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Ever since Facebook officially became Meta, the social and technology landscape have been hearing a lot more about the "metaverse.” But what exactly is this digital environment going to look like? Does anyone know yet? And what will it mean for social media marketing?

Here are takeaways from a few articles we’ve been reading lately that begin to answer these questions.

Wait, what’s a metaverse?

Metaverse is a term we'll be hearing more and more. It basically refers to a sprawling Ready Player One-esque virtual ecosystem in which people can do a myriad of things.

Right now, there really isn't one. It's more of a moonshot idea of what an interconnected digital world could become. Here's one good explainer article.

However, Facebook’s Horizon World and others are getting close to a real metaverse. Microsoft recently announced their Mesh for Microsoft Teams product as well. Microsoft also said that the promise of the metaverse was key to its recent $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

“The metaverse allows us to embed computing into the real world, and the real world into computing.”

— Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft)

But why is Facebook (Meta) obsessed with it?

The metaverse is being viewed as the next frontier of online social interaction. By formally changing Facebook’s name to Meta, the company has clearly signalled it believes this is where everything is heading—and they want to be seen as the leaders in this space.

Meta has already done a good job of building the foundation for this. Their Oculus system is viewed as a leading player, with the headsets considered by many to be the best out there right now.

Meta also has what is likely the closest mainstream “thing” to a true “metaverse” in the Horizon Worlds platform. This experience, billed as “a social experience where you can explore, play and create,” is now available to download on the Oculus Quest 2.

Mark Zuckerberg has said that Horizon is core to the future of Meta’s metaverse—and that soon you won’t need a VR headset to partcipate, but can also use mobile phones:

“Horizon is core to our metaverse vision. This is our social VR world-building experience [...]. And this year, we plan to launch a version of Horizon on mobile too, that will bring early metaverse experiences to more surfaces beyond VR. So while the deepest and most immersive experiences are going to be in virtual reality, you’re also going to be able to access the worlds from your Facebook or Instagram apps as well, and probably more over time.””

— Mark Zuckerberg

What’s it going to look like?

Right now, Horizon Worlds looks a little something like this:

There have been a few demos/prototypes of where things are going, too:

Cool. So what can I do right now?

Here are a few resources:

• How Brands can get started in the metaverse – Meta provides augmented reality (AR) effects and experiences, with tutorials in the Spark AR Studio and how to publish/share on the Spark AR Hub.

• How to prepare for the metaverse – In this Social Media Examiner article, learn about how you can get a headstart by participating in VR gaming and by considering questions such as, “Should you or your brand create a virtual world?”

What else is in the works?

• BuilderBot – As seen in the video above, one feature in the works will help creators make new worlds using voice commands and other AI advances.

• The AI-Powered Future of Shopping – The FB Tech folks explain the vision of shopping in the Metaverse.

• Improving Conversational AI – Learn about the CAIRaoke project and why it will be essential in the metaverse.

• Building metaverse-ready networks – This post outlines the needed technological infrastructure to make this dream a reality, including global partnership efforts and higher speed connection.

• Writing for the Metaverse – Hear from Meta’s VP of Content Design on how writing and content strategy professionals are pivoting for this future.

• Personal Boundaries in Horizon Worlds and Venues – One of the new features in a series of updates that shows Meta is trying to anticipate the negative aspects of these new experiences before they get out of hand.

Last Question: Who else is working on the metaverse?

Despite Meta being the only prominent company to literally make the metaverse part of its brand, there are plenty of organizations with their sights set on this possible new reality.

Here’s one way to think about it… According to The Motley Fool, here are the top metaverse stocks they recommend considering for investments:

• Meta – “…responsible for bringing the metaverse trend to the forefront of investors’ minds…”

• Unity Software – “…the unequivocal leader in the 3D software space…”

• Nvidia – Owner of the Omniverse Enterprise product

• Cloudflare – “…recently launched a data-storage product that may help to meet the metaverse’s outsized data-storage needs…”

• Roblox – “…already a go-to virtual world that could be an early-stage version of a metaverse platform"…”

Other articles also mention companies such as Microsoft, Autodesk, Amazon, and Qualcomm. Social media companies that get mentioned include Snap and the Chinese company Tencent. Google and Apple have been quiet, but we can surely expect something from them as well.

See also:

How the metaverse will change your world (Meta for Business blog)

What is the Metaverse, Exactly (Social Media Today)

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Channel Updates & News:

• Facebook iOS Underreporting Down from an estimated 15% to 8% (FB Business News)

• Clubhouse adds in-room Chat (Clubhouse blog)

• You can now change your Snapchat username (Snap news)

• LinkedIn Tests New Option to Switch Off Political Posts in Your Feed (Social Media Today)

• Where YouTube is Headed in 2022 (YouTube blog)

• Twitter Tests New 'Articles' Option (Social Media Today)

• FB's "News Feed" is now just "Feed" (@aledeheath, The Verge)

• Snapchat will let users share their real-time location with friends (The Verge)

• Snapchat partnering with Ticketmaster to show nearby events in Maps (Snap Blog)

• YouTube Adds New Shorts Shelf in Channel Listings (Social Media Today)

• Meet Reddit’s new Discover tab (RedditInc blog)

Stories & Analysis

• What Feature Should Facebook Add to Improve the User Experience? (Social Media Today)

• Why Empowering Users Matters More than Privacy Policies (Snap business blog)

• Russia partially blocks Facebook for fact-checking state-owned media (The Verge)

• 12 Important Instagram Trends to Watch in 2022 (Hootsuite blog)

• Trump's Truth Social app can't beat Twitter, but it doesn't have to (The Verge)

• Top Voices in Remote Work: The 10 creators to follow (LinkedIn News)

• Examining Our Relationship with Algorithms (The Cut)

• TikTok sees a surge of misleading videos claiming to show Ukraine invasion (NPR)

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