Here's how Facebook is proceeding to build its metaverse
What's the story
Despite a whistleblower and a worldwide service outage, Facebook continues its headlong dive into the metaverse and the journey of building it.
The social media giant has expressed its plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union (EU) over the next five years. The recruitments would directly help build Facebook's idea of a metaverse.
Here are more details about this.
Meta-what?
Zuckerberg wants Facebook to transition into a metaverse company
In July this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on the record to say that he envisions Facebook transitioning from a social media company into a metaverse company.
For the uninitiated, a metaverse is a virtual universe where people can share real-time experiences with other users. Think of it as an amalgamation of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
Focus
After fending off Haugen, Clegg claims 'Europe important to Facebook'
Facebook Sunday said it will hire highly-skilled engineers in the EU with a focus on recruiting from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Ireland, and the Netherlands.
Barely weeks after fending off eye-opening allegations leveled by whistleblower Frances Haugen, the company said, "Europe is hugely important to Facebook," in a blog post authored by its Global Affairs Vice-President, Nick Clegg, and Central Products Vice-President, Javier Olivan.
First step
Facebook has built its proverbial 'first step into the metaverse'
Recently, the social media giant also unveiled a collaboration app where people can conduct meetings in VR. Facebook called the app the first step into the metaverse.
In the blog post, Clegg and Olivan wrote, "As we begin the journey of bringing the metaverse to life, the need for highly specialized engineers is one of Facebook's most pressing priorities".
Collaboration
Metaverse product group being led by Facebook Reality Labs team
In its blog post announcing the planned recruitment drive, Facebook also emphasized it looks forward to "working with governments across the EU to find the right people and the right markets" to bring the metaverse into fruition.
Facebook's metaverse product group is being led by Instagram's former Vice-President of Product, Vishal Shah, under the company's hardware division called Reality Labs.