What killed Mark Zuckerberg’s metadatabase?

There was no mention of anything outside the Metaverse in 2021. The main proposal of the concept, which seems to be geared more towards science fiction movies, was to create a virtual experience to interact with other people, consume, have fun, and even work.

At that time Metaverse has become the hot topic for Mark Zuckerberg’s companyuntil then it was called Facebook – the same name as the social network. The project provided deep motivation Rebranding The brand changed its name to Meta in October 2021.

Officially, the company’s redesign was intended to showcase the company’s priority: creating a complete metadatabase accessible from virtual reality devices, augmented reality, and smart glasses.

“The Metaveren will be built by everyone, creative ideas and practical applications will be developed every day by creative people of all kinds,” Meta explains on its official website.

Abstract idea

THE The term “metaverse” alone is confusingFacebook’s bid didn’t work either. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company has described the platform as essentially an improved replica of the real world, where you can do (and even be) whatever you want.

Everything was announced in a very promising way, shows how technology can enhance real life and bring people together in the virtual world.

In the presentation video, Mark Zuckerberg stated that the technology will make it possible to do everything done on the internet “more naturally and vividly.” THE Metaverse to be “successor to mobile internet”.

“The key quality of metadata is the sense of presence,” Zuckerberg explains. “Feeling like you’re with someone else is the ultimate dream of social technology, and that’s why we focused on building that,” he continued.

One of the most important parts of the meta’s promise was Horizon WorldsThe platform is a virtual reality game where you can interact with other people or real-life systems, but all using virtual reality headsets like Meta Quest 2.

No more news

But after all the fire has passed with the metaverse, Meta was also silent. Horizon Worlds continued to receive updates, Meta Quest 3 was released and that was it.

Reports released by the company suggest that the platform has 300,000 monthly active users, a small number especially when compared to Meta’s social networks. The main complaint of this audience? The virtual worlds are too empty and there aren’t enough people to bring them to life.

Naturally, Rumors began to circulate that the project would be completed and the issue was discussed directly with Mark Zuckerberg at a meeting with shareholders.

“There’s been a narrative that somehow we’ve moved away from focusing on metadata, but I can tell you right away that that’s not true,” Zuckerberg said at the meeting.

Change of approach

Over time, Meta’s CEO began to define metadata differently: What was supposed to be a virtual world actually became a kind of fusion of the real and the digital, still in development.

In the same period, Meta turned its attention to innovations in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which will be one of the main topics of the technology world in 2023. Like other giants, Meta, like other giants, He has released a few of his meta projects to the public.

Innovations in AI have become Meta’s most-repeated innovations, with the company announcing multimodal generative models, voice synthesis tools, image and video generators, and even launching chatbots along similar lines to ChatGPT.

Despite, This doesn’t mean the end of the metadata repository for MetaAmong the many new features of Meta Connect 2023, Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that advances in generative models also contribute to the company’s vision of what a metadatabase is.

Waste of money

Continuing the development of the metaverse is very expensive. In its August 2024 earnings report, Meta noted: $4.48 billion operating loss (at Meta Reality Labs)an industry dedicated to building the platform.

Despite making a loss, the company continues to have a positive balance. Other areas of the company, such as hardware sales and sales of advertising space on social networks, continue to have a positive balance.

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg appears to have immersed himself in a new online persona. The CEO has not only admitted that he is amused by the memes created about him, as well as starring in bizarre scenesLike a 4th of July post on Instagram.

In interviews, The CEO also felt more relaxed: Zuckerberg harshly criticized the closed ecosystems of rival companies in a conversation with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, even using a bad word among his arguments.

The reasons for this transformation in public image are controversial: Some say the CEO is trying to reverse the damage done to its reputation for the discussions about privacy that have been going on for several years; also There are people who believe they want to change public perception about the billionaires of the tech world.

Although the construction of the metadata is not announced very often, it is possible to say that the project is still alive. I don’t know for how long.