“After that we should be able to profitably grow Reels while keeping up with the demand that we see,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said. Measured by revenue generated by minute watched, Reels is currently unprofitable but the company expects it to break even by the end of this year or early next year. Reels plays on Facebook and Instagram have more than doubled in the past year, and the number of people resharing Reels has more than doubled in the past six months, according to the company. Meta is especially focused on incorporating ads into its fast-growing short-form video content known as Reels, using artificial intelligence to target customers with more-personalized ads based on their behavior and the context of the sites they visit. ![]() Army,” the Journal notes.In addition, Apple has tinkered with its privacy feature to allow advertisers more access to data after certain thresholds are met, which has somewhat softened the impact from its original version. “Microsoft shelved a planned new version and has struggled to meet technical requirements for its biggest buyer, the U.S. Some people have dunked on Meta and questioned the focus on VR on grounds that it’s inconceivable as a product for everyday people. “I’ll never wear VR glasses,” they say from the World Wide Web, another platform people once vowed never to use.įor what it's worth, I suspect more and more gamers will flock to this virtual world, a phenomenon that should concern us on its own.īut the Journal article makes clear this technology isn’t just going to be used by consumers - it’ll be used by militaries and other large entities, too. Some in the industry saw the move as a bet that Meta will have more luck building hardware for the metaverse. So it’s ceding ground to Meta.Įarlier this month, Microsoft announced it will make its software products available on Meta’s Quest headsets. Microsoft has struggled to build hype around its own headset. In fact, even as Meta’s stock price plummeted Wednesday, another report seemed to show great promise for the company.Ī Wall Street Journal article reporting on Microsoft’s struggle to gain a foothold in the VR space - which is dominated by Meta’s Oculus for reasons I’ve explained here - showed the power Zuckerberg’s company has already amassed in this space. I’ve been pretty open about my views on this in the past: Meta is obsessive about VR with hopes of cornering the market on an increasingly useful technology. I’m saying Meta is a vessel capable of destruction - regardless of its intentions - and, for that reason, wielding tremendous power over the world. I’m not saying Meta is North Korea or Iran. Because with that weapon comes influence. There are, after all, countries happily spending billions in an effort to develop a nuclear weapon - with no immediate returns on investment. Having as much money as possible is good for business.īut if you think of what Meta is doing as building a social weapon of sorts, rather than merely a business, the losses in the immediate term may make more sense. Through a strictly capitalist lens, the immediate drop in stock price is worrying. In fact, my deep distrust of Zuckerberg, coupled with my knowledge of what augmented reality and VR technology can do, is what’s making me view Meta’s mission differently than others. But I think many of the people spiking the football over his obsession with the metaverse are exaggerating when they frame it as an outright calamity. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone more eager than me to dunk on Zuckerberg. ![]() Like with social media, we need policies to protect the VR space from abuse and manipulation. By which I mean: Don’t get so confident Zuckerberg’s plan will fail that you neglect to think about what happens if it doesn’t. And particularly to those who don’t obsess over this technology and its implications, it sounds surreal.īut I do obsess over this technology, and I have a warning for all of us when it comes to Meta’s seeming plunge: Don’t hate regulate. Meta, the name created for the apps and technologies company last year, is a testament to this commitment: a reference to the virtual world - the “metaverse” - accessible through this headset.
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