Source: Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook.
Have you been spending time in the metaverse? No? That makes you and Meta employees.
Driving the news: Meta’s flagship metaverse app Horizon Worlds is suffering quality control issues and low employee engagement, per internal memos obtained by The Verge.
- The memos detail a litany of problems with the app, including stability issues, bugs, and general usability, leading to poor user experiences and serious retention issues.
- A great point by Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah: “Simply put, for an experience to become delightful and retentive, it must first be usable and well crafted.”
The team building the thing was even called out for not spending enough time on it. “The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it,” said Shah.
These are obviously bad signs. Other bad signs include Apple’s CEO questioning your business model and the online world relentlessly clowning on your primitive graphics.
Yes, but: Some people actually do like life in Zuck’s digital dreamland. Horizon Worlds has over 300,000 users as of the last count and recently received a very positive NYT writeup.
Why it matters: Meta is all in on the Metaverse, with the future of a tech giant arguably depending on its success. But it starts with employees getting those VR goggles on first.