In this week’s highlights, recent stories on developments at Meta are interesting but ultimately disappointing. Internal reports show that even Meta’s employees refuse to use the company’s Horizon Metaverse, which failed to meet annual targets. Since Meta has become associated with the metaverse itself, these setbacks affect the sector. Some are pushing for a version of the metaverse that does not incorporate virtual reality.
Nonetheless, other companies are progressing rapidly and creating more content, from Roblox to Polygon. With hundreds of millions of users, Minecraft is expanding its education platform for classrooms. Web3 media brands are surging in popularity, taking on larger incumbents. The Warner Music Group announced a partnership with OpenSea, which will connect artists to web3 and NFT services designed to help their brand, thereby making large incumbents obsolete.
All these announcements show that, for all the problems faced by Meta, the sector as a whole remains on the rise. The question then becomes: If Mark Zuckerberg does not capture the Internet of tomorrow, who will succeed where he failed?