metaverse

How Bad Metaverse Actually Sucks: 6 people showed up to The EU’s $400,000 Party (In The Metaverse)

/ John / Leave a comment

Here is the key sentence.

Even before the empty gala, internal staff had their doubts about such methods, according to a report by Devex citing anonymous interviews; staff described it as “Digital garbage,” and “depressing and embarrassing.”

The link to the article is below, but when you think your s**t doesn’t stink, you usually wind up sitting in it. Zuck is in a Mt. Everest pile right now.

I guess he didn’t live through Second Life, or is behind on his FPS games reality wise. That’s a lot closer to what kids want.

He’s got the money to waste, let him. It’s costing the employees with layoffs, delayed hiring and cuts in perks. Welcome to the real world.

Everyone in the world other than him can see it’s a loser. Even if they gave the $1000 headsets away for free, many get sick wearing them. A lot of people just aren’t ready for this outside of early adopters.

When I can do what they do in the Ironman movies in 3D, I’ll consider it then.

Here’s the story:

The EU commission has tried and failed to be “down with the kids.”

The commission’s foreign aid department threw a virtual “gala” on Tuesday night, having spent €387,000 (about $400,000) on developing their metaverse platform, in an attempt to attract the interest of young people. Only six showed up.

According to one of the only attendees, Devex correspondent Vince Chadwick, it was an immediate flop and he was the only one left after “several bemused chats” with the “roughly five other humans” who briefly joined.

Chadwick shared a short clip on [hotlink]Twitter[/hotlink] showing multi-coloured paperclip-shaped avatars dancing on a stage next to a tropical beach. “Is anybody out there?” read one message on the screen. “The concert is just the same DJ spinning the same music,” said another.

Struggling in its early days, the metaverse space is part of an expensive plan designed to promote the EU commission’s Global Gateway Initiative, which aims to spend $300 billion by 2027 building new infrastructure in developing countries, and the official trailer was dropped on their social media in mid-October.

The platform is supposed to be a new way to explore the Initiative “through a series of ‘hero’ stories in a virtual environment,” according to the commission.

Users can find information through stories played on video screens around the tropical island on which it is set, while encountering other unusual additions such as an open book art installation on a liquid floor, drones that carry screens flashing words such as “education” and “public health,” and the ability to walk on water.

A spokesperson said the project aims to “increase awareness of what the EU does on the world stage,” targeting young people in particular who spend their time on TikTok and [hotlink]Instagram[/hotlink], and who are “neutral about the EU” and “not typically exposed to such information.”

Source

NYU Marketing Professor – Fake Book/Metaverse/Zuckerberg Going Down Like A Flaming Piece Of S**t

/ John / Leave a comment

Things aren’t going so well for the platform of hate and envy. In the last 3 stock trading days, Meta stock has dropped nearly $100 a share, falling from $323 last Wednesday to $224.91 on Monday. They announced that they are losing people on the platform for the first time (that we have been told).

Now this from Captain Obvious:

MorningConsult Opinions of Mark Zuckerberg Nov2021

The late October announcement from Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook was being rebranded as Meta has been met with less than stellar reactions from the public. A survey from Morning Consult indicates that the public opinion of the rebrand, the metaverse concept and Zuckerberg, himself, were largely unfavorable. 

While a slight majority (55%) of the US adults surveyed have some level of favorable opinion of Facebook, fewer have a favorable opinion of the company’s rebrand name, Meta. Only one-quarter had favorable opinions of the Meta name, compared to the 4 in 10 who had a somewhat/very unfavorable opinion of the name. Millennials are most likely to express an unfavorable opinion about Meta, while Gen Z are more generous in their opinion of the name change.

The public’s opinion of Mark Zuckerberg is also far from positive. More than half (54%) of all respondents report that their opinion of Zuckerberg is somewhat/very unfavorable. This sentiment is felt most by Baby Boomers, with 62% having an unfavorable opinion, compared to just 16% with a favorable opinion.

Along with announcing the rebrand to Meta, Zuckerberg introduced the company’s concept of the metaverse — “a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can’t do in the physical world. Importantly, it’ll be characterized by social presence, the feeling that you’re right there with another person, no matter where in the world you happen to be.” It’s safe to say the concept has fallen flat in the eyes of US adults. About 7 in 10 (68%) say they are not interested in the project. This point of view is shared across all demographic groups but articulated most by women (73%) and Baby Boomers (84%). 

Source for the above

Futurism.com has this to say (where the title of this post comes from)

Meta Roasted

Turns out at least one major marketing expert agrees with what the plebeian public already knows — Mark Zuckerberg may not be able to pull off this Metaverse thing.

On a new new episode of Vox’s Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher, renowned NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway laid the cards on the table. While he gave Zuckerberg credit for being a “visionary” who’s doing the right things to try and pivot a sinking ship — aka Meta-formerly-known-as-Facebook, which is now losing active users for the first time ever — but he’s not convinced that its Metaverse is headed in the right direction.

“If he pulls it off, it’ll be one of the most impressive feats in — not even corporate renewal — but vision around maintaining growth,” Galloway said during the podcast. “I don’t think they’re going to. I think this thing is already a giant flaming bag of shit.”

Form Factor

Part of Zuckerberg’s problem, according to Galloway, is that Meta’s Quest headset, previously known as Oculus, is still way too clunky to impress Meta’s target audience.

“The people in this universe are not impressed with the universe he envisions, and specifically the portal,” Galloway said on the podcast. “One of my predictions in November of 2021… was that the biggest failure in tech-product history might be the Oculus.”

There’s also the issue of spending. Zuckerberg sank $10 billion into the Reality Labs division, only to see company stock prices dip by more than 20 percent this week. Galloway says that with public opinion of Meta so low, there’s little hope the company can recoup its investment.

I for one don’t celebrate failure, but I don’t like those who have ruined the lives of a lot of people, selectively censored what is morally right and have bought an administration who has trashed the country in a year.

Fake book can kiss my ass.

Get woke, go broke.

The New Meta Is The Same Old Face(fake)Book

/ John / Leave a comment

Recently, fascist book announced that they were copying Google (Alphabet) by rebranding to Meta.

I was taken aback as meta means death in Hebrew and I’m pretty sure Zuckerberg is Jewish. His actions and those at Facebook don’t indicate that he believes in God though, quite the opposite. It is appropriate as it’s death to your mental health to be on one of their platforms.

Censorship

There are many examples of fake book taking down posts that didn’t fit the narrative, especially during the election. Zuckerbucks donated about $400 million to swing the election the way it went. Who says you can’t buy an election? Joseph Kennedy did it in 1960 so this is nothing new.

They admit that their censorship is just someone’s opinion anyway.

The Metaverse

I’ve been around long enough to remember the farce that was Second Life. It’s where you played a sort of real life video game in a virtual world. The head of quantum computing at IBM had his department go to virtual meetings for about 2 months in that space. It was such a pain in the ass that the world gave up on it.

To me, it was like Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards, if you are old enough to remember that funny game.

Leisure Suit Larry In The Land Of The Lounge Lizards PC ...

So now, they want us to believe that we’ll wear an Oculus headset and pretend we are in the Matrix. That trope has a long way to go before it really catches on.

What I Think

There is a growing trend in the Comics to head to the Metaverse. The next Dr. Strange will go there. Avengers Endgame showed how you can do it through the Quantum Realm.

That’s not what it really is though. Something is up with Facebook that needs a re-direct. That is what you do in the PR World when things aren’t going your way and you don’t want to address the issue on the table. You go ahead and change the subject and talk about something else. The MSM and politicians do it daily.

The WSJ had a series on the issues at Facebook and they are in some turmoil that caused this change. They are selling it as a new platform, but I smell a rat.

Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management.

It usually has something to do with money, so ad revenue must have been an investor issue, or the fact that Instagram was causing depression in teenage girls because of their self-image being destroyed by others.

It also could be that there are 2 groups of fake book users. The elite users who can break all the rules, and the rest of the rubes that don’t include celebtards, politicians or their favored group.

_01 Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt

Mark Zuckerberg has said Facebook allows its users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards apply to everyone. In private, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules. The program, known as “cross check” or “XCheck,” was intended as a quality-control measure for high-profile accounts. Today, it shields millions of VIPs from the company’s normal enforcement, the documents show. Many abuse the privilege, posting material including harassment and incitement to violence that would typically lead to sanctions.

Facebook Company has failed in its apparent attempt to disappear into the witness protection program for creepy technology by re-branding as “Meta”. Along with this new facelift for the holding company of Facebook and all of the corporation’s other tech holdings — notably WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus VR — founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the company has plans for creating a whole “Metaverse,” a virtual alternative reality.

Banning people from the platform for not conforming to their standards. Like a lot of things, that will come back to bite you. Look who he banned and who is building an alternate social media platform now.

AR vs VR

I think there is something to be said for an Augmented Reality world first. That is helpful. I don’t think that a virtual reality world is what anything other than gamers are going to do for now.

If I see someone walking around with an Oculus headset on, I’m going to slap them an then point to someone else when they take it off just to mess with them.

This is something that is way down the road and as soon as the real AR is available, won’t be as attractive. If you want to live in a play world, you can do it via video games right now.

As usual, I distrust Facebook and their motives as should you. I dumped them as a platform. I had to go there a couple of weeks ago to find a workout schedule at my gym that wasn’t anywhere else. I saw the usual tripe there and was almost physically ill for a day. I promptly deleted the account so I wouldn’t have to see it anymore.