teach the masses how to fish and start stocking the lakes and streams with fish and so on. The social network is so 2010. Give us content creator tools and let us do the rest. Yeah, facebook's never going to be that kind of smart. Oh well.
- bronco21016 5y ago
  Isn’t that kind of what Roblox is?
  - warglebargle 5y ago
    yes, it’s kind of a fever dream of kid-generated content
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Give us content creator tools and let us do the rest. What ever happened to Second Life, anyway? I never tried it, but some of the ideas seemed cool.
Nuzzerino 5y ago
If you make too many inflammatory comments (even in private) about, say, China or Covid vaccines, will you be cut off from this realm as well, unable to meet with your friends and family? Pandemic or disasters be damned.
davesque 5y ago
Just when you thought that we couldn't top the profoundly useless gesture of building your own personal rocket to blast off into space, we now have "metaverse." Take heed little ones, for some day you too might spend your hard earned billions to do the important work of recreating something cool you read about in a sci-fi book once.
- vmception 5y ago
  Billionaires spending frivolously is better than billionaires saving
  - davesque 5y ago
    And ya gotta have one or the other, right?
    - vmception 5y ago
      Let's just stick with facetiously making fun of our future billionaire pet projects
  - thr1256 5y ago
    Underrated comment.
- trhway 5y ago
  Do you remember the time when those ostentatious billionaires would indulge in expensive luxury of making a call like from a beach or while riding a limo?
  - vmception 5y ago
    Preposterous, they might have even paid international calling fees instead of getting clean water to Africa!
gentle 5y ago
I'm shocked that John Carmack isn't part of this effort.
Fjolsvith 5y ago
I am so thrilled to have Facebook paint custom tailored advertisements onto my optic nerve with a laser.
- 3gg 5y ago
  We can only hope.
wyxuan 5y ago
My reaction - so what? Facebook has been heavily investing resources into the metaverse for a while - building up various experiences, snapping up game studios, even Occulus itself! They just haven't bothered calling it a metaverse until now, but make no mistake - they are the leaders by a mile.
- kazoomonger 5y ago
  This reads like some weird submarine FB ad for their Metaverse™ Experience™©. What exactly do you mean by metaverse? I can't think of a definition that matches what you're talking about.
TriNetra 5y ago
lucid dreaming is the best one can get into a real-world like experience with full sensory feedback. I've been meditating for over seven years and have many a times got into a lucid dream wherein I'm aware that I'm dreaming and can create experiences, objects at will. Have traveled into space (floating beside stars), flying with raining, climbing on mountains, lifting heavy incoming vehicles like buses and throwing them away etc. Now if a device can hook into one's lucid dream and manifest things .... that would be creating universe the way you/device wants edit: I don't have the control on when the lucid dream comes. Usually when I desire it it comes soon (during my short day-time naps) But I've heard from an expert meditator that it's possible with a technique to get into a lucid dream at will
dpweb 5y ago
This is definitely the future for Facebook. Everything FB does now becomes incredibly more exciting and visceral. We know the future is super fast computing and bandwidth. Virtual experiences become almost (or totally) indistinguishable from real world. You don’t like a post your cousin made from Costa Rica, you visit Costa rica with your cousin in stunning realism! That’s the future for internet services.
__m 5y ago
You lost me at Facebook
goodcjw2 5y ago
My two cents: metaverse towards gaming is like TikTok towards videos (esp. short form videos). It's all about user generated content. Video -> Gaming Blockbuster movie/TV show -> AAA Games Youtube -> Indie Games TikTok -> Metaverse The idea is that anyone can create their own game (mini-game) easily, just like anyone can create a 10 seconds video easily. Instead of bet tens of millions into blockbuster movies or AAA games, it makes some sense to look at "short form" video or gaming. With enough users and creators, and more importantly a good recommendation system, it doesn't require too much imagination dream something big. Given that both gaming and digital video content are 100B+/yearly market, it is fair to guess that one of the next big things like TikTok is indeed something in that user-generated gaming content market.
- qzio 5y ago
  Where would you put Roblox in to this?

41 points by lsllc 5y ago

Anyone remember the Croquet Project? Built with Smalltalk. Pretty cool object model for 3d, multi-user worlds. Connected via portals, the 3d equivalent to links. Built-in IDE. P2P. Didn't realize it but still going 20 years later! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project https://www.croquet.io/ https://www.croquet.io/ https://croquet.io/sdk/docs/index.html https://croquet.io/sdk/docs/index.html

villgax 5y ago

Lol, no one under 40 uses Facebook for what they intend. It's mostly for birthdates & having the last string to the people who are in between friend-acquaintance relation.

paxys 5y ago
They use Instagram, which is even more profitable.

adpirz 5y ago

Feels like we’ve left the station and our climbing to the first hill: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle I imagine we’ll get a lot of V1s, especially once Apple releases their AR gear, but we’re about 15 years out from the plateau which will likely resemble the smartphone market. My guess.

peterlk 5y ago
We are currently in the "information superhighway" era of the metaverse. Everyone wants to have a proprietary metaverse that looks pretty much like IoT visualization or an open world mmo. What we need is a "browser" and common protocols. The biggest impediment to the metaverse at the moment is the size of 3D assets. A "website" in the metaverse looks very much like a game, but games are really big. There are solutions to these problems, but there's a lot of engineering work to do between here and there.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

scyclow 5y ago

Curious how this will interact with the likes of CryptoVoxels, Decentraland, and The Sandbox.

Animats 5y ago
Nobody goes there. They just speculate in assets. Decentraland has between 200 and 300 concurrent users. Highest I've seen is 318. CryptoVoxels had about a dozen when I just logged in. Sominium Space had 22 the last time I looked. Haven't tried The Sandbox. In comparison, Roblox has about 1.8 million concurrent users, and Second Life runs about 30,000 to 55,000. All the crypto worlds are duds as places to visit. I'd wondered if the crypto people would implement a good blockchain-based asset portability system used by multiple worlds. Nah.
fennecfoxen 5y ago
NVIDIA Omniverse?
- Animats 5y ago
  Now that's interesting. It's collaborative work in 3D programs. Like shared text editors, but for 3D.

HKH2 5y ago

> Zuckerberg also said it was "not something that any one company is going to build." Of course not; there will be many walled gardens.

themodelplumber 5y ago

The new metaverse will be encased in a proprietary "security meta-metaverse" inside of an "analytics meta-meta-metaverse," and will include a "meta-meta-meta-meta-like button with up to six different emotions attached, including a new predatory emotion based on our founder's unique outlook on life," according to advance PR.

miketery 5y ago

Good luck. The positive way forward is an open source identity service that’s separate from these publishers (Facebook, TakeTwo, etc). People will flock to whatever metaverse they want, on demand. Look at GTA V, what an incredible world. Beyond the creative aspect of creating a compelling metaverse, the primary challenge is fraud and abuse.

mycall 5y ago
Matrix home servers could provide the identity service with connectors to Facebook, TakeTwo, etc.
Nbox9 5y ago
Despite all of the flaws we have been doing very well with email, sms, and oauth for identity. I’m unsure how a more complex identity platform will offer any more real benefit.

robertwt7 5y ago

This is very exciting, was considering to get Oculus quest 2 but then all of the apps in the store seems to be heavily dominated by games. This might be a game changer where majority non gamers will finally have a reason to get a VR. As a developer I'm also intrigued to see the api and whats the possible outcome of this. Not sure when is the launch date, but personally VR hasn't been that exciting before (for the past decades??).

gdsdfe 5y ago

So he's building a new second life??

trash3 5y ago
More like roblox and Minecraft had a baby

4wsn 5y ago

It sounds very ambitious and very vague. We know and I'm sure FB knows that this isn't going anywhere interesting, so what're the 700 openings for? If it weren't for the hires and the market being comically inflated I'd have written it off as PR to help the stock out. Or is it just Zuckerberg getting jealous of Musk and wants to get on the bandwagon of hypey messianic bullshit? Might want to take some charisma classes first.

SN76477 5y ago
Sounds like a privatized internet to me.
- canadianfella 5y ago
  How so?
echelon 5y ago
Have you been on VRChat? The stuff is insane already, and I can't fathom what it'll look like in 10-15 years. These companies are at war trying to capture our attention on smartphones. Imagine what they'll do to win when we're all plugged in. AVR is coming, increasingly enabled by the ever faster processors and higher resolution sensors. It'll undo anyone in the lead that can't keep up. People doubted the Instagram purchase back in the day. I think we'll look back on this too as being prescient.
- 4wsn 5y ago
  > These companies are at war trying to capture our attention on smartphones. Imagine what they'll do to win when we're all plugged in. I don't disagree that they're competing for attention, nor that the field is perfect for someone to come along and show us something we weren't expecting (like VRChat; made by two people). But this is Facebook, not DARPA or Skunk Works. Their core offerings are a website, a photo sharing app they acquired, and a messaging app that they also acquired. This is fundamentally an advertising company. The wildcard was a consumer hardware company that they also acquired. This is not DNA that can innovate a 'metaverse' into existence. You can't just grab a couple of executives, a bunch of mid-level managers, and a few hundred developers and demand that they innovate and expect anything to come out of it.

Tempest1981 5y ago

More on the metaverse, 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27930791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27930791 (380 comments)

lsllc 5y ago
What was interesting about this submission is that Facebook have now created a business unit for this so I don't think it's fair to characterize as a "dupe".

komali2 5y ago

> Bosworth wrote, "but to achieve our full vision of the Metaverse, we also need to build the connective tissue between these spaces — so you can remove the limitations of physics and move between them with the same ease as moving from one room in your home to the next." Ya know what makes for robust, user-friendly, highly varied, and tenacious technological connective tissue? Interoperability [1]. Remember when you could plug third party chat applications into Messenger? Seems crazy that it was ever possible. I've no faith whatsoever that Facebook will be a good steward of this new space. [1] https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/ https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-a...

vosper 5y ago

When bad things happen in the metaverse you can pretend it doesn't matter, because everyone knows that stuff isn't really real; nothing serious happens in the metaverse. Just like how it took 20 years for (some?) people to realise that "online" and "offline" aren't actually separate worlds. Getting bullied or abused in the metaverse? Oh, don't sweat it, it's just the metaverse, it's not real life. Seems like a good insurance policy for Facebook's future.

petre 5y ago
Right. https://m.dw.com/en/hana-kimura-suicide-of-japanese-wrestler-blamed-on-online-bullying/a-53567834 https://m.dw.com/en/hana-kimura-suicide-of-japanese-wrestler...
minikomi 5y ago
This reads like this classic (sardonic) Tyler the creator tweet: https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/285670822264307712?s=19 https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/28567082226430771...
bluebubble56 5y ago
I like to think we've learned some lessons on how the online world impacts the offline world that will cross over into the metaverse vs. real life. Especially since the metaverse will more closely resemble real life than an AOL chat ever did. Remains to be seen, I guess.

encryptluks2 5y ago

The only metaverse that will survive is one built around decentralization and open standards.

tengbretson 5y ago

Did Kanye West get hired as CEO of Facebook and I just missed it or something?

throwmeaway88 5y ago

Any metaverse that doesn't allow Hitlerland is doomed to fail.

paxys 5y ago

Sci-fi tells us that this is the next logical step in social networking and human interaction. Whether Facebook (or anyone else) can pull it off or not remains to be seen.

sounds 5y ago

You know, if I were able to convince a FAANG company to actually take us a step closer to a metaverse, it wouldn't be to, metaphorically, give the masses fish. It would be to teach the masses how to fish and start stocking the lakes and streams with fish and so on. The social network is so 2010. Give us content creator tools and let us do the rest. Yeah, facebook's never going to be that kind of smart. Oh well.

bronco21016 5y ago
Isn’t that kind of what Roblox is?
- warglebargle 5y ago
  yes, it’s kind of a fever dream of kid-generated content
nitrogen 5y ago
Give us content creator tools and let us do the rest. What ever happened to Second Life, anyway? I never tried it, but some of the ideas seemed cool.

Nuzzerino 5y ago

If you make too many inflammatory comments (even in private) about, say, China or Covid vaccines, will you be cut off from this realm as well, unable to meet with your friends and family? Pandemic or disasters be damned.

davesque 5y ago

Just when you thought that we couldn't top the profoundly useless gesture of building your own personal rocket to blast off into space, we now have "metaverse." Take heed little ones, for some day you too might spend your hard earned billions to do the important work of recreating something cool you read about in a sci-fi book once.

vmception 5y ago
Billionaires spending frivolously is better than billionaires saving
- davesque 5y ago
  And ya gotta have one or the other, right?
  - vmception 5y ago
    Let's just stick with facetiously making fun of our future billionaire pet projects
- thr1256 5y ago
  Underrated comment.
trhway 5y ago
Do you remember the time when those ostentatious billionaires would indulge in expensive luxury of making a call like from a beach or while riding a limo?
- vmception 5y ago
  Preposterous, they might have even paid international calling fees instead of getting clean water to Africa!

gentle 5y ago

I'm shocked that John Carmack isn't part of this effort.

Fjolsvith 5y ago

I am so thrilled to have Facebook paint custom tailored advertisements onto my optic nerve with a laser.

3gg 5y ago
We can only hope.

wyxuan 5y ago

My reaction - so what? Facebook has been heavily investing resources into the metaverse for a while - building up various experiences, snapping up game studios, even Occulus itself! They just haven't bothered calling it a metaverse until now, but make no mistake - they are the leaders by a mile.

kazoomonger 5y ago
This reads like some weird submarine FB ad for their Metaverse™ Experience™©. What exactly do you mean by metaverse? I can't think of a definition that matches what you're talking about.

TriNetra 5y ago

lucid dreaming is the best one can get into a real-world like experience with full sensory feedback. I've been meditating for over seven years and have many a times got into a lucid dream wherein I'm aware that I'm dreaming and can create experiences, objects at will. Have traveled into space (floating beside stars), flying with raining, climbing on mountains, lifting heavy incoming vehicles like buses and throwing them away etc. Now if a device can hook into one's lucid dream and manifest things .... that would be creating universe the way you/device wants edit: I don't have the control on when the lucid dream comes. Usually when I desire it it comes soon (during my short day-time naps) But I've heard from an expert meditator that it's possible with a technique to get into a lucid dream at will

dpweb 5y ago

This is definitely the future for Facebook. Everything FB does now becomes incredibly more exciting and visceral. We know the future is super fast computing and bandwidth. Virtual experiences become almost (or totally) indistinguishable from real world. You don’t like a post your cousin made from Costa Rica, you visit Costa rica with your cousin in stunning realism! That’s the future for internet services.

__m 5y ago

You lost me at Facebook

goodcjw2 5y ago

My two cents: metaverse towards gaming is like TikTok towards videos (esp. short form videos). It's all about user generated content. Video -> Gaming Blockbuster movie/TV show -> AAA Games Youtube -> Indie Games TikTok -> Metaverse The idea is that anyone can create their own game (mini-game) easily, just like anyone can create a 10 seconds video easily. Instead of bet tens of millions into blockbuster movies or AAA games, it makes some sense to look at "short form" video or gaming. With enough users and creators, and more importantly a good recommendation system, it doesn't require too much imagination dream something big. Given that both gaming and digital video content are 100B+/yearly market, it is fair to guess that one of the next big things like TikTok is indeed something in that user-generated gaming content market.

qzio 5y ago
Where would you put Roblox in to this?