What They Say
The Protocol Next Up newsletter picked up on a comment by Mark Zuckerberg last week that
“Lots of things that are physical today, like screens, will just be holograms in the future,” Zuckerberg said. “You won’t need a physical TV, it will just be a $1 hologram from some high school kid halfway across the world.”
The newsletter talked about holograms and the idea of TV as holography (rather than virtual objects). Zuckerberg believes that the metaverse will “unlock a massively larger creative economy […] than what exists today,”. The newsletter spoke to Light Field Lab CEO Jon Karafin who pointed out that watching TV is usually, or often, a shared experience. He also doesn’t see everyone wanting the same kind of app.
“It’s not TV as a singular app, it’s an entire ecosystem,” Karafin said.
Karafin also pointed out that the arrival of smartphone and PC TV viewing hasn’t killed TV. So even if the Metaverse arrives, it won’t stop TV.
(and for another take on the Metaverse – explored through Second Life – see this BBC article)
What We Think
I can’t remember where I heard the phrase ‘media only multiply’. TV didn’t kill radio and the internet hasn’t killed newspapers (yet). I remember coming up with ‘channels only multiply’ when talking in the early days of PCs, to echo the phrase and to explain how as PCs moved out of expert resellers to more consumer-oriented mail order channels. Of course, eventually you could buy a PC almost anywhere. If the metaverse is as big as the Z man says it will be, it won’t kill other ways of engaging with content. Or physical ways. (BR)
