Evan Spiegel’s bet is on the real world and AR, not the ‘imaginary’ metaverse

Snap isn’t the only social media company with smart glasses and an expanding hardware portfolio, but what’s separating its approach from Meta? In announcing the Pixie, a $229 drone that flies with your hand to take selfies, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel did some explaining his decision to focus on experiences built for the real world rather than the virtual metaverse. time spent.

“The reason why we don’t use that word is because it’s so vague and fictitious,” he said. Guardian, ,Just ask a room of people how to define it, and everyone has a totally different definition. ,

“Just ask a room of people how to define it, and everyone’s definition is completely different.”

Spiegel also told of the Verge Alex Heath that the companies making the Metaverse pitch are “really talking about something that doesn’t exist yet,” in contrast to augmented reality, where “the Snapchat application has 250 million people connected with AR every day.” Huh.” Those AR interactions include everything from the goofy selfie effect that Snap created years ago to popular shopping experiences.

While they disagree on the metaverse, Spiegel and Mark Zuckerberg agree that AR glasses will one day be big. Zuckerberg has called them the “holy grail,” and Spiegel has said that AR glasses will be the key to overlaying computing on the world around you. Zuckerberg’s first true pair of AR glasses isn’t coming until at least 2024, while Spiegel already has AR Spectacles being tested by developers today.

Zuckerberg’s vision of the future also includes virtual reality headsets that are spending billions of dollars to build the Metaverse. He calls it a “contiguous Internet” full of holograms and virtual board rooms people will increasingly spend time with via headsets strapped to their faces. It’s a maximalist, escapist vision of where the internet is, and how we interact with it is being led by it.

On the contrary, here’s what Spiegel told of the Verge heath Last week: “Our fundamental thesis and our big bet is on the real world, and that people really enjoy spending time together in reality. And that computing can really enhance that, [and] Make it more fun and contribute to shared experiences.”

“But, ultimately, people are going to spend most of their time in the world because it’s a really wonderful place … and so we talk with a lot of specificity about the products we have today, the solutions that exist. Today, and the way people are using our products instead of talking fictional things.”

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