In this blog post, we will explore whether Facebook’s investment in VR technology and content strategy will allow it to continue to dominate the video market.
At some point, videos have become a significant part of Facebook’s news feed. This shows that Facebook has successfully targeted the video service market. Last year, Facebook already surpassed YouTube, the existing absolute leader in terms of the number of video posts and interactions (views). Facebook, which has become the most powerful platform in the existing video content market, is going one step further. It is going to preempt the market in the virtual reality (VR) field. Facebook acquired Oculus VR, a startup specializing in VR devices, in March 2014 for a whopping $2.3 billion. Afterwards, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared at a Facebook earnings call that “immersive 3D (VR) content will clearly be the next generation of content after video.” Considering his status as a leader in the IT field, his remarks are not something that can be dismissed as just another opinion. There is definitely something about VR. Let’s take a look at what that something is, focusing on the characteristics of VR compared to existing media such as text and video.
Text requires the most mental effort from the content user. Readers of literary works in writing must create a world in their own imaginations based on their impressions and understand the content of the work accordingly. Music is a little more friendly than text. Elements such as lyrics, melody, rhythm, and the image of the singer make it easy for the user to create their own impressions. Videos are even more friendly. In the case of movies, they provide more information than stories told in words or written text, so we can use our imagination to create our own worlds with little effort. However, we still have to use our own imagination to imagine the space outside the screen that the camera is capturing. In this way, people recreate the content into their own world as they use it, and then they begin to appreciate the content in earnest.
Unlike existing media, VR is different in that it does most of the work up front (recreating content into your own world) for you. This is because VR provides a complete, spatial world. When we experience VR content, we accept the world as it is and surrender our bodies (or brains) to it. This means that we don’t have to think about things as much as we do with other media. In this environment, VR content can be used to make people more immersed and, as a result, more vivid and exciting. Imagine watching the movie “Avatar” in VR. We will become companions to the main character and roam the fascinating world created by the director. The word “watching a movie” no longer applies here. Unlike existing content that was viewed passively, VR, with its element of active participation, is not just a new form of video, but has an expanded meaning as a place of “experience.” It has the potential to convey even the subtle details that were difficult for existing media to convey and that are difficult to feel without trying them out. There is no better tool for humans as beings who experience than this.
Our lives are always tiring, so we have increasingly preferred to “outsource our imagination.” Novels take over the various imaginations that we cannot normally do if we are not writers. Songs take over the imaginations that cannot be done through writing, and videos take over the imaginations of images. In this way, we have been able to simply make others’ imaginations our own by simply sensing and recognizing them. In this era where we can have new experiences without leaving our daily lives and without putting in much effort, VR may be the most efficient way to do so. Going a step further, we will outsource not only our imagination but also our daily experiences. Going on a trip, going to a theme park, and riding amusement rides can be a hassle and a luxury. Why bother doing things yourself when you can have an indirect but vivid experience through VR? It seems that the day is not far off when we will be able to choose from a variety of options, even for our personal experiences.
