Ex-politico turned Meta hype man brands Metaverse 'new heart of computing'
- Reference: 1680274927
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/31/metas_clegg_goes_nuts_metavere/
- Source link:
Nick Clegg, a former UK deputy prime minister who joined Meta in 2018, held a meeting via Meta’s Horizon Workrooms with a bunch of press that joined through Meta Quest headsets they’d been sent. For clarity, The Reg wasn’t among them.
The avatar created for the Meta exec was seated at a virtual wooden table dressed in a virtual blue blazer and white collared shirt, and by [1]one account looked like the man himself.
[2]
“We’re going to stick with it,” Clegg said of the Metaverse, “because we really believe, all the evidence suggests, that something like this will be the heart of the new computing platform.”
[3]
[4]
“But it’s going to take a while,” he added.
Confirmation that Meta is still behind the project isn’t a massive surprise, given the [5]billions of dollars the company has sunk into creating this virtual space, admitting failure might be too much for twitchy shareholders. So far Meta has created VR headsets, software, and an app distribution platform with the money it has spent on the project.
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Turning its vision into a reality is taking longer than expected and spending more on it might seem at odds with Meta’s so-called Year of Efficiency, one in which it is eking out cost savings, with measures including [7]chopping 20k+ staff .
Disney’s Metaverse business was designed to give viewers a more immersive experience – the next-generation of storytelling – but it [8]came to an abrupt end this week with the announcement that the small division was being eliminated amid 7,000 job cuts across the corporation.
According to a report, Disney’s plan for the Metaverse still wasn't apparent a year after the business unit formed. Disney’s not alone: last month Microsoft [9]reportedly put a bullet in its industrial Metaverse masterplan amid [10]confirmation of 10,000 group job cuts .
[11]The Metaverse is the internet no one wants
[12]A miserable work week spent toiling inside 'the metaverse'
[13]Virtual reality telemetry means you can virtually kiss goodbye to privacy
[14]NFT vending machine appears in London
McKinsey estimated that $177 billion was invested in the Metaverse by businesses from the start of 2021 until September the following year. And Gartner forecasts that by 2026, 25 percent of the world will spend an hour a day in this virtual world. Conversely, analysts at Canalys said they think [15]Metaverse business projects will be dead by 2025 .
Clegg told reporters in the virtual meeting this week that advertising and commerce were two revenue streams for the Metaverse. He said sectors like gaming and fitness had embraced virtual worlds and education and healthcare would too.
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The problem is that shareholders may be running out of patience with the constant promises of this tomorrow-tech. As Bloomberg pointed out, when one reporter asked a question, the mouths of three avatars moved.
“I just really want to stress that we’re going to look back on the hardware we’re wearing now and think: ‘Gosh, do you remember the days where you would wear a Quest Pro?'” said Clegg. “We’ve always been very clear that we’re in this for the long haul. This is not going to happen overnight”.
The clock is ticking. ®
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[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-29/meta-s-clegg-insists-the-metaverse-is-still-the-next-big-thing
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZCcDoZI7Vk6jTLqyZQS5GAAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCcDoZI7Vk6jTLqyZQS5GAAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCcDoZI7Vk6jTLqyZQS5GAAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/20/meta_prototype_vr/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCcDoZI7Vk6jTLqyZQS5GAAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/14/meta_10000_jobs_cut/
[8] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/disney-eliminates-its-metaverse-division-as-part-of-companys-layoffs-plan-94b03650
[9] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsoft-kills-its-industrial-metaverse-team-after-4-months
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/microsoft_job_cuts/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/14/metaverse_internet_failure/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/22/working_in_the_metaverse_will/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/18/vr_telemetry_identity/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/04/nft_vending_machine/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/metaverse_dead_by_2025/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCcDoZI7Vk6jTLqyZQS5GAAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It seems to me
that the Metaverse is basically instant [1]Zeerust . Not a concept with legs.
[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Zeerust
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because Nick Clegg said it wouldn't...
after spending $40 billion
with nothing to show for it, a certain "shareholder" and Chairman-for-life in the company needs to save face.......
Meta and creative disruption
As long as Meta continues to have positive cashflow, it will continue to do whatever the single controlling shareholder, Mark Zuckerberg wants. Investors were happy with this when they bought the shares, so why should it change.
Looking at Meta, it's now possible to see that this is what a copycat corporation looks like. Facebook itself was a copy of somebody else's idea, though the advertising and keep users addicted was probably all inhouse. But, while it was very lucrative, it wasn't very innovative. Since then, it has grown through acquistions of competitors in new markets: WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus, etc. It's been very successful with users and both WhatsApp and Instagram; and Instagram (a combination of the "best bit" of FB and Twitter) even turns a decent profit. But they're still struggling to make money from the WhatsApp behemoth, while the developers have left. In the meantime other messengers, particularly Telegram but others as well, have developed apace, and TikTok has started creatively disrupting the eyeballs-glued-to-screen revenue stream. It has dabbled in crypto and other fashionable shit, stuff that even the famously experimental Google hasn't touched, but it has no real content strategy and no enterprise products with their lovely subscriptions. And it has no "superapp" to compete with those beloved in Asia. The Metaverse was supposed to change all that by being all things to all people, that being its biggest problem. To make money all you really have to do is one thing that other people want and can't get elsewhere. In a couple of years the Oculus deal will look even more like Microsoft's ill-fated purchase of some of Nokia's IP than it does now.
And then ChatGPT turned up and shows that instead of pissing money into the wind more shitty VR implementations, the El Dorado of perpetual entertainment was possible. Meta's AI stuff is still mainly at the ML level so either it buys the next OpenAI or it can watch its users be lost to the more interesting bots.
I hope the same soon becomes true of some of Silicon Valley's other one-trick ponies unicorns: Twitter, Uber, AirBnB, et al.
Re: Meta and creative disruption
I can't see a change of direction coming from Mark SugarMountain any time soon. He has one idea, and one idea only - a Meta walled garden - with Meta users wearing Meta VR systems logging into Meta servers and interacting with Meta's marketplace. Did I mention fun? No, I didn't. He's very stubborn and will just keep pushing this idea until he runs out of money or users, sorry, product.
Phil.
Meta
Meh, ta.