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Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

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Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#371

Post by failTide »

eludwig wrote: post #294
Benjammer wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been convinced that physical immersion will ever be as compelling to the human brain as mental immersion through good story-telling. Having my real-life body and physical attributes thrust directly into a story/game just seems like the most non-immersive thing possible to me unless the game is entirely designed around moving the body, like DDR or Beat Saber or whatever.

This is what the makers of text adventures said about graphic adventures, just in a different dimensional context. And we all know how that turned out... :-/

True, although I still feel more immersed in a good text adventure than some of the best AAA games out there. I played 'Lost Pig' [1] about a year ago and the 'visuals' are still fresh in my mind.

https://pr-if.org/play/lostpig/

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#373

Post by Macha »

chaostheory wrote: post #200
haunter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What people want is an escape from reality. I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak WoW _was_ a social network something Zuck is dreaming about (and that's while you also have to pay a monthly sub). I've read around and some people say that the difference people can _create content_ in Metaverse but... sandbox MMOs are also a thing for a long t…

> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. You actually have to try VR to better understand. Google Cardboard doesn’t count Rec Room and VR chat are good places to start

Rec Room and VRChat are like earlier social MMOs, but with the inherent appeal leaving them attractive enough to cut out the pretense of gameplay (e.g. OSRS, MUDs, were not that dissimilar in being mostly about chatting with a distraction present)

It also raises the question of what Facebook's metaverse could do that VRChat and Rec Room haven't. VRChat is the more successful of the two and has achieved the level of success of "video game more popular than you might realise", which for the small dev team is enough for a profitable business.

How do you make it profitable at meta scale? NFTs, loot boxes and cosmetic microtransactions seem to be the prospects raised by people promoting such ideas. But then how is VRChat + microtransactions - your local modder's blatant copyright infringement more appealing than VRChat?

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#374

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

berberous wrote: post #364
frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

Well, I strongly disagree. I would be shocked if VR/metaverse does not massively grow within the next 10 years. I think the headsets alone will continue to get massively better which will convert most of humanity, just like how much better iPhones got since the first one. In fact, I would bet anything on the foregoing, as I have near total confidence in that aspect. It’s much harder to figure out which companies will…

All the parts and pieces to make the iPhone were available in the 2000s.

I’m not so sure about VR. It’s a huge power hog. Either the battery life would be limited or you’d need to carry around a backpack to keep it running or it would stay at your desk with more wires in your head than a William Gibson protagonist.

I could see some limited use cases for VR, like training and education. But as a replacement of the world in the way smartphones have been? I just don’t get how that will be physically/technologically possible.

But if there’s evidence to the contrary believe me I would love to change my mind.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#375

Post by zmmmmm »

infamouscow wrote: post #174
tempsy wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that FB hasn’t actually proven they can build something from scratch that reaches critical mass. They would’ve have been long doomed had they not bought Instagram. Every other popular app eg Oculus and Whatsapp was also acquired.

Zuckerberg created a culture of copying rather than innovating, driving out all of the talented employees. The long-term consequences of that leave you with a banal organization incapable of shifting with the market.

Interesting then that the community has massively adopted React and PyTorch as defacto defaults for web dev and deep learning. How is it that these untalented lifer's left behind are doing these wildly crazy good technical things?

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#376

Post by narrator »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #330
oliwary wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell from the material Meta has released, they have an incredibly ambitious vision for the metaverse. Essentially, I believe they want to create glasses that you wear, that allow you to see other people in your space, wherever they are. So you could have a conversation with three friends in your living room, as if they were there, while they could be on different continents, making physical location i…

Waiting for the Meta "power glove" too. What, wrong decade?

For those of you who missed the 80s and the movie The Wizard (1989) which immortalized the Nintendo Power Glove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AacoxHFYvZw

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#377

Post by kibwen »

zmmmmm wrote: post #345
clpm4j wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say, that based on my family and friends who I occasionally watch TV shows and movies with, I'm the only person who is able to focus on the TV screen without my phone in sight. Everyone else I know is constantly half-listening, half-watching, while simultaneously browsing IG, Zillow, YT, TikTok, etc. I think our very real phone addictions are going to play an adverse role in VR adoption until the VR app spa…

I don't think it'll be particularly hard to mirror your phone screen into your virtual space. Closely similar things are already done in a bunch of apps.

The mental image of a bunch of virtual avatars sitting at a table on the moon all silently staring at their virtual phones and scrolling through reddit seems so hilariously stupid that it just might happen.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#378

Post by zmmmmm »

nickdothutton wrote: post #116
frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

Augmented reality will beat virtual reality.

Not exactly .... what will really happen is the distinction will go away.

All the next gen VR headsets are building in color passthrough so that they effectively operate as AR devices - but better ones in some ways because they can actually replace reality fully when they want to, not be constrained to just tweaking it.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#379

Post by colinmhayes »

bozhark wrote: post #283
toast0 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I worked at WhatsApp, part of Facebook, until the end of 2019. If you think the name change means they're focusing on the metaverse, that's just convenient. The fact is, Facebook is a toxic brand and Meta is just a silly looking brand. Post name change, they can do acquisitions and brand them as X by Meta without associating to the toxic brand. (Plus, maybe they can get the Mennen ad team to add 'by Meta'…

Reality: the name change doesn’t hide anything. Neat to think they believe it does.

They wouldn't have done it if they didn't have evidence showing that you are wrong.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#380

Post by jrochkind1 »

baobob wrote: post #365
jrochkind1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you saw only one set of tracking cookies, it was then that Mark Zuckerberg was carrying you.

It's curious how gentle the transition for many companies from powerhouse to irrelevance is in the common perception. To realize they're already at the point where intelligent ridicule supplants impassioned critique kinda blows my mind, and as far as I can tell you're not wrong.

Honestly, I just thought Sandberg was laying it on a little thick with "I have never had to turn to Mark, because he was already there."

But this is probably my most upvoted HN comment ever, which mostly just makes me ashamed.

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