How Facebooks Rebrand will Change the Way You Work
When the largest social media platform to date does a rebranding, it’s going to have a lasting effect on a lot of things, and your business isn’t excluded. Meta, previously known as Facebook, is going to be the beginning of an all-new way we use our virtual devices for work and social. For this discussion, we’ll be focusing on how businesses could be affected as the company aims to make work easier from a virtual standpoint.
Working in the Future
When watching the keynote, CEO Mark Zuckerberg starts discussing working in Meta around the 26-minute mark. Within it, he discusses how users can feel as if they’re in the office right at home. They can have meetings, collaborations, and much more from the comfort of their home OR office. Work within the metaverse, in theory, will give every employee a physical space to share, which for hybrid or long-distance employees, could benefit and even positively impact the quality of work they do. What’s even more beneficial, is that the metaverse would be accessible from anywhere, not just your home or office.
And, we’re not going to lie, it looks pretty cool.
Similar to what Apple released with their new OS updates, focus modes will be available, and workers will even have the ability to present presentations in their “office” right at their fingertips. But what’s made people even more excited, is the integration of progressive 2D web apps into the metaverse. This means right before your eyes, you’ll be able to access programs like Dropbox and Slack for an even smoother workflow, and even more Meta apps like Facebook and Instagram.
The idea for this whole shift is to give everyone the opportunity and tools to do the best job possible. This is good timing considering hybrid positions have become more popular after lockdowns, which effectively gave everyone in the world evidence that you don’t have to be in the office to work.
Some Issues
The idea of this Metaverse holds so many possibilities but seems to be starting out on a more exclusive accessibility level, which is contradictory to what even the CEO says himself. To access this world Zuckerburg is aiming to create, employers and employees alike need the hardware. Yet again another large cost for companies to take the brunt of if they’re willing to spend it, to begin with. For Augmented Reality interactions, people are expected to chip out $300 for a pair of Raybans with a camera and speaker. Meanwhile, the Oculus, which Facebook acquired in 2014, is between $300-$400 depending on the storage space, and that’s with Quest 2, which is also needed for this Metaverse goal.
Now more than likely, that’s going to be a burden on the business, and how many are willing to spend that much for each employee, or even some? Even so, are there additional costs to getting applications within Quest? We know there is for the gaming side of things, but what about those super handy 2D progressive apps mentioned above?
Obviously, the main major issue with this, and with Zuckerberg’s own words, is that it doesn’t seem as inclusive of a platform as he’s wanting it to be, just because that hardware itself isn’t something people buy without budgeting for, but maybe they’ll fix that problem at some point.
Either way, the Metaverse has the potential to improve work-life and work quality, but only for those who can access the hardware and equipment to begin work in the metaverse.
