Facebook Launches Horizon Workrooms to Bring ‘Metaverse’ Ambitions Alive

Horizon Workrooms was being used internally at Facebook for six months before its release as open beta yesterday. Horizon Workrooms is the company’s first VR-based work collaboration platform to get the ball rolling for its evolution into a metaverse company.

Facebook on Thursday launchedOpens a new window the open beta of Horizon Workrooms, a new but much anticipated way to work and collaborate. Horizon WorkroomsOpens a new window is a virtual reality (VR) application for users of the Oculus Quest 2 headsets to collaborate and conduct meetings using avatars of themselves.

The launch comes as the delta plus variant of the novel coronavirus emerges as the latest one to wreak havoc across the United States and the world, so much so that most companies including AmazonOpens a new window , AppleOpens a new window , GoogleOpens a new window , and Facebook itselfOpens a new window have shelved plans to reopen offices until early 2022. But even if plans to reopen offices stayed put, organizations, rather people have realized a physical workspace isn’t necessarily the only way to work.

This is one of the few notions upon which Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergOpens a new window ’s vision of creating a ‘metaverse’ is built. The introduction of Horizon Workrooms is also the Menlo Park, CA-based company’s maiden commercial act toward realizing Zuckerberg’s recently announced metaverse plans for the world’s biggest social networking company.

To be fair, Zuckerberg’s plans for the online metaverse encompass much more than enabling a hyper-realistic remote work environment for professionals who wouldn’t mind not having it. But it certainly can become a revenue center if tapped appropriately.

And in view of Facebook’s press release, and of course the name of the new app, it looks like the Horizon Workrooms is built specifically to cater to professionals in a remote or hybrid work setup.

Horizon Workrooms is now open for collaboration, built for teams to feel like they’re together despite being apart. The tools we currently have serve people to a certain degree, but we’ve lost the ability to be creative and connected, a gap we believe Workrooms can bridge. pic.x.com/TOSyiinKOlOpens a new window

— Boz (@boztank) August 19, 2021Opens a new window

See Also: Twitter’s Decentralized Social Media Ambitions Has a New Face: Jay Graber

What is Metaverse?

Before we answer that, let us delve into the more pressing question: “why metaverse?”

Why Metaverse?

Facebook sees itself not only as a social media and marketing platform but also as the major enabler of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality. Facebook scooped up Oculus for $2 billionOpens a new window even before any of this was imagined. A few years down the line, Zuckerberg notedOpens a new window , “I said before that VR is going to be bigger than people realize. Certainly we’re doing more long-term research now focused on AR as well. But I think the commitment to VR is certainly still strong, and that’s the technology path that we’re going to use to get there.”

So there you have it. Metaverse based on AR-VR is Facebook’s long-term goal. It is a way for Facebook to create something that has never been done before, and as clichéd as it sounds, to change aspects of how people interact on the web.

It is also a way for Facebook to stay relevant in the future considering it is dependent on other platforms for almost everything it makes money from. Advertising service on Facebook is currently the cash cow for the company. But the company has no hardware products or even intangible platforms for users to access facebook.com.

It doesn’t make smartphones, computers, tablets, nor does it develop any operating systems. So if any of the companies with enough pull decided to shun Facebook, there isn’t really anything the social media giant can do about it, much like a drowning man grabbing on to a straw. For instance, Apple in April introduced App Tracking Transparency with iOS 14.5 to clamp down on data collection of iOS users. The feature profoundly impacts Facebook’s core ad revenue generation model.

In the months preceding the release of iOS 14.5, Facebook rallied hard to stop AppleOpens a new window from introducing the privacy-centric feature positioning itself as the champion of small businesses. It failed. App Tracking Transparency rolled out but its effects weren’t reflected on Facebook’s balance sheet. Although Zuckerberg expects they will in the next quarters.

During Facebook’s Q2 2021 earnings call, Facebook said it expectsOpens a new window “year-over-year total revenue growth rates to decelerate significantly on a sequential basis as we lap periods of increasingly strong growth” in the third and fourth quarters of 2021.

“Today, most of what Facebook does is…we’re building on top of other people’s platforms,” Zuckerberg told The InformationOpens a new window earlier this year in March. “I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply to help shape what I think is going to be the next major computing platform, this combination of augmented and virtual reality, to make sure that it develops in this way that is fundamentally about people being present with each other and coming together.”

What’s possibly also concerning for Zuckerberg and co. is that the United States government is gunning for Big Tech or GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft). A recently introduced set of five bills would require Facebook to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram and prohibit new acquisitions.

So venturing out and making something on your own (despite Oculus being an acquisition) makes sense. AR-VR and metaverse are completely new spaces altogether that don’t come under the purview of existing laws. But that’s a story for another time.

Now let’s take a closer look at what the metaverse is.

Unpeeling the Metaverse

In 2014, Zuckerberg notedOpens a new window , “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.” Fast forward seven years and the CEO, who also founded Facebook, has a plan. It took Facebook seven years to devise this ambitious and ground-breaking project, it’s own moonshot.

“What is the metaverse? It’s a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces. You can kind of think of this as an embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at.”

The term metaverse has its roots in science-fiction novel Snow CrashOpens a new window by Neal Stephenson, where he describes it as a “computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones.”

Speaking with The VergeOpens a new window last month, Zuckerberg explained how there’s more to the web and technology than “navigate things in terms of a grid of apps.” He said, “I think we interact much more naturally when we think about being present with other people. We orient ourselves and think about the world through people and the interactions we have with people and what we do with them.”

So metaverse would be a computing platform intended to deliver virtual albeit natural-like experiences. The metaverse could theoretically have your office, your casual hangout place, your entertainment arena and so on. It takes the 2-dimensional world of the web today and takes it up a notch to transform it into 3D.

In essence, the experiential aspects of collaboration, entertainment, or anything people would use metaverse for, would not be prescribed on the basis of physical barriers. Zuckerberg refutes that the concept of Facebook’s metaverse will remain limited to AR-VR. He clarifies that it encompasses PCs, game consoles, and even mobile devices.

Building the metaverse will also involve an entire ecosystem of companies, partners, and developers. “I think a good vision for the metaverse is not one that a specific company builds, but it has to have the sense of interoperability and portability. You have your avatar and your digital goods, and you want to be able to teleport anywhere. You don’t want to just be stuck within one company’s stuff,” Zuckerberg added.

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Core Enablers of the Metaverse | Source: Matthew Ball (A Framework for the Metaverse)

Assuming all of this comes together, all users would need to do is strap on a pair of VR glasses and be teleported in a different world altogether. Facebook’s Oculus is a leader in developing at least the hardware required for this. Oculus Quest 2 is its latest offering launched in October 2020.

However, Zuckerberg himself admits present-day headsets are a “bit clunky.” So there’s more, a lot more work to be done, not just in terms of hardware design but how all different elements will come together.

Unity CEO Predicts AR-VR Headsets Will Be as Common as Game Consoles by 2030 https://t.co/D6Bcw2Q9wg

— Matthew Ball (OOO) (@ballmatthew) June 21, 2021Opens a new window

More importantly, Zuckerberg hopes that efforts will be concentrated toward a collective metaverse instead of different companies branching out on their own. “Each company should not have its own metaverse.”

At this point, Facebook has approximately 10,000 employees toiling away in the division responsible for research on AR-VR devices, according to The InformationOpens a new window . This is almost one fifth of the total number of Facebook employees.

See Also: Now Code Without Learning to Code: OpenAI Kicks off Codex Beta

Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms

Horizon Workrooms provides a glimpse of what Facebook envisions the metaverse to be. Considering metaverse isn’t a reality yet, it is based on existing technology and those clunky but innovative headsets. It is designed specifically to enable work collaboration and meetings.

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Source: Facebook

Horizon Workrooms is simple, really. It aims to replace videoconferencing as the go-to-meeting and collaboration method with virtual reality. Facebook certainly isn’t the first to have done it. Spatial already explored the possibilities with its virtual collaboration platform, which is also available on Oculus Quest, Nreal, Magic Leap, Microsoft HoloLens, PCs, etc.

Spatial’s holographic collaboration platform was aimed at workspaces to allow users to meet in virtual rooms and interact via 3D avatars. In May 2020, the startup even let out the platform for freeOpens a new window to everyone for a few months to help alleviate the effects of the Wuhan virus pandemic on teams and organizations.

Much like Spatial, Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms takes into account the natural human movements that are reflected through the virtual avatars of each individual. Users can even view their own computer screen, see and hear others in the same VR environment through mixed-reality desk and keyboard tracking, hand tracking, remote desktop streaming, video conferencing integration, spatial audio.

The basics of videoconferencing such as meeting notes, file sharing, calendar integration, chat, and whiteboards are also ingrained within the new offering. What’s even more impressive is that hand, body, gesture tracking is built into the headset, eliminating the need for a different hand-held contraption.

Engadget’s D. Hardawar, who tested the new VR offering said Zuckerberg dropped in for a few minutes to lay down Facebook’s plans for the metaverse and how Horizon Workrooms is a stepping stone to achieve it.

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Mark Zuckerberg on Horizon Workrooms | Source: Engadget

To use Horizon Workrooms, users necessarily have to have a Workrooms account and Oculus Quest 2. Also, Facebook hasn’t mandated the need of a Facebook account so that should come by as a relief to some. Others may still have reservations about privacy but Facebook has clearly laid down the following: 

• “Workrooms will not use your work conversations and materials to inform ads on Facebook.”
• “Passthrough processes images and videos of your physical environment from the device sensors locally.”
• “Facebook and third-party apps do not access, view or use these images or videos to target ads. Finally, other people are not able to see your computer screen in Workrooms unless you choose to share it.”
• “The permissions you grant for the Oculus Remote Desktop app are only used for the purposes of allowing streaming from your computer to your headset.”

Closing Thoughts

Horizon Workrooms and the metaverse in general has a huge advertising potential. As Verity McIntoshOpens a new window , a senior lecturer in Virtual & Extended Realities at the University of the West of England, Bristol pointed out to the BBCOpens a new window , “Part of the reason Facebook is so heavily invested in VR/AR is that the granularity of data available when users interact on these platforms is an order of magnitude higher than on screen-based media.”

She added, “Now it’s not just about where I click and what I choose to share, it’s about where I choose to go, how I stand, what I look at for the longest, the subtle ways that I physically move my body and react to certain stimuli. It’s a direct route to my subconscious and that is gold to a data capitalist.”

However, this is one of the rare times Facebook has refrained from ad targeting based on data collection. Maybe it doesn’t want to taint the experience so early in the life of the new service, much like the company launched advertising late in 2007Opens a new window , only after crossing 50 million users.

In any case, in the context of the present-day work scenario, this could add a bit of whimsy in team collaboration, whether completely remote or hybrid.

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