Zuckerberg’s Vision for the Metaverse:
Zuckerberg envisions the metaverse as the successor to the mobile internet, offering a more immersive experience that feels like being present with others, regardless of physical distance.

Feeling Present, Expressing Joyfully:
The metaverse will enable people to express themselves in new and joyful ways, unlocking amazing experiences that go beyond what’s possible with current technology.

Examples of Immersive Interactions:
Zuckerberg provides examples of how the metaverse can enhance interactions: parents feeling present with grandkids through videos, playing games together in virtual worlds, and having meetings with a sense of shared space.

Embodied Internet:
Zuckerberg describes the metaverse as an embodied internet, where users can be in the experience, not just looking at it, creating a more natural and vivid way to connect, be entertained, and work.

Beyond Screens:
The metaverse is not about spending more time on screens but about enhancing the time already spent online by providing a deeper sense of connection and presence.

Technology Built Around People:
Zuckerberg emphasizes the importance of building technology around people and their experiences, creating an internet centered on human interaction and emotions.

Understanding Through Experience:
Zuckerberg acknowledges the challenge in describing the metaverse without experiencing it, as it’s still in its early stages of development.

Exploring the Future:
Instead of focusing on yearly product updates, Zuckerberg suggests shifting attention to the future, exploring different types of metaverse experiences, beginning with connecting with people.

Metaverse Experience:
The Metaverse: An immersive virtual environment where users can interact and socialize using avatars. Feeling of Presence: Users feel as if they are physically present in the virtual space alongside others.

Avatars:
Avatars Represent Users: 3D representations that embody users in the Metaverse. Expressive Avatars: Facial expressions and body language convey emotions and intentions. Versatile Avatar Wardrobe: Different avatars for various occasions, from professional to stylized to fantastical. Cross-Platform Avatars: Avatars and digital items are portable across different apps and experiences.

Home Space:
Personal Space: Users can design their own home space, displaying personal items and digital goods. Socializing and Gaming: Invite friends to hang out, play games, or work together in a virtual home office. Central Hub: The home space serves as a gateway to teleport to various locations in the Metaverse.

Teleportation:
Seamless Movement: Teleporting between different spaces, including games and worlds, is as easy as clicking a link. Open Standard: Teleportation is an open standard, ensuring seamless movement across platforms.

Interoperability:
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Avatars and digital items can be used across different apps and experiences. API Support: Developers can leverage an API to enable cross-platform interoperability. Item Ownership: Users retain ownership of their virtual items, avoiding platform lock-in.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Vision for a Privacy-focused Metaverse:
Emphasizes privacy and safety as fundamental principles of the metaverse, allowing users to control interactions and seek privacy when needed.

Digital Representation in the Metaverse:
Users can bring elements from the physical world into the metaverse, transforming media, art, and more into virtual and augmented reality experiences. Physical objects like TV screens can be replaced with holograms, providing immersive and interactive experiences.

Diverse Device Compatibility:
The metaverse will be accessible across various devices, including virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, computers, and phones, allowing for seamless transitions between different platforms.

Natural Interaction with Devices:
New forms of interaction, such as hand gestures, voice commands, and thought control, will eliminate the need for traditional input methods, creating a more immersive and natural experience.

Horizon: Zuckerberg’s Social Platform for the Metaverse:
Horizon is Meta’s social platform for the metaverse, providing a space for users to create and interact within this virtual realm. Horizon Home serves as the user’s virtual home space, customizable and designed for social interaction with friends and family.

Horizon Worlds for Building and Sharing Immersive Experiences:
Horizon Worlds enables users to build and explore immersive worlds, fostering creativity and collaboration. Users can create games, host events, and enjoy shared experiences with others in this virtual realm.

Horizon Workrooms for Collaboration in Virtual Reality:
Horizon Workrooms facilitates collaboration in virtual reality, providing a dedicated space for remote teams to connect and work together.

Messenger Calls in Virtual Reality:
Meta is expanding Messenger calls to virtual reality, allowing users to invite friends to join them in virtual spaces or games.

Unleashing the Metaverse with Social Experiences:
Dive into the Metaverse with cross-platform connectivity, enabling shared experiences like concerts and after-parties regardless of geographical boundaries. Engage with fellow virtual attendees, explore exclusive digital swag, and connect with artists for new musical content.

Enriching the World with Spatial Computing:
Advancements in spatial computing enhance how we perceive the world, adding interactive layers of digital objects seamlessly integrated into the physical environment. Create and interact with realistic 3D objects that respond to their surroundings, responding realistically and offering a true sense of depth and occlusion.

Empowering Creators in the Metaverse:
Spark AR tools empower creators to craft immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences, transforming simple visual effects into fully interactive 3D objects. Facilitate cohesive storytelling across physical locations, such as guided tours or scavenger hunts, by interconnecting different sites within the AR framework. Foster a vibrant Metaverse economy by establishing a Horizon marketplace for creators to sell and share unique 3D digital items, generating new revenue streams.

Accelerating the Metaverse’s Growth:
The Metaverse’s sustainability hinges on a thriving ecosystem supporting hundreds of thousands of creators and developers actively building this virtual realm. Enabling creators and developers to earn a substantial living through their contributions is essential to maintaining a robust Metaverse economy.

Gaming in the Metaverse:
Metaverse gaming experiences: From immersive fantasy worlds to everyday holograms. New ways to play: Head-to-head with global players, advanced gameplay features, innovative game types.

VR and AR Ecosystem:
Zuckerberg’s emphasis on building a robust VR and AR ecosystem for game studios and creators. Partnership with Vertigo Games for five more captivating games.

Live Service Games:
Focus on live service games with regular updates and downloadable content. Examples: Echo VR, Beat Saber, Onward, Pistol Whip, ensuring active gaming communities. Beat Saber’s success: $100 million revenue on Quest alone, constant content updates, evolving music interaction.

Population 1:
Thrilling battle royale game exclusive to VR. One of the highest-earning games on Quest, largest multiplayer FPS on the platform. Upcoming updates: Autumn event in November, Winter Wonderland in December.

Blade and Sorcery Nomad:
Medieval fantasy sandbox combining magic and melee combat, built specifically for VR. Launching on Quest later this year.

Oculus Gaming Showcase 2022:
A dedicated event showcasing upcoming gaming titles for the metaverse. Highly anticipated news and announcements.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas:
Rockstar Games classic coming to Quest 2 in a new VR version. Offers a completely novel way to experience the iconic open world in virtual reality.

Fitness in the Metaverse:
Fitness in the metaverse: Unique experiences beyond traditional workouts. Examples: Boxing lessons, sword fighting, dancing. Working out in new worlds, against AI, or with friends globally. AR fitness activities like charity cycling rides. Training with Olympic athletes virtually.

Fitness Accessory Pack:
Accessories for enhanced comfort during VR fitness experiences. Controller grips for intense workouts and a sweat-resistant facial interface. Arriving in 2023.

Remote Work in the Metaverse:
Metaverse as a tool for remote work, enabling a sense of presence and collaboration. Creating a perfect work setup with enhanced capabilities. Eliminating distractions and focusing on tasks.

Immersive Workspaces:
Present work to colleagues as if physically present in a shared virtual space. Horizon Workrooms: already launched with planned future features like room customization and new office space in Horizon Home.

2D Progressive Web Apps for the Quest Store:
Introduced 2D progressive web apps for Quest, facilitating easy access to 2D internet services like Dropbox, Slack, Facebook, and Instagram in VR.

Expanding Beyond Personal Facebook Accounts:
Q1 2023: testing work account support on Quest. Working towards a broader shift within the next year, allowing users to log into Quest with non-personal accounts.

Benefits of Working in the Metaverse:
Hybrid work models made more efficient with immersive presence tools. Wider job opportunities for people in different locations. Reduced environmental impact by eliminating daily commutes and business travel.

Potential and Broader Implications:
Teleportation and shared virtual space interactions valuable in various experiences beyond work. Marnie, the Chief Business Officer, will discuss additional aspects of the metaverse.

Education:
The metaverse revolutionizes learning experiences, allowing students to explore subjects in immersive environments. Virtual field trips to ancient Rome and in-depth studies of the solar system bring history and astrophysics to life. Hands-on training for medical students and mechanics with VR apps enhances practical skills development. Renowned experts like David Attenborough guide users through immersive natural history documentaries.

Investing in the Next Generation:
Meta pledges $150 million to train the next generation of creators who will build immersive learning content. Collaboration with Coursera and edX to offer certified professional curriculum in AR effect creation on Spark AR.

Open Ecosystem and Low Fees:
Meta advocates for an open ecosystem where creators and developers have choice and freedom. Continual subsidization or cost-price sales of devices to increase accessibility. Support for sideloading and linking to PCs ensures consumers and developers have options. Low fees for developer and creator services to foster a thriving creator economy.

A Billion-Dollar Metaverse:
Meta’s vision for the metaverse involves a billion active users, hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce, and millions of jobs for creators and developers.

Vishal Shah on Metaverse Commerce:
Vishal Shah, head of Metaverse products, emphasizes Meta’s commitment to keeping fees low and providing choice. Years of investment in commerce and creators pave the way for the metaverse’s commercial potential.

Continuous Access to Digital Purchases:
The metaverse will offer users a sense of continuity, ensuring that their digital purchases remain accessible across different platforms and spaces, unlike current limitations within individual apps or games.

Transferable Digital Assets:
Digital items, such as custom skins for avatars, will no longer be confined to specific platforms, allowing users to seamlessly transfer and utilize them across various virtual spaces.

Business Opportunities in the Metaverse:
Creators can establish businesses in the metaverse by creating digital objects, offering services and experiences, or building entire worlds. The goal is to foster innovation and diversity among creators, enabling them to unlock groundbreaking ideas.

Audience Expansion for Creators:
Creators will have access to broader audiences, allowing their creations to reach users across different platforms and spaces. This ensures that fans can purchase and utilize digital assets, such as signature effects, regardless of the platform they visit.

Diverse Creator Roles:
The metaverse will encompass a wide range of creators, including those who craft digital objects, offer services and experiences, and build immersive worlds.

Businesses as Creators:
Businesses will play a significant role as creators, developing digital spaces, selling both physical and digital goods, and leveraging advertising to reach their target customers.

New Ownership Models and Entitlements:
The metaverse will explore innovative ownership models and entitlements, ensuring users feel confident in their ownership of digital assets. This will facilitate the secure buying, selling, and reselling of limited edition digital objects, such as NFTs, within the metaverse.

Co-Creation in the Metaverse:
The metaverse’s development is a collaborative effort involving creators, developers, and entrepreneurs. Engaging with individuals like Jackie Aina, a beauty creator and lifestyle brand owner, fosters discussions and insights into the potential of the metaverse.

Jackie Aina’s Origins in Influencer Culture:
Jackie Aina reflects on early experiences of rejection and feeling “othered” when seeking beauty advice from traditional sources, like makeup counters. Inspired by personal frustration, she decided to create content and share her experiences with others, thereby demonstrating that it is possible to embrace and celebrate unique skin tones and styles.

From Content Creation to Product: Forever Mood:
Jackie Aina’s creative journey led to the development of her brand, Forever Mood, highlighting her passion for fragrance and her desire to share her love of color and creativity. Forever Mood, inspired by her close relationship with her mother, has received positive support and success, particularly through Instagram shopping features.

The Metaverse as a Creative Platform:
Jackie Aina envisions the metaverse as a powerful tool to enhance creativity and foster community. She emphasizes the importance of color, emphasizing its role in her brand and her personal style. Within the metaverse, Jackie sees the potential for curating collections, brainstorming ideas, and creating immersive atmospheres that stimulate creativity.

Building Community and Engaging Fans:
Jackie Aina stresses the significance of interacting with people in comment sections and having conversations to establish deeper connections with her fanbase. She acknowledges the excitement and joy she experiences when engaging with her followers, emphasizing the power of humanizing individuals behind comments. Jackie sees the metaverse as an opportunity to explore new ways of building community and engaging with fans on a deeper level, beyond traditional comment box interactions.

Exclusive Experiences and Fan Engagement:
Jackie Aina proposes the idea of hosting exclusive launch parties in the metaverse, where fans from anywhere in the world could participate. This concept was inspired by her desire to create pop-up events during the pandemic when travel was restricted, allowing fans to experience her brand in a unique and immersive way. The metaverse offers the opportunity for fans to experience the atmosphere and emotions that Jackie aims to create through her products, such as scents and moods. Additionally, the metaverse could provide a platform for reaching new customers through advertising and dropping exclusive products accessible only to ardent fans with special access.

Building Ecosystems for Creators:
Commerce will play a significant role in the metaverse, enabling the sale of both digital and physical products. Mark Zuckerberg acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding monetization in the metaverse, emphasizing the need for humility and openness to explore various models. The metaverse is anticipated to provide numerous opportunities for individuals, similar to how the internet has created new jobs.

Presence:
Boz emphasizes the importance of realistic presence for feeling connected in the metaverse. The Presence Platform introduces machine perception and AI capabilities to empower developers to create mixed reality experiences on Quest 2. Focus on environmental understanding, content placement and persistence, voice interaction, and standardized hand interactions. The Interaction SDK facilitates the integration of natural hand interactions into apps. The Voice SDK enables developers to incorporate voice input for innovative gameplay and navigation. Pass-Through API allows developers to ship mixed reality apps on the Oculus Store and in App Lab. Spatial Anchors and Scene Understanding enhance the seamlessness of mixed-reality experiences.

Mixed Reality Experiences:
Developers can build a new generation of mixed reality experiences on Quest 2, blending virtual and real-world elements. Demonstration of persistent virtual objects layered on an interactive environment. Boz highlights the potential for building forests and other immersive environments in living rooms.

Empowering Augmented Reality (AR) Creators:
Spark AR focuses on AR experiences that promote connectivity while maintaining engagement with the surrounding world. AR Curriculum initiative has enrolled over 22,000 creators, with additional programs for advanced creators. Creators are leveraging AR to bring moments like Mars landings and album launches to life. AR experiences are integrated across Facebook, including augmented calls and multiplayer games. Polar, a new tool, simplifies AR creation for novice creators with no prior experience. The metaverse can be a strong digital economy for creators from diverse backgrounds, fostering opportunities to share creativity and capitalize on emerging possibilities.

Challenges and Concerns:
The rapid emergence of new technologies often leads to challenges and uncertainties, especially regarding how to ensure responsible development.

Balancing Innovation and Regulation:
Mark Zuckerberg believes that the metaverse can be developed responsibly, given the years before its full realization. Interoperability, open standards, privacy, and safety must be built into the metaverse from the start. Novel technologies should be developed responsibly from the beginning.

Lessons from the Past:
Zuckerberg emphasizes the importance of learning from the past, where companies were accused of moving too quickly, and regulators struggled to keep up. The metaverse presents an opportunity to avoid this by building in responsible principles from the start.

Responsible Innovation Principles:
“Never surprise people”: Transparency about how things work, data collection, and data usage. Easy-to-use safety controls, age guidance, and parental controls.

Collaboration with Experts:
Meta engages with experts and seeks external perspectives before building products. Designing for safety, privacy, and inclusion before products exist.

Project ARIA:
Project ARIA, Meta’s research device, informs the development of AR glasses. Meta funds external research on the impact of AR, VR, and smart devices on underrepresented communities.

XR Programs and Research Fund:
A $50 million investment in programs and external research with organizations worldwide. Collaboration with universities and organizations to build an inclusive and empowering metaverse.

Building for Interoperability, Openness, Safety, and Privacy:
Meta emphasizes the importance of these principles across the industry. They should be fundamental building blocks of the metaverse.

Project Cambria, a high-end VR device with advanced features, will be released next year. Cambria’s avatars feature natural eye contact and real-time facial expression mirroring. High-resolution mixed reality pass-through with depth and perspective will enhance mixed reality experiences. Pancake Optics in Cambria enable a slimmer profile by folding light multiple times. The Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses offer features such as photo/video capture, music playback, and phone calls while maintaining a normal appearance. Project Nazare represents Meta’s development of full augmented reality glasses, featuring hologram displays, projectors, custom silicon chips, and advanced sensors. Meta’s research team, led by Michael Abrash, is working on a broad range of technologies for the next generation metaverse, including displays, audio, input, haptics, and AI. Avatars are a key component of the metaverse, with the goal of creating realistic and stylized avatars that foster a deep sense of presence.

Researching Avatars:
Avatars in the metaverse will offer users the freedom to customize their appearance, from shaving or styling hair to applying makeup or getting tattoos. Hair and skin rendering technology is being developed to create highly detailed and realistic avatars, showcasing individual pores on the skin.

Clothing and Hand Interaction:
Clothing simulation will allow users to accurately represent their style, whether replicating real garments or choosing virtual outfits. Hand-cloth interaction demonstrates realistic cloth movement and stretching when avatars touch or manipulate objects.

Virtual Spaces and Realistic Rendering:
Realistic virtual spaces are crucial for immersive experiences in the metaverse. Researchers have developed a 3D reconstruction technology that allows users to move objects in real time, with high-fidelity rendering and without the presence of the researcher, differentiating it from CGI.

Full-Body Avatars in Virtual Reality:
Full-body avatars have been showcased, including Kodak avatars that can move, look around, and make facial expressions. Elaine, in VR, can interact with Yasir’s avatar in a reconstructed real-world space, demonstrating the potential for real-time interactions with realistic avatars.

Avatar Security:
Researchers are considering methods to secure avatars, such as linking them to authenticated accounts or verifying identity through other means, to prevent unauthorized use.

Challenges in the Metaverse:
While users can see their hands and manipulate objects during virtual interactions, a more intuitive way to interact with content when wearing AR glasses is required. To fully realize the potential of the metaverse, users need easy and seamless ways to navigate and interact with virtual spaces.

EMG Input and Contextualized AI:
EMG (electromyography) input from the muscles on the wrist, combined with contextualized AI, offers a potential solution. Simple and subtle gestures can be translated into digital commands using neuromotor signals, allowing users to control devices without explicitly looking at a screen.

Potential Use Cases:
EMG input could enable features like sending messages, typing, and accessing personalized controls in AR glasses. AI integration provides contextual awareness, allowing the system to offer proactive assistance and voice-activated location tracking.

A Vision for the Metaverse’s Development:
Zuckerberg emphasizes that the metaverse should be built collaboratively by creators, developers, and companies of all sizes. The goal is to put people at the center of technology and create a more open platform with more ways to discover and interconnect experiences.

The Shift to a Metaverse Company:
Zuckerberg believes that Facebook’s current branding does not fully encompass its diverse endeavors in the metaverse realm. The company is transitioning to report on its business as two segments: one for its family of apps and one for its work on future platforms. A new company brand will be adopted to reflect this shift and represent the metaverse-focused direction.

New Meta Brand and Mission:
Meta, the new company name, reflects the company’s mission to build the metaverse and its broader vision beyond traditional social media. Meta’s mission remains the same: bringing people together. The apps and their brands won’t change, but Meta aims to become the North Star for bringing the metaverse to life.

Metaverse as the New Focus:
Meta prioritizes the metaverse and aims to create a future where people can be present with each other, create opportunities, and experience new things beyond physical limitations. The company wants to move beyond the constraints of screens and distance to foster a more immersive and connected experience.

Beyond the Limits of Today:
Meta strives to push the boundaries of what’s possible today, transcending the limitations of screens, distance, and physics. The goal is to build a future where people can have experiences that go beyond current social media platforms.

The Metaverse as a Collaborative Endeavor:
Meta recognizes that the metaverse is not solely its responsibility but a collective effort involving various entities. The company aims to leverage its expertise to help build the next chapter of the internet.

Zuckerberg’s Dedication and Invitation:
Zuckerberg expresses his dedication to the metaverse, asserting that Meta is investing more energy in this pursuit than any other company. He invites people who share this vision to join Meta in shaping the future of the metaverse.