The metaverse may take shape with physical first steps

Reports that Meta’s purported new corporate focus toward a virtual world may indeed begin in the real world reflect the very real costs of building trust.

Why it matters

Meta, the company formerly known for its two billion strong social network Facebook and more recently for endless bad news headlines, is considering how physical stores could help build trust in the company and build out the category that it claims will point to its long-term “social technology” future.

What’s happening

• According to documents seen by the New York Times, Meta is considering opening retail stores to introduce the public to (and sell them) the virtual and augmented reality hardware that will provide a gateway into the virtual worlds that it intends to create as a medium for work, fun, and pretty much anything else.
• For the company, as ever, the aim of the stores is to make the world “more open and connected”, per the documents, and to spark people’s curiosity.
• Owned stores are a key part of brand and trust building, with other consumer tech giants like Microsoft moving from the power behind other brands to a major brand in itself, and then Apple, which has made the store an articulation of the brand.
• This is especially true as the metaverse expands into an as yet niche area of the media market, VR, which has since its 80s inception failed to take off. Meta might need all the channels it can get to drive VR into the mainstream.

Sourced from New York Times, WARC