Every move of Meta is affecting the nerve of the metaverse. Just as it threw itself into the embrace of the metaverse at the beginning, Meta has been constantly exploring and advancing on the road of the metaverse. We can see this in the name change at all costs and the investment it has made in the development of metaverse hardware. Just because of this, people are still full of expectations for Meta’s future actions in the meta-universe.
However, although the imagination is beautiful, the reality is cruel. At least for now, Meta doesn’t really show up in the meta-universe the way people expect it to.
After cancelling the F8 event in the first half of the year, Meta’s metaverse update was announced at this year’s Connect conference. It can be said that this conference has become a stage to show the achievements of Meta in the meta-universe in the recent year. It has to be said that through such a conference, Meta’s understanding and practice of the meta-universe really became much more mature than before. Whether it is in the hardware practice, or in the software exploration, or in the technical optimization, we can see this point.
However, it would be too simple and arbitrary to write too much out of this.
In fact, through this year’s Connect conference, we are more aware of the powerlessness, helplessness and inaction of Meta in the meta-universe.
Indeed, the Meta universe is a must-have meal for the Meta. That’s especially true with Facebook’s many struggles. However, Meta apparently hasn’t found the right way to eat it. It is certain that if this kind of problem keeps bothering Meta, Meta universe will not only fail to bring great development to Meta, but will even drag Meta into a new mire.
The consumer end is hard to break
When Meta announced its entry into the meta-universe, many people began to associate the meta-universe with social interaction, and some even believed that the meta-universe would profoundly influence and change the traditional social mode. The reason for this is that Meta’s predecessor, Facebook, was a connected social platform. Therefore, under the leadership of Meta, we have seen a lot of meta-universe players and started to focus on the transformation of meta-universe for social interaction. It has to be said that the combination of meta-universe and social interaction can indeed change the pain points and problems of traditional social interaction, bring different social experience to users, and truly bring people’s social interaction from the era of virtual social interaction to the new era of virtual and real integration of social interaction. Obviously, this is the way to meet users’ new social needs, but it’s also the way to generate traffic that players can envy.
However, to achieve such a goal, a mere concept and imagination are obviously not enough. How to get users to use it, and truly replace the old social model with a new meta-universe of social, is the key. In order to achieve such a goal, we can see that Meta is developing hardware related to social interaction, whether it is analog hand sensor or intelligent headdisplay, which is a direct reflection of this phenomenon.
It is worth noting that in order to change the social mode of consumption end with the help of hardware, especially to let consumers feel, experience and accept the metacomph with hardware, it is inevitable to need a low-cost and user-friendly hardware product. In short, only by enabling consumers to use it, only by enabling consumers to popularize it, can we truly popularize the metaverse social. In the demo Meta unveiled at Connect, it’s clear that it doesn’t solve this problem and even shuts the average consumer out of the metaverse. When Zuckerberg announced the price of the new headset at $1,499, people started responding with a series of exclamation marks. Apparently, the price of this smart headset is a little difficult for consumers to accept.
So, if Meta is trying to use hardware to start a new way of socializing the metaverse, it’s not enough to start with such a pricey headset. Only when the hardware of the meta-universe is truly popularized and accessible to every consumer can it be used and affordable, can the integration of the meta-universe and social become deep and comprehensive, and the meta-universe players have a huge consumer base.
The short board of the enterprise end is prominent
Let’s go back to the moment when Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s full foray into the metaverse. Another tantalizing scenario Zuckerberg presented at the time was how the metaverse would change the way people work. With the help of the meta-universe, people can still deal with many tasks at work even when they are not face to face, and can still deal with a series of problems at work even when they are not in the office. However, from Meta’s launch this year, it’s clear that it still has a lot of difficulties with enterprise distribution. In other words, Meta from a social background does not have the capability to satisfy enterprise users.
For a hint of this, Meta brought Microsoft along for the ride. Microsoft is bringing Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox cloud games to Meta’s Quest VR headset, CEO Nadella announced. The two sides will bring work and gaming together in the future, with Microsoft bringing Teams and other productivity tools to the VR platform.
It can be said that the participation of Microsoft will make up for Meta’s weakness in the enterprise side and enable it to make a difference in the enterprise side. It is worth mentioning that Microsoft has always been regarded as a strong competitor of Meta in the field of meta-universe, and the cooperation between Microsoft and Meta undoubtedly makes people see another possibility of the relationship between them — the relationship of both competition and cooperation.
However, rather than seeing the combination of Meta and Microsoft as a combination of strong powers, the author prefers to see the combination of the two as a result of the size of the pie in the meta-universe. Neither Meta nor Microsoft can essentially swallow the big pie of the metaverse alone.
For players, the current meta-universe is in a relatively chaotic, the pattern has not been determined under the background, who can in such a big background, the first to occupy the dominant position, who can occupy a very important position in the future meta-universe market.
However, what we should also see is that just seeing the dividend of the meta-universe, just seeing the opportunity of the meta-universe, but not finding the correct way and method to implement and practice the meta-universe, then, they are always unable to grasp the development dividend of the meta-universe. In my opinion, the metaverse needs not only software support, but also hardware support; It’s not just the ability TO C, it’s the ability TO B. Perhaps this is the key to bringing Meta and Microsoft together.
Progress on the technical end is slow
When it comes to metacombs, people automatically associate them with new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Similarly, it is the emergence of new technology that has attracted the attention of so many players and attracted the favor of so many capital institutions. However, if the metaverse is merely regarded as a collection of technologies, a patchwork of technologies, and not really deeply integrated with various technologies, then the metaverse will not be able to achieve rapid development anyway.
Through Meta’s practice in the meta-universe in the last year, we can also see such a clue. As we all know, in the past, Meta released digital people, just a mere upper body existence. Why? In the final analysis, or the metaverse itself technology, not mature and perfect caused by. It is predictable that if the technology of the metaverse remains unsolved, its development will always be stuck in a bottleneck.
How to break the technical barriers on the metaverse, so that many pain points and problems in the metaverse can be solved by means of new technology, is the key to ensure that the metaverse can be landed.
From Meta, we can see that progress on the technical side is slow. If Meta has been unable to find ways and methods to solve the dilemma of the metaverse by means of technology, but simply regards the metaverse as a hodgepodge of new technologies, it will definitely miss the optimal development period of the metaverse.
From this, we can spread out that if the head meta-universe players like Meta cannot break through the technical barriers of the meta-universe, then the middle and lower metauniverse players will also face such dilemmas and difficulties. It is foreseeable that if the technological barriers of the metaverse cannot be improved, if the technological difficulties of the metaverse cannot be broken through, then its development will not be able to develop rapidly.
Only when the technological barrier to the metaverse is no longer, only when the technological gap of the metaverse is no longer, only when the technological application of the metaverse is no longer high threshold, then the realization cost of the metaverse will be lower and lower, the problem of the metaverse will be easier and easier to solve, and the metaverse will become a popular existence from an impersonal existence. This is when the true metacomverse age will truly begin.