Vishal Shah, the vice president in charge of the metaverse of Meta, is faced with a bitter realization. Facebook’s virtual universe, Horizon Worlds, has great difficulty attracting users. Internally, company employees are increasingly forced to join this metaverse.
A technology that struggles to convince
A year ago, the Facebook company took a radical turn metaverse by renaming Meta. Since then, she has multiplied investments in the field, to the point of creating her own metaverse: Horizon Worlds
Today, between the bugs, the bad user experience, and a relatively small audience, Horizon Worlds not unanimous. Each month, it is estimated that nearly 300,000 people log in to Horizon Worlds, which is relatively few compared to the 2.9 billion monthly users on Facebook.
But before creating a metaverse, the American firm would still have to have teams that believe in this technology.
According to a survey, 58% of Meta employees understand the company’s strategy around the metaverse. However, when we take a closer look at the uses related to the metaverse in the company, the results are disappointing.
On September 15, 2022, the vice president responsible for the metaverse of Meta, Vishal Shah, sent a message to his teams. In particular, he asserts his disappointment with the low number of collaborators using Horizon Worlds.
“Why don’t we like the product, which we are working on so much, enough to be able to use it all the time?” The simple truth is, if we don’t like it, how can we expect our users to like it? »
To remedy this problem, the leaders of the firm have found a trick unstoppable : force their teams to go to the metaverse.
👉 On the same theme – Metaverse: understanding these virtual worlds based on blockchain and NFTs
Threats from the executive
” Hop on or go » : here is the message sent by Mark Zuckerberg to his employees, a few months ago.
Since, the CEO of Meta has decided to sort out its workforce : the company’s recruitments are temporarily frozen, budgets have been reduced, and a major turnover of employees is underway.
In addition, the creator of Facebook is needed to implement his ideas.
In particular, he asked managers to hold meetings in virtual conference rooms on Horizon Worlds. Many employees then rushed to buy a virtual reality (VR) headset at their own expense..
On his side, Vishal Shah has a more ambivalent posture. On the one hand, he puts pressure on his collaborators by asking them to use Horizon Worlds at least once a week. On the other hand, he tries to convince his teams in a clumsy and intrusive way:
“Everyone in the company should have a vocation to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t be in love without using it. […] Make time to go there with your colleagues and friends. »
By this message, the person in charge of the metaverse of Meta puts himself in a delicate position. Involuntarily, he points the finger the lack of usefulness perceived by its teams about the firm’s metaverse.
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The company’s crew in the midst of a split
Despite several billion dollars spent by Meta to build Horizon Worlds, we can wonder what need this virtual space really meets. This ambiguity is noted by Vishal Shah himself :
“We are working on a product that has not found its place on the market. I need you to fully embrace ambiguity and change. »
Another interesting fact: the metaverse of Meta is not unanimous even within the executive.
John Carmack, the technical director of Oculus (subsidiary of Meta), affirms his opposition to Mark Zuckerberg. According to him, the management of Horizon Worlds is chaotic.
Furthermore, he points out the abandonment of the user experience in favor of commercial opportunitiesas well as the billions of euros spent without any receipts.
Meanwhile, metaverses more in line with user needs are developing. During its season 2, the metaverse The Sandbox brought together approximately 350,000 monthly users, more than the results of Horizon Worlds. What to question the management of Meta on its metaverse?
👉 To go further, find our presentation of the Sandbox project
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Sources: The New York Times, The Verge
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Always enthusiastic about new technologies, I gradually moved closer to activities related to Web3 during the year 2021. Over time, I wanted to add my stone to the building. It was then that I became an editor, with the aim of explaining cryptocurrency-related topics to as many people as possible.
Timothy Bourbotte
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