Facebook Spaces - Virtual Reality social media (with promo video)

somecoolname (55)in #technology • 7 years ago

Image from Facebook Spaces promo video

I wrote a post yesterday called "Is Steemit a shining light in the Facebook dominated world of social media?" which focused mainly on Facebook's advertising taking over the platform and users not seeing any rewards unlike with Steemit (link below if you want to check it out), but today I'm being more positive towards Facebook regarding their venture into VR social experiences.

Facebook Spaces - Virtual Reality social media

I'm a big fan of virtual reality and I can see it's potential for future applications, such as virtual learning, medical exploration and general entertainment and it seems Facebook can too.

After acquiring Oculus for $2 billion a few years back, who are the creators of the Oculus Rift, Facebook are eager to put that investment to good use.

They have now created Facebook Spaces, which is a social media platform in virtual reality (VR). Kind of like a Skype call but with virtual avatars.

The promo video below shows how even the beta version has a good amount of features already.

The avatars mimic your gestures as the Oculus headset and controllers track your movement in real time. You nod your head and so does your avatar, which adds an extra dimension as most of the time text messages or comments on Facebook can come across in a different way intended by the author.

You can change the world you and your conversation buddy are in by moving various spheres around that contain background images. These images are full 360 and add a nice touch.

Theres even an option to take a virtual selfie of your avatars. (it won't be long until a virtual Disney Land bans virtual selfie sticks)

I think Facebook have done a pretty decent job with this, considering it' still in it's early stages. The major sticking point for adoption though will be the price.

Facebook may be free, but the price of the Oculus Rift you would need and the gaming PC powerful enough to power it will put most people off.

The Samsung phones can run VR with the Samsung Gear VR which is powered by Oculus. If Facebook brings Spaces to the mobile market then I think it would have a better chance of success.

It would be so much easier to quickly put your phone into a VR headset than powering up your computer, which is pretty much fixed to one room of your house due to it's size. I can't see many people going through the effort. Maybe initially as a fad, but it would soon wear off.

All in all I do believe VR is something that will feature widely in the future and Facebook are having a good go with "Facebook Spaces" in leading the way. I just don't know how many virtual images of people's lunch and cats I can look at before it gets too much.

What are your thoughts? Is this a good idea or simply a fad that a few will try before giving up on?

For more information about Facebook Spaces check out https://www.facebook.com/spaces

As usual thanks for listening

Happy Steeming Steemers and Steemettes.

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