Who Will Win the Metaverse? Not Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook
The social networking giant and its CEO have vast ambitions to dominate the next big thing in computing, but other tech giants are in a better position to turn the hype into reality.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is staking a claim on the metaverse, but other tech giants are in a better position to conquer that virtual world
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Did you hear? Facebook Inc. is going to become a metaverse company. At least that’s the story its management wants everyone to believe after a flurry of interviews and announcements over the past couple of weeks. It’s a narrative that seeks to put the social-media giant at the leading edge of one of the most audacious concepts in tech. I’m skeptical.
But first, what exactly is the metaverse? The term was created by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 dystopian novel “Snow Crash” to describe a virtual space where people interact with one another through user-controlled avatars. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball has also written extensively on what he believes are the main attributes of a metaverse, including a full-functioning economy, its real-time persistence (no pausing), and interoperability of digital “belongings” such as clothing across multiple platforms. Here’s how I would simplify it: Think of it as a futuristic version of an always-on multiplayer video game where you can play, socialize or even run a moneymaking business in a realistic computer-generated environment.