Here is the article to read if you haven’t understood the true meaning of what Facebook will create 10,000 jobs for

On Monday, Facebook announced its intention to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union over the next five years. Ten thousand jobs and they all have the same goal: to help build the metaverse, a word that now recurs in the American company’s communications and ambitions. But what does this term mean?

For several weeks, the term has been ubiquitous in the Facebook communication: Presented as the future of the Internet, the metaverse is the new universe that the social network is betting on. For Facebook, it’sfuture IT platform“:”A new phase of interconnected virtual experiences such as virtual reality and augmented realityIn order to develop this universe, the American company announced on Monday its intention to employ 10,000 people in the European Union in the next five years, but what does this concept really mean, on which these new employees will work?

concept of literature

Before it was a technological promise, the metaverse is An idea born in science fiction .: The term was coined in 1992 by writer Neil Stephenson in virtual samurai, where a person had social interactions in a virtual world, connected to the real world, as he acted through an avatar.

We find this concept in the pop culture of the 90s and 2000s: the triptych matrix It starts from the idea that the world we live in is nothing but a great metaphor that every human indulges in at birth, without realizing it. Children’s series code lyco This concept is dismissed on the youth show, when director Steven Spielberg imagines the most successful version of the blockbuster Ready player one. this too, Characters can immerse themselves in a virtual world Where all people in the real world have avatars and their virtual interactions affect ‘real life’.

What are Metaverse apps?

In fact, There are already metaverse forms : the famous game second life, a phenomenon that occurred in the late 2000s, was its first major successful application. In this parallel world, one enters into contacts with contacts all over the world. Then came social networks like habo, where social contacts took place not on the “news feed” but in the modeling of a bustling small town; More recently, Fortnite, one of the game modes, the “Party Royale” island, is entirely dedicated to organizing virtual events such as concerts by “real” artists, or broadcasts by bands. Movie ads.

But in the long run, for Facebook, the metaverse will be able to replace the classic Internet as we know it in two dimensions: we will be able to e.g. Shop online feeling like you’re walking around in a real store…or watch videos on YouTube as if you were in a movie theater. Introduced in 2019, Facebook Horizons is one form this metaverse can take: this video game for the Oculus virtual reality platform allows you to interact with your Facebook contacts in the form of mini characters. It is currently only accessible in private beta.

Facebook even launched its first professional metaverse experience with Workrooms application, where remote work takes shape in the form of an open space or three-dimensional meeting rooms, Where, again, the workers are represented by avatars that together they can view the presentations.

What are the limits of this development?

They are currently numerous. The first is technical. To give the impression that you are immersed in this virtual universe, the tool of choice at the moment is a virtual reality headset – augmented reality has not yet offered a sufficiently effective application for the general public. However, virtual reality headsets – and in particular Oculus, which is owned by Facebook, are still heavy, unwieldy and very expensive for the most part.. So it will take a good dose of material innovation before metaverse can hope to become more than a tool… and have a chance to win public support, and capital in light of the change in cultural practices it causes.

Another hurdle: in order to spread to as many people as possible, the metaverse must be an open universe, i.e. Like the internet, you shouldn’t be anyone’s property. Every company – even every user should be able to develop their own app, their space, just as every individual or anyone can create their own website. “To bring it to life, collaboration and collaboration between companies, developers, creators and policy makers will be needed.In a highly competitive world dominated by GAFAM, this could be a bigger hurdle than anticipated.