In 2014, when Mark Zuckerberg bought virtual reality company Oculus in whopping 2 billion dollars, everybody was thinking what the hell Facebook will do with the virtual reality company? In last year’s Facebook F8 meet, Facebook has shown the path for next 10 years and virtual reality was one of the major points they highlighted. This year on 18-19 April 2017, Facebook has announced the launch of Facebook Spaces. This is one of the most significant integrations of social virtual reality into its core product. Social VR is going to change people use the social media henceforth.
The other major announcement made by Facebook in this F8 meet was the launch of augmented reality camera effects developer platform. When initially everyone was thinking about Facebook copying Snapchat for camera filters, they were actually laying the groundwork before the great launch!
As you can see in above video, Zuckerberg is explaining how the AR is going to change people are using FAceboom messenger or even how they are playing the game. So this one is not just a mask-making-stories which we do on Snapchat, this is in real sense the AR intertwining our daily life!
Posted by Facebook for Developers on Monday, 17 April 2017
Facebook gives you a very easy to create a platform as well on which you can create your own image filters. Facebook is now allowing developers to apply for access to the closed beta of the platform’s AR Studio tool. Meanwhile, anyone can use the Frame Studio to upload simple, static overlaid image filters that will appear in Facebook Camera to their friends or a Page’s fans. There’s no need for coding knowledge to use Frame Studio, you just upload an image. As of now, Facebook is not looking to monetize this AR platform but later or sooner they will do. There might be Facebook ads on this platform as well!
Facebook Spaces launches in beta today on Oculus Rift + Touch. The product is the first taste of Facebook’s ambitions to bring social interaction into 3D virtual spaces. Today Facebook is introducing Facebook Spaces — a new VR app where you hang out with friends in a fun, interactive virtual environment as if you were in the same room. You can download it now from the Oculus Store. With Spaces, those who have bought into the Oculus ecosystem can connect their Facebook accounts and dive into an environment where communication isn’t about chat messages, but voice and avatar body language.
In the app, up to 4friends who are logged in to their Facebook accounts can join a “space” and chat, draw 3D pictures, watch 360 videos, make video calls on Messenger and take VR selfies (yes there is a selfie stick as well!) of their cartoonish avatars (which it can create for you based on recently tagged photos). The most noteworthy highlight of Spaces’ release is that it will be launching on the Oculus Rift but will soon be expanding to other VR platforms.
You can easily create your own avatar as well!
According to Zuckerberg, it will take another 10 years at least to use the VR to its fullest. There are between 30-50 Facebook employees working on Social VR at Facebook, but with augmented reality and virtual reality growing central to FB’s core product these teams are sure to grow massive as more people buy headsets.
It will be interesting to see how Indian Digital Marketing and Social Media marketing companies will use this platforms to bring some good Marketing strategies for their customers. But one thing is sure that Facebook is changing the way we are seeing social media today.
