FP StaffOct 10, 2022 16:23:41 IST
Facebook, or as it is now known, Meta, was one of the first tech companies to go all in on the Metaverse. The concept of the Metaverse itself was somewhat made popular by Meta. The Metaverse was supposed to be the next phase of Facebook, the social media platform’s evolution. Unfortunately, it seems that Meta has squandered the opportunity of cashing in on Metaverse. Evidently, Meta’s Metaverse is so bad, that it has to force its employees to use it.
One of the first public images from Meta’s Metaverse app called Horizon Worlds. Meta says the human figure is of Mark Zuckerberg. Image Credit: Meta
Meta’s version of the Metaverse can be accessed through an app called Horizon Worlds. All you need to do, is put on a virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift S and Meta Quest 2, log in and, and you’re good to go. But so jarring has been the experience that not even Meta’s employees are using the app regularly.
An internal memo from Meta has leaked online, which says that the company would “hold managers accountable” for their teams using it.
One of the biggest challenges for Meta has been getting people to buy the VR headsets that they need to get into and interact with the Metaverse. It is currently available through the company’s Oculus Rift S and Meta Quest 2 VR headsets, and will be available on the upcoming Meta Quest Pro VR/AR headset, which is expected to have a similar spec to the long-awaited Apple Headset.
A major part of Meta’s vision for Horizon Worlds is that it will be used by businesses as well as consumers. However, given that even the engineers at Meta who helped develop Horizon Worlds aren’t spending as much time as the company would like them to.
In a number of leaked memos which are being attributed to Vishal Shah, Meta’s lead for Metverse operations states that employees at Meta aren’t using the new App and the VR system to log into Horizon Worlds. A September 15 Memo reads:
“For many of us, we don’t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly…Why is that? Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time? The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?”
Another memo from Shah, just 15 days later, dated September 30 reads:
“Employees still aren’t using Horizon enough…hold managers accountable for having their teams use Horizon at least once a week. Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community.”
People outside of Meta who have experienced Horizon Worlds have reported that the app is buggy, jittery, and has some stability issues. Furthermore, the onboarding experience is confusing and frustrating for users. There are issues that Shah and the Meta team are fully aware of, and are trying to resolve.
