Rebranding Facebook in the Metaversum – Is it still the Internet or already an alternative reality?

The announcement of work on Metaverse is truly the marketing event of the year. Also souring on issues of piracy, user experience and the internet of things combined with AR and VR under the guise of social media apps. Zuckerberg’s new project is the culmination of all the dreams of his technological followers and the fulfillment of a real threat postulated by a large number of analysts and thinkers. What is a metaverse? It is not yet entirely clear what it actually is, but it certainly bears the hallmarks of a perceptual revolution in the field of new media.

Before our eyes, Natalia Hatalska’s vision is coming true a world of paradoxes, The exhibition, which is held in the same place as the previous one, draws a conclusion about the interpenetration of the virtual and real worlds. This time the phenomenon is to reach an even deeper dimension, as never before.

As we might expect, this is the work of Big Tech in its purest form, a corporation under the banner of Facebook. What’s more, this fits in with the trend towards technological determinism, of which probably the greatest representatives were Daniel Bell and Gerhard Lenski. Technical determinism assumes that technology has a will of its own, develops and functions independently of the will of its users, making them themselves, as it were, a tool in achieving their own goal. Sounds both fascinating and scary, right?

Like Zuckerberg’s project, which will be worked on by some of the world’s brightest minds. Spider’s Web informed us that up to 10,000 spiders will be working on building the new venture over the next 5 years. people from all over Europe.

The vision of a new world may also bring to mind transhumanist concepts put forth by Raymond Kurzweil. In a nutshell, the idea of transhumanism dictates the use of technological advances to overcome human limitations and weaknesses. Recalling Ms. Hatalska’s figure again, she said even when technology solves a problem, it represents the cost of another shortcoming that is not yet visible. We can imagine it using nature ecosystems.

Let us use a simple analogy..

We can, yes, recklessly cull the entire population of spiders and they will no longer leave us cobwebs on our beautiful, freshly painted walls. Such an action is not only (excuse the expression) idiotic and short-sighted but, in addition to the unnecessary suffering of billions of creatures, will inevitably cause an increase in the population of other insects on which these poor spiders have fed so far. Of course I warn against harming any animals, especially our beloved spiders!

This example, although simple, is significant because, as a rule, most of the processes we can observe will have their counterparts on different levels, like sequences of source code in which the program of our reality is written. However, this is not a quibble about whether we live in the Matrix, but whether we will live in it – For the metaverse is precisely the fey matrix.

What exactly is the Metaverse supposed to be?

Exactly? – you ask. Unfortunately, this is not fully known, so the answer is not obvious. Of course, Mark Zuckerberg has outlined the main ideas and goals behind this Internet revolution, but don’t we live in a world of perfectionist expectations? It is clear that we are not able to perfectly translate our thoughts and imaginations from the world of concepts to the world of matter.

When an artist paints a picture, he knows it won’t be a perfect reflection of his imagination, and so do UX designers, who are limited by client vision, user habits, or unfortunate software, and great visionaries such as the likes of the New York Times. Nikola Tesla, who could have given the world cheap electricity, but ended up misunderstood with a pigeon as a companion in misery and poverty. So what does MZ envision the new digital reality to be?

With the answer to this question hurries us the portal politics of security.pl, who argues, and rightly so, that the existing Internet, despite its multifunctional nature, is a rather flat and one-dimensional tool. As a solution to the “problem” of the flatness of the Internet is supposed to be the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies, which instead of offering rather temporary entertainment as before, are supposed to provide a permanent kind of human interaction.

As for interactions, these are supposed to develop to the point of deceptively resembling real ones, only without the need for physical interference to maintain them. This is supposedly going to revolutionize the social system on the background of everyday life, work and relationships. “Facebookverse” is supposed to make these technologies allow us to interact with other network users, in a more tangible and multidimensional way than ever before.

Pop culture before Zuckerberg?

Marek’s idea seems revolutionary, but more because of its boldness and the controversy it arouses in observers than because of the craftsmanship of the whole visionary idea. The very idea of digital worlds has long been present in books, films, TV series and games of various types, beloved by all of us.

We could read about the metaverse in the book “Snowflake” from almost 28 years ago, in which the protagonist unknowingly seeps into another world to escape the hardships and greyness of ordinary life. It is impossible not to mention here the all-famous Matrix trilogy, by, now, the Wachowski sisters.

An interesting series dealing with similar themes is “Osmosis”, in which the main character satisfies her sexual fantasies with a virtual man as an offshoot of her dating chip project and attempts to cure her mother. The series touches on many technological nuances, but the most surprising is the theme of artificial intelligence, which binds all the problems together.

While we’re on the subject of series, the entire series “Black Mirror” is worth mentioning. Although there are two episodes that particularly describe the consequence of being in “unreal” worlds. One tells the story of a pair of friends who struck up a romance with each other in a Tekken-like game, which messed up their heads quite badly when they returned to real-world interactions. The episode is titled “Striking Vipers”.

The second of the episodes was “San Junipero”, which told the story of a woman looking for her love in a virtual world. This world, in turn, was a creation resembling some kind of cloud, into which one can transfer one’s consciousness by means of a transmitter inserted into the ear. This world was a simultaneous way to cheat death, as you could leave your consciousness in it. While the story ended remarkably well for the tone of the series as a whole, it does touch on the moral and existential dilemmas of characters moving between worlds. Moreover, while it’s not in the story, it’s not hard to imagine a hack that could make the existence of consciousness in such a device miserable.

The theme of the games allows to evoke the title “Assassin’s Creed”, and films even on the Polish market tempted its title in this regard, although by many critics rather ridiculed, that is “Suicide Room”. Polish film referred to the popular game of the time, the “Second Life”, which was something prototypical of the Metaverse, though it is hard to call it a virtual world, yes it had some of its characteristics. Some would call it “The Sims” on steroids, in which real people lead second lives, impersonating other personae, running businesses, and raising virtual children with digital spouses. Exactly… sims – a game that has its fanatics around the world, on the basis of which are created series and various fandoms, and in which you simply live!

The achievements of cultural works showing the theme of such solutions allow to believe that societies are even fascinated by such possibilities. While we may be driven by fear and curiosity, yes it seems inevitable. Conspiracy theory fanatics might say that we have been deliberately prepared for such tools by the pop culture media. Although, for this to be true, a subliminal message in this form would have to have been created before the era of the internet as we know it today.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s public relations are bursting at the seams with glamour…

An interesting fact is the recent failure of Facebook, which occurred at the time of questioning a whistleblower who reported that the corporation deliberately acted to the detriment of its users. The present situation has caused the media to report on the failure and its aftermath, rather than delve into the axis of the news storyline of a former employee of the giant. There are voices on the Internet about the intentional operation in this case. This seems quite likely if Frances Haugen was testifying to the truth.

The former Facebook product manager argued that executives know how to ensure safety within their apps, but put their profits higher above that.

Although deliberately causing the failure and loss of value of stock market shares a little at odds with this line of thinking. Is it for sure? The reputational damage of the high-profile trial could have been far more profound in its financial consequences.

What’s more, Metaversum’s current announcement also pushes the conversation on the subject. Now, after all, a vision straight out of science fiction has been thrown on the wallpaper. It’s very good for the company’s image.

Probably investors will be interested in the development of a new product, and Zuckerberg will strongly benefit from this procedure, especially since his name will now be associated with the most modern version of the Internet. The presentation of the future technology focused more on the marketplace, which shows the main purpose of its creation and the motivation of the institution, which is a delight for entrepreneurs, but not so much for users.

In any case, the brand’s branding is defending itself with arms and legs against falling from the most influential chair.

– The vision of the metaverse is that of an unimaginably large marketplace, within which an infinite number of markets can operate. It’s a dream come true for capitalism and a key with which corporations will open doors for themselves beyond the world saturated with material goods. As the demand for consumption of tangible goods diminishes, an infinite demand for intangible goods will have to be created – Łukasz Kotkowski writes on the pages of Spider’s Web, arguing that for now meta is just a concept, but it will become reality sooner than we think.

Metaverse or multimarket?

Everything seems to indicate that marketing will have a new area to exploit. The report “Into the Metaverse” by Wunderman Thompson detailed four segments which could be activated, namely MetaLives, MetaSpaces, MetaBusiness and MetaSocieties.

Source which is newmarketing.pl was kind enough to cite definitions of new meta-domains.

MetaSocietties are new social media based on the meta concept, where we will create a relationship with others based on avatars. There are also plans to make our virtual counterparts correlate with our DNA and had all our scars, scratches and wrinkles on them. In a word, they are supposed to be our digital reflections, also psychologically, as they are supposed to share the same values. Sounds scary, but that’s not all, as Metaspaces are ahead.

MetaSpaces are, as the name suggests, Meta Spaces, but for concerts, events, exhibitions and fairs intangible products. The first to use this gate were fashion houses, whose shows were held virtually, and now there is work on creating a collection of clothes designed for games.

MetaLives are our activities from the real world transferred to the virtual womb. Wunderman Thompson conducted a study showing that consumers are willing to pay 9k for a digital artwork. For a branded handbag 2.9 thousand dollars. dollars and for a virtual home even 75 thousand. dollars. It may sound cursory, considering that these are not material goods, but it works on a similar principle, on which we pay a subscription to Netflix or buy a new wallpaper in our smartphone. So any transactions related to NFT and everything related to blockchain.

MetaBusiness are all kinds of activities of brands and organizations to earn money and business relationships among themselves. It is creating sales and user experience networks based on VR and AR to monetize its services. Interestingly, with the rise of the metaverse, these goods no longer necessarily represent any physical value.

Icelandverse – image campaign mocking Zuckerberg’s project?

As reported by benchmark.pl in the footsteps of Facebook also Microsoft strikes, so we can be sure of the development of the technology of the digital world.

The Verge portal has decided to present a nice image campaign of Iceland, which has used Zuckerberg’s announcement a bit mockingly, promoting its beauty with a video that has gone viral.

An actor with a striking resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg plays the character Zack Mossbergsson, who argues that the Icelandverse is the most beautiful user experience of our lives – tangible and real.

In conclusion, it is clear to see a revolution that the world may not be prepared for. Although this vision is the holy grail for our curious nature, the writer of these words is not convinced that this is a step in the right direction. Lock yourself in the “metaverse” to experience life as a regular “verse”? This is a paradox, of course, also raised by Natalia Hatalska, and following her predictions – it will not bring us anything good, especially under the Facebook brand logo. Wait, let’s not forget that the logo was changed after all, and the project is no longer under that name. Is this the real reason for the rebranding at Meta?