Digital commerce will be a key starting point for Meta from a business model perspective, says Vishal Shah.
India, which has been a vital testing ground for several of Meta's (formerly Facebook) products and features, could play a similar role in shaping its efforts in building the metaverse, said Vishal Shah, the firm's head of Metaverse products.
"India has been a key early adopter market for us for years now, whether it is in Spark AR, products like Reels, or even the small business ecosystem and what we're seeing from an entrepreneurial perspective ... which is why we invested heavily in terms of bringing new things to market because we saw so much early adoption and excitement around some of the creative tools that we were building," said Shah, who previously served as the product head of Instagram until August 2021.
"I consider the entire metaverse ecosystem kind of rooted in the creator ecosystem and India is also a key market for that. So as we launch new things, you could expect to make them available, especially as they cut across devices and help people access them from more than just a VR headset," he said.
Metaverse has emerged as one of the tech sector's new favourite buzzwords, with several companies detailing their plans for what's being billed as the next big computing platform. Broadly, Metaverse is a virtual world where you will be able to interact with your friends and colleagues through digital avatars either through a headset or other similar devices.
Mark Zuckerberg has been one of the biggest proponents of the metaverse, so much so that the social media firm changed its corporate name to Meta and plans to spend at least $10 billion in building this platform.
"In the most simplest terms, the way we primarily experience the internet today is by looking at it, whereas in the future, the primary way that we will experience the Internet is that we will be in it," Shah said. This could be through virtual reality (VR) headset, augmented reality glasses, or even through devices such as a smartphone, a computer or a television.
To be sure, Shah said it will take at least 5-10 years for their efforts to materialise, although the building blocks are starting to emerge in mature markets.
On December 9, Meta opened up access to its social VR platform Horizon Worlds to all users above the age of 18 in the United States and Canada. The platform allows users to build new digital spaces (worlds) or experiences, discover new places with their friends, or form teams to solve puzzles among others.
In August, the company also launched an open beta version of Horizon Workrooms, a VR experience meant to facilitate remote work collaboration and business meetings.
"I fundamentally don't believe any of the things that we're building are replacements for the physical experiences that we have today. If I could be in a room with all of you today, I would much prefer that than just being able to see you digitally. But the reality is we can't necessarily be with each other all the time physically and this is a way to make the digital experiences better," Shah said.
"Over the next year or two, we will continue to build VR-centric experiences, but we are also going to bring them more broadly across different devices," he added.
In October 2021, Zuckerberg said during the company's earnings conference call that they will focus on putting "more of the foundational pieces into place" for the next few years, an investment that is not going to be profitable for the company in the near future, but likely to mature over the next few years.
"If we do a good job on this, and I would say later in this decade, is when we would, sort of, expect this to be more of a real business story," Zuckerberg said.
So, why is Meta talking about the metaverse in its infancy?
Shah said they wanted to set expectations on what they are investing in but also to make it clear that these technological changes and shifts take time.
"Sometimes, we have been late to acknowledge where some of the shifts are happening and their implications or we don't talk about them until they're already here. We're trying to do that differently this time by engaging with the ecosystem - both the business community and also the regulatory and kind of government figures from around the world to really make sure they understand the implications and how it might affect all of us over time," Shah said.
That said, it is also beneficial for Meta to play a role in shaping what is touted as the next big platform in its early stages to reduce the dependency on others to deliver its services, unlike the current computing platforms like desktop or mobile phones.
Shah said its efforts will be based on interoperable standards, since they believe that the metaverse cannot be built by any one company. "There will be a role for other companies, creators, businesses, individual developers to really build these experiences and for people to feel like they can have continuity and move across from place to place," he said.
Digital commerce as biz model
While it is still early days, digital commerce will be a key starting point for Meta from a business model perspective, Shah said.
"Commerce is where we are going to make a majority of the investments. Over time, a successful commerce business will also be helped by advertising, since if you have an object available for sale, you would want to make sure people can find it and see it," he said.
Another important use case would be the workplace environment, helping professionals to work and collaborate remotely in an effective manner.
"Video conferencing is great, but it doesn't really give you that real sense of working and being there with someone... Also, imagine use cases such as designers, architects, and people building things together who are not being able to physically be together. We are considering various ways in which these immersive kinds of 3D spaces will even be better than the 2D environment that we're in today," Shah said.
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