Facebook today announced the XR Programs and Research Fund, a two-year initiative to fund both internal and external research as the company investigates the future of online social interactions. According to the announcement, it is a "starting point" for Facebook as it attempts to collaborate.
Facebook a metaverse, company-Mark Zuckerberg
With an eye on a metaverse-driven future, the company
appears to be attempting to stay ahead of the critics through careful
investment and collaboration. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook,
stated in June that the social media giant is on a path to become a "metaverse
company." Now, the company is putting its money where its mouth is,
announcing plans to invest $50 million over the next two years in helping to
bring the metaverse to life.
Metaverse
The metaverse, in essence, refers to shared online spaces in
which users—represented by 3D avatars—coexist and interact with one another. It
has already been depicted in films like "Snow Crash" and "Ready
Player One," and Ethereum-based metaverse worlds like Decentraland (shown
above) and CryptoVoxels already exist. Another notable example is the upcoming
game The Sandbox.
Along with enabling new social and gaming experiences,
proponents of the metaverse believe it will also help to change the nature of
work and provide new digital economic opportunities to users all over the
world. It's similar to how DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations, are
being built to disrupt traditional business models.
Metaverse and Facebook collaboration
It's heady, potentially revolutionary stuff, which is why
some metaverse builders are alarmed at the prospect of Facebook taking the lead
in metaverse development. Faced with criticism for its track record on user
privacy and misinformation, Facebook announced today that it will build
metaverse products “responsibly” through this initiative.
“We will collaborate with experts from government, industry, and academia to think through issues and opportunities in the metaverse,” according to the official announcement. “For example, its success is dependent on establishing strong interoperability across services, so that the experiences of different companies can complement one another. We must also include human rights and civil liberties, advocates.
The Organization of American States, Women in Immersive
Tech, and African organizations Electric South, Africa No Filter, and Imisi3D
are among Facebook's initial partners in the $50 million initiative. On these
efforts, the firm will also consult with researchers from Seoul National
University, The University of Hong Kong, and the National University of
Singapore.
Regardless of how these early efforts develop, Facebook has
already stated that it does not intend to create or manage the eventual
metaverse on its own. And this is most likely just the start of a long process.
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