philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Real Calamity Far Outpaces Virtual Reality At Struggling Social Media Pioneer Meta Networks

... Meanwhile, poor privacy choices made long ago have come back to haunt Zuckerberg. In the early years Facebook was heavily dependent on third-party developers to drive growth. User and demographic data was routinely made available. The flaw in this business model became apparent in 2018 when Cambridge Analytica used this data to drive disinformation campaigns during the 2016 presidential election run-up.

VR is Zuckerberg’s plan to own the foundation, and build business models with Meta at the core.

This new strategy popped up Tuesday all over the Quest Pro reveal. Several big corporations appeared to be latching onto Meta’ VR coattails. Among other deals, the company announced partnerships with Microsoft (MSFT) for its Teams, Office, and Windows 365 software suites. The Redmond, Wash,-based company’s official blog notes that Xbox Cloud Gaming will also be ported to Meta headsets. YouTube is moving its massive VR video platform to Quest. And NBCUniversal will bring its Peacock streaming application and other content to Quest headsets, according to a report at Variety. ...

And that’s the rub. Meta’s VR business simply is not big enough to offset its lost revenue from the Apple OS changes. Plenty of people believe VR will never be foundational at Meta. Convincing people to buy expensive computers they will wear on their faces is a tougher sell than building a smartphone application for a device most people feel they can’t live without. ...

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2022/12/09/real-calamity-far-outpaces-virtual-reality-at-struggling-social-media-pioneer-meta-networks/?sh=536fdad0172d