Facebook's journey to creating virtual reality has been long
and painful, but despite mixed success in finding a wide audience for virtual
reality, they've managed to create very good hardware along the way. What's
ironic is that while Facebook has managed to improve the hardware and operating
system of its Oculus devices, which it has never done before, it has found it
increasingly difficult to create a good reality app over the years. Virtual.
Over the years, the company has thrown a number of social VR
apps, and while each has managed to get something right, none have done
anything well enough to avoid a shutdown. Not to mention, most VR users don't
have many friends who also own VR headsets, the broader problem these social
apps face is that they never gave users a good reason to use them. ...
While
watching panoramic videos or playing board games with friends were cool tricks,
it took the company a long time to realize that a dedicated “social” app didn't
make much sense in VR and that users weren't looking for this standalone social
app the way they were. looking for an engaging experience that was enhanced by
social dynamics.
This brings me to what Facebook showed me this week's demo: a working app called Horizon Workrooms, which is launching in open beta for Quest 2 users starting today.
The app appears to be designed to provide home workers with a virtual reality space in which they can collaborate. Users can link their Mac or PC to workrooms and broadcast live from their desktop to the app, while Quest 2's walk-through cameras allow users to enter text on their physical keyboard. Users can communicate with each other as avatars, share photos and files, or draw on a virtual whiteboard. It's an app that would have had a greater impact on the Quest 2 platform if launched earlier during the pandemic, although it solves a problem that still hangs over tech-savvy offices: finding technology solutions that help meaningful collaboration. remote environment. ..
Horizon Workrooms is not a social app per se, but its approach to social communication in VR is more thoughtful than any other proprietary social VR app Facebook has ever shipped. The spatial elements are less obvious and complex than most VR apps and simply add to an already excellent functional experience that at times felt more productive and interesting than a regular video call.
This all influences the recent announcement by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook is becoming a "meta version company.
So what is the metaverse? In the words of Zuckerberg himself: “This is a virtual environment in which you can communicate with people in the digital space. You can think of it as the embedded Internet that you are on, rather than just looking. " This definitely sounds like a pretty significant recalibration for Facebook, which has generally approached AR / VR as a completely separate entity from its suite of apps. Mobile desktop users and virtual reality users have effectively separated from each other over the years.
Overall, Facebook is scaling Oculus like they're building the next smartphone, building their headsets using the native app paradigm at their core. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg's visionary "metauniverse" looks more like what Roblox built than what Facebook ever delivered. Horizon Workrooms lives under the Horizon brand, which seems to be where the future Facebook metaverse game is rooted. Interestingly, the social virtual reality platform is still in closed beta after it was announced almost two years ago. If Facebook can ever make the Horizon dream a reality, it could evolve into a Roblox-like hub for custom games, action, and groups, replacing the mobile dynamics of the native app with smoother social interactions.
