Social media goes sci-fi with Zuckerberg’s proposal for ‘Facebook Metaverse’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he plans to transform the social media platform into a “Metaverse” in the next five years

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recently said that he wants the social media giant to become an ‘online Metaverse’. It’s “an embodied internet where instead of just viewing content, you are in it,” he said.

The Facebook CEO told The Verge people shouldn’t live through “small, glowing rectangles.”

“That’s not really how people are made to interact,” he added. “That’s not how we process things.”

What is the Metaverse?

A metaverse is an digital world where you can game, work and communicate virtually, usually through a VR headset

“You feel present with other people as if you were in other places, having different experiences that you couldn’t necessarily do on a 2D app or webpage, like dancing, for example, or different types of fitness,” he said.

Zuckerberg says that Facebook is also working on the ‘Infinite Office’ – a feature that will allow users to design a workplace using VR.

“In the future, instead of just doing this over a phone call, you’ll be able to sit as a hologram on my couch, or I’ll be able to sit as a hologram on your couch, and it’ll actually feel like we’re in the same place, even if we’re in different states or hundreds of miles apart,” he said. “I think that is really powerful.”

Facebook invests in Oculus, betting on the future of VR

Facebook has continued to invest in VR products, recently spending over $2 billion on Oculus. This comes two years after Oculus launched its invitation-only Facebook Horizon. Using the software, users can use a headset to chat in a virtual space with an avatar.

Although Zuckerberg admitted the current VR headsets are “a bit clunky”, he promised improvements are in the works.

He says Facebook’s Metaverse will be “accessible across… different computing platforms” including VR, AR, PC, mobile devices and games consoles.