Meta Isn’t the Only Company Building the Metaverse
This week, we look at Niantic and Snap, whose augmented reality plans are quite different than what’s being hyped elsewhere….
LG: We’ve been talking a lot about Facebook lately, and I’m just wondering if maybe it’s time for a break.
MC: You do not have to twist my arm.
LG: Here’s the thing though. I can’t promise we’re not going to talk about the Metaverse maybe, but maybe from a slightly different perspective.
MC: Should I say snap out of the Metaverse or something like that?
LG: Yeah, that’s a good one. We’re going to get to that.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays.]
LG: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a senior writer at WIRED.
MC: And I am Michael Calore a senior editor at WIRED.
LG: And we’re joined this week by WIRED editor at large Steven Levy. Steven, thanks for joining us.
Steven Levy: It’s my pleasure.
LG: Your background on Zoom looks really idyllic. It’s a fall foliage scene. Where are you?
SL: Well, it’s actually where I’m not, it’s a fully and seen from my house in Western Massachusetts, but at the moment I’m in Palo Alto.
LG: Got it. OK. So the Metaverse is the Berkshires?
SL: Yes.
LG: OK. So there’s been a lot of talk about the Metaverse lately, including on this podcast. But we promise we’re going to make it worth your while, Facebook, excuse me, Meta has been pitching this idea of a virtual reality experience where you strap on a headset and you just completely cut off access to the real world. But you’re supposed to have this really immersive computing experience. Some technologists though, we’re seeing this as a step too far or a little too dystopian and have wanted to offer a different vision of this hyper futuristic world. So take Snap for example, yes. The maker of Snapchat disappearing messages app, the company also makes pretty sophisticated augmented reality as well. And so later on in the show, we’re going to hear directly from Bobby Murphy, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Snap, who I spoke to earlier this week.
But another person who has pretty strong opinions on the Metaverse is Niantic CEO, John Hanke. You probably know Niantic as the company that makes Pokemon GO, but Hanke’s vision of a connected world is a lot different from what Mark Zuckerberg has been putting out there. And Hanke has no problem pointing out what he sees as the flaws in Facebook’s plans for metadata domination. And Steven, you talked with John Hanke from Niantic for a story that is on WIRED.com this week, and it’s coming out in our upcoming December issue of the magazine. So tell us a little bit about what his vision is for this hyper futuristic augmented world.
SL: Right. He’s actually put a stake in the ground against the Metaverse as portrayed by Mark Zuckerberg. He actually did a blog item a couple of weeks ago, said the Metaverse is dystopian. His vision is not that we’re going to cut out all our senses and go to this make-believe world. Have our meetings in some fake place, were we all put on our headsets. He says, I have no desire to have a meeting, being a cartoon character in some place that looks like a cartoon Tahiti. Instead his view is the Metaverse will be a digital layer on top of where we physically are. Now his background is he started a company called Keyhole, weirdly was funded by the CIA, but it did satellite imagery. And then he got hired by Google who bought his company and was instrumental in developing Google Maps.
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