« Cajsa Choices: See Why Maloe Vansant is Among My Favorite SL Artists | Main | Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2025年1月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan »

Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Martin K.

> Start strongly boosting our metaverse KPIs or get fired this year.

I agree to some extent, but I think you shouldn't use the term "metaverse" when summarizing the words of someone who you don't agree with about the definition of the term "metaverse".

Here is my reading of this paragraph (my emphasis):

> Next year is going to be the most critical year in my 8 years at Reality Labs. We have the best portfolio of products we've ever had in market and are pushing our advantage by launching half a dozen more AI powered wearables. We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR. And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. If you don't feel the weight of history on you then you aren't paying attention. This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure.

This is explicitly directed at teams working on MR and Horizon Worlds, which apparently have to prove their worth this year. Since Quest headsets and Horizon Worlds cannot succeed on the scale of Meta's ambitions (and certainly not in 2025), I'm reading this as a preparation for a major shift of focus away from MR and Horizon Worlds towards AR+AI glasses (at the end of this year or in 2026). (And I'm sure that Meta will find a way to describe this new focus as an evolution of their vision of the Metaverse. Maybe the new/true/real Metaverse or whatever. They'll come up with something.)

If this shift of focus towards AR glasses and AI is already planned, why not just announce it? I assume the purpose of this whole exercise (and its predictable outcome) is to rationalize the scaling down of the MR and Horizon Worlds teams, prevent or shut down internal discussions about this change, and give some employees a chance to leave or switch teams before they are fired.

But I'm biased because Meta's VR strategy never made much sense to me. Thus, I guess, I'll just wait, watch, and limit my engagement with the Quest platform.

wsa

Why to proclamations from people that high in companies so often sound like they're from a cult leader? Such a bizarre way of talking to people.

Kaylee West

They still don't get it and they never will. These over-highly paid senior people so often think because they are highly paid they know better than everyone else, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. To be honest, if I was Zuck the first person I would have fired is Bosworth. In many other companies someone who performed as poorly as him and displaid such an abysmal lack of knowledge about virtual worlds and their history would have never even got the job. I know I'm being bitchy, but when you see some of the amazing things users and hobbyists have been able to create with a tiny, tiny fraction of the resources Bosworth had / has, you can't help but feel frustrated. Thank you to Meta for really good affordable headsets, but forget the whole Horizon world thing and leave it to those with more experience and imagination.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Your Information

(Name is required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Thumb Wagner James Au Metaverse book
Wagner James "Hamlet" Au
Dream Seeker SL Estates
Competitive rates, 24/7 English, Spanish & Dutch support -- visit online or in SL!
Dutchie SL furnishings
Click above to Dutchie Design's site!
Wagner James Au Patreon
Making a Metaverse That Matters Wagner James Au ad
Please buy my book!
IMG_2468
My book on Goodreads!
Wagner James Au AAE Speakers Metaverse
Request me as a speaker!
Making of Second Life 20th anniversary Wagner James Au Thumb
PC for SL
Recommended PC for SL
Macbook Second Life
Recommended Mac for SL
my site ... ... ...
ADD store SLurl
Visit ADD's SL mainstore, creator of sexy styles you want to wear!
Intellivision game console book Tom Boellstorff Braxton Soderman
Get the latest book from the author of "Coming of Age in Second Life"!
Meow Meow Making SL flowers
An SL flower shop for all occasions!
Rapture
Original SL mesh fashion since 2014
Vmuseum NWN Ad
Click to visit all four sites!
Second Life virtual world coffee table book
Coffee table book available now -- click above!
Juicybomb_EEP ad

Classic New World Notes stories:

Woman With Parkinson's Reports Significant Physical Recovery After Using Second Life - Academics Researching (2013)

We're Not Ready For An Era Where People Prefer Virtual Experiences To Real Ones -- But That Era Seems To Be Here (2012)

Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father A Second Life (2011)

What Rebecca Learned By Being A Second Life Man (2010)

Charles Bristol's Metaverse Blues: 87 Year Old Bluesman Becomes Avatar-Based Musician In Second Life (2009)

Linden Limit Libertarianism: Metaverse community management illustrates the problems with laissez faire governance (2008)

The Husband That Eshi Made: Metaverse artist, grieving for her dead husband, recreates him as an avatar (2008)

Labor Union Protesters Converge On IBM's Metaverse Campus: Leaders Claim Success, 1850 Total Attendees (Including Giant Banana & Talking Triangle) (2007)

All About My Avatar: The story behind amazing strange avatars (2007)

Fighting the Front: When fascists open an HQ in Second Life, chaos and exploding pigs ensue (2007)

Copying a Controversy: Copyright concerns come to the Metaverse via... the CopyBot! (2006)

The Penguin & the Zookeeper: Just another unlikely friendship formed in The Metaverse (2006)

"—And He Rezzed a Crooked House—": Mathematician makes a tesseract in the Metaverse — watch the videos! (2006)

Guarding Darfur: Virtual super heroes rally to protect a real world activist site (2006)

The Skin You're In: How virtual world avatar options expose real world racism (2006)

Making Love: When virtual sex gets real (2005)

Watching the Detectives: How to honeytrap a cheater in the Metaverse (2005)

The Freeform Identity of Eboni Khan: First-hand account of the Black user experience in virtual worlds (2005)

Man on Man and Woman on Woman: Just another gender-bending avatar love story, with a twist (2005)

The Nine Souls of Wilde Cunningham: A collective of severely disabled people share the same avatar (2004)

Falling for Eddie: Two shy artists divided by an ocean literally create a new life for each other (2004)

War of the Jessie Wall: Battle over virtual borders -- and real war in Iraq (2003)

Home for the Homeless: Creating a virtual mansion despite the most challenging circumstances (2003)

Newstex_Author_Badge-Color 240px
JuicyBomb_NWN5 SL blog
Ava Delaney SL Blog
Virtual_worlds_museum_NWN