Meta hasn’t cracked all the metaverse; Wants to help others create compelling use cases: Vice President and Managing Director, India, Meta

Given that political ads make up a small portion of your revenue and the heat they bring through allegations of being biased on the platform, how does cost-benefit work?

I really don’t have any point of view on this. This, globally, is one of those calls that we took a while back. In terms of the role that we can play — as businesses connect with consumers, we’ve found that our platform is used to drive causes. We saw that one of the roles we played in the pandemic was to bring attention to the public health agenda. The code of the platform is that you can build communities and get a message across, and so I can imagine the usefulness from a campaign standpoint as well. When you look at political ads as a percentage of total (revenue) in India and globally, it becomes clear that the driver for us is not revenue.

Companies around the world have increased their investments in the metaverse. How Does Web 3.0 and the Metaverse Change the Future of Advertising on the Internet?

In a very short span of time, when we articulated the idea of ​​turning the metaverse and identity into meta, there has been massive enthusiasm from across the industry and business leaders, and I have seen this enthusiasm in India as well. , Leaders instinctively reap the power of a more immersive Internet, and what it means to move from 2D to 3D (two-dimension to three-dimension), and not just from a consumer perspective – use cases such as fitness and gaming. With — but also from an enterprise perspective, if they can engage with these users in a more comprehensive way. We are quite open to saying that we do not know all the answers at this time. Going back to its acquisition of Oculus in 2014, the company has been investing heavily in AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) for some time. We have no illusions that we are building the metaverse. We know we are going to contribute to becoming the metaverse and that different companies will create different positions. It must be interoperable, much more so than mobile Internet. At the same time we are under no illusions that we have cracked it all, either in terms of technology or how interoperability will work, or even what the different revenue streams will be. What we do know is that there’s going to be a lot of work on the access side on devices that enable a more immersive version of the Internet.

Governments and regulators around the world are debating on creating policies for cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens and metaverses? How important is it to lay down these policies as early as possible?

In the final version of the Internet, many of these laws and policies had to be developed post-facto. We saw this explosive growth and innovation, which had a huge impact on the global economy as well as people’s ability to connect seamlessly. But we also found that there were a lot of bad actors who could do a lot of damage. Even in some of our own actions – we’ve done a lot of fundamental product work and policy changes over the years, behind this recognition. We have an opportunity to learn from this as we think about how to design the different building blocks that will form the metaverse over the next 5-10 years. For example, we’re baking in secrecy as a core design principle for every product feature and that will translate quite nicely. We need to work proactively with stakeholders, including regulators, around the world to ensure that we build these frameworks in a way that allows for innovation but absorbs the learnings of the past 20 years.

Is Facebook involved in those conversations regarding policy making in India on these aspects?

Given the nature of the company, we are. When you look at how much we’re leaning into building Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, a technology that’s fundamentally different, we clearly end up with someone who wants to listen to us. We have found that stakeholders including the government are open to discussions in private where they are open to objective discussions on various perspectives. The same situation will remain in Web 3.0 as well.

Being a large media company, will META be interested in buying the rights to broadcast the IPL?

One, I don’t think we are a media company. I think we partner with other media company, and hope they see the value in leveraging our platform. We do not see ourselves as a media company. I don’t think we will create special use cases. We’re thinking more in the direction that we can build frameworks and support foundational tools on both the software and hardware sides that will enable other developers to build compelling use cases for the metaverse. Meta’s role is basically around building the toolkit, enabling other partners and developers, and so in this context, it is not our intention to bid for the IPL rights that will open in the next few weeks. It’s a reference to the role in which we see ourselves, in building the metaverse, and not because we think the IPL isn’t a great asset. I have seen the power of IPL in making Hotstar.

In form of Apple The change in privacy, globally, has a $10 billion impact that Meta said it will see as a result of the new policy. For India, can you provide any qualitative or quantitative insight into what impact is being seen by META?

No numbers to share. What we’ve announced publicly over the past few weeks, and what’s to come, we’ve obviously worked to make sure some of the under-reporting on the web that’s behind the Apple changes is addressed. has gone. The same will continue. The only other thing to call is that Apple or iOS India has a very small part of the total equipment.

As far as the metaverse is concerned, are there products that you see changing the shape of Web 3.0? Have you invested in any of these?

It really is an open canvas. I believe its timing is quite important. When the last version of the Internet came out, we were on a very different level as a country. Not many people came online and the developer ecosystem was very quick. This confidence now comes on the back of the enormous entrepreneurial energy that has been aided by international capital over the years.

As a country, we now have the opportunity to shape the global metaverse. I don’t think it’s just about choosing two categories anymore. As a country, the opportunity is so huge, we could not be in a better position to create a value for ourselves and the world.

Some companies have started building use cases. Are they the leaders in this unknown realm of the metaverse or are they leaping before they can be seen?

I have no idea on any particular company or any particular use case. We’re trying to articulate our vision of what we’re trying to build, pointing to the enabling agenda on the hardware or software side, and the opportunity to build it in a patient, deliberate manner over the long term.