The Metaverse Is The Internet Nobody Wants • The Register

comment The Metaverse, as the company formerly known as Facebook defines the term in its financial filings, is “an embodied Internet where people have immersive experiences beyond two-dimensional screens.”

It’s more or less another blow to Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), a standard file format for 3D graphics that dates back to the mid-1990s, and the naive vision of federated spaces being exploited by rival companies.

The Web3D Consortium, which was created to advance VRML and currently promotes X3D, a royalty-free open standards file format, recently tried to get Metaverse to offer its own. definition [PDF].

“In our view, the Metaverse will emerge as a property of the current largely two-dimensional World Wide Web (WWW), with interconnections and interactions between online, networked microcosms created, like the Internet, by individuals and corporations. and institutions. The interconnection between microends will provide the Internet itself.”

The definition of Meta is broader. the web is a subset of the internet, but suffice it to say, the Metaverse has been with us for decades, and experiencing it with VR goggles and 3D graphics isn’t necessarily more compelling than seeing it on a flat screen.

A metaversion of linked environments can be performed at any time. After all, it is the web and the internet. We know how to make links. Minecraft users can click on an object and be transported to another game’s VR interface, such as Eve. It’s Valkyrie. If crypto assets can be transferred via devious blockchain bridges, there’s no reason why two or more games can’t interact.

The fact that this does not happen is not due to technical obstacles. it’s that companies don’t try to make it happen. It’s just not in their best interest to do so.

But if it’s possible to charge fees to transport VR gear and other digital waste from one location to another, Meta might try to get some action. Its Diem drop showed at least the company’s interest in digital currency transactions.

Meta’s contribution to the Metaverse to date has been evangelism, billion-dollar investments that have produced VR headsets, software, an app distribution platform that takes 47.5 percent of revenue, and now. legs – something missing from Horizon Worlds avatars.

Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, who brought us Facebook, continues to talk about creating an open ecosystem for Metaverse-based companies, as opposed to the supposedly totalitarian vision Apple will present once it gets into the mainstream hardware business.

It’s a vision born out of the need to sell investors on growth, with competition from the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatApp, and the likes of TikTok, growth opportunities seem scarce, and Meta’s lack of an operating system (still evident : an aspiration)

Apple, Google, and Microsoft have gatekeeping and distribution power through products that run on their software.

Meta, a platform seeker, instead has a massive audience through users of its social apps. But the ad business has seen Apple’s App Tracking Transparency technology on iOS devices deny access to ad targeting data and reduce the value of its business.

Until it can build a functioning Metaverse paywall, the company is focused on partnerships to bring its embodied internet to life. Partnerships are what tech companies do when they lack a product, in this case the products are apps that people will pay to use.

The big news at Meta Connect 2022, the company’s developer event this week, was deal with Microsoft to do Windows 365 – Windows streaming version – available on Meta Quest devices as well as Microsoft 365 apps and Mesh for Teams.

It’s surprising that anyone wants to experience any Microsoft software with a Meta Quest headset. Note that Meta’s Vice President of Metaverse Vishal Shah recently employees were scolded for their indifference to the company’s own Horizon Worlds setting. Managers have apparently been told that they will be held accountable if their teams do not use Horizon Worlds.

When your marketing consists of cup, things are not going well. ®