[elohesra]

Okay, let me play devil's advocate:

Perhaps Facebook are thinking "What's the one thing that could truly set us apart from all other social media sites, and place a prohibitively high barrier to entry on this otherwise very easy to enter field?", and perhaps the conclusion they've reached is to take social media to the next level, and have it simulate life in virtual reality.

Perhaps Facebook are going to aim to have a FacebookVR some time in the future, where you can meet up with other avatars 'in person' in their virtual reality community?

... Or perhaps this is just a sleazy cash in where they think they can recapture the video-game-enamoured youth market by shoving Facebook into every Oculus Rift game.

[politician]

This is a play by Facebook to create a unique App Store to compete with Apple, Google, and Microsoft using a unique piece of consumer electronics.

Facebook can't find a cheap smartphone manufacturer with a homegrown OS to buy, so they go with the next best thing that's also got a screen. I think the VR aspect is accidental/a nice to have.

[XorNot]

It'll fail.

The hard lesson over the coming decade or 2 is going to be that UI design for virtual reality tolerates much less intrusion then a desktop PC.

If you're remotely computer literate and organize your desktop the way you like, it hurts when you lose that and it already feels like an invasion when a program does something you don't want it to.

I suspect transposed to virtual reality, people are going to be even less tolerant of trying to force things on them because the experience is much more intimate.

[amirmc]

> "... people are going to be even less tolerant of trying to force things on them because the experience is much more intimate."

Perhaps not if that's how you 'grew up with it' (so to speak). If you're clever enough and insert yourself into the system early enough then you get to shape all the 'norms' that will eventually emerge.

[XorNot]

Except that's not what's happening. Virtual reality isn't an abstract interface to a complex piece of hardware - it's intended to mimic your everyday experience of reality.

A lot of UI paradigms will simply disintegrate against that issue. You'll be able to transpose existing ideas into virtual reality by projecting them onto things which are those abstract interfaces (virtual displays etc.), but you're not going to be able to expect to control how the user moves or interacts.

[cookiecaper]

Most likely will be firmware-level integration. Social media companies, and Facebook most of all, are about engagement, which means making it easy to use Facebook from every platform possible. Having your head inside an immersive virtual reality just put people too far from Facebook I'm guessing, so the new FB Oculus will have a stream from your newsfeed that the firmware kindly muxes into your display at all times. :)

Google does this same thing with Android and other pervasive Google platforms and services. Why is Google making a phone? So that you use Google services a lot more than you otherwise would, which gives them the opportunity not only to drive up their search and traffic numbers, but collect a lot of data that is useful in targeting advertisements.

I agree that it's hard to think of any product tie-in with FB's extant line that wouldn't be disgusting. The only safe way to think of it is as a portfolio piece -- Facebook just wants to be associated with the next revolutionary name in computer input technology. It's hard to believe that it is so innocuous, though, and Zuck seems to put that idea to bed in his announcement.

[nathas]

Sounds an awful lot like the VR world in Snowcrash.

[chris_mahan]

I think so too. This 3d world environment would completely get rid of computers as we know it, and tablets too, if you could just put on the helmet and go to the internet/facebook, see all your friends, etc...

I am sure the advertizers would love to create 3d models of their products in this environment. Maybe watch some Ford trucks rumble up the mountain while you watch?

[hammerandtongs]

I think anyone that was even mildly creeped out by Secondlife or Playstation Home will be about 10x more creeped out by VR versions (not even adding in the Facebook angle).

VR "Presence" cuts both ways.

Yes it massively amplifies virtual experiences but disruption, incongruities and annoyances are amplified to the same or perhaps a greater degree...

[prawn]

I think it will be more mainstream and captivating and thus effective than SecondLife. For one thing, you will be invited to join existing friends rather than jump in and deal with randoms.