As Meta begins its journey into the metaverse, it’s looking to move into another new space, the real world, as they are launching their first physical store. Opening on May 9th in Meta’s Burlingame, California, campus, the store is their first foray into making their tech available for people to buy in person, and also coincides with the launch of a new shop portal on meta.com.
While it’s still a far cry from Apple’s 500+ stores around the world, this brings Meta a step closer to the likes of Google, who launched their first retail store in New York last year. Both of these stores are designed to help showcase the power of their technology. With interactive demos, Meta is looking to allow hands-on experiences to really get a feel for what is possible.
Once people experience the technology, they can gain a better appreciation for it. If we did our job right, people should leave and tell their friends, ‘You’ve got to go check out the Meta Store.
Martin Gilliard, Head of Meta Store
Doubling down on technology, where to from here?
While Meta’s move into tech is still emerging, the products on offer highlight the connected future that Meta is trying to build. The Meta Portal looks to make calling others easier, operating essentially screen with Meta’s video call services built in. While their recent partnership with EssilorLuxottica and Ray-Ban, currently provides built in cameras to create better content for social media, as well as being able to take calls and listen to music make for more connectivity to friends and family anywhere.
The potential next evolution of their smart glasses may be just around the corner, and Mark Zuckerberg teased a new wristband that can help control augmented reality. The wristband looks to use electromyography (EMG) to measure muscle response or electrical activity. These signals can then be mapped to specific movements which could be used as commands in a AR or VR world.
While AR smart glasses have not found great success in early iterations, just look at Google’s attempt to launch Google Glass, more companies have tried to move into this space, including Snapchat and now Meta.
The most interesting development of all of this, though, is it is becoming clearer on what Meta is trying to build. They have set out to make a product that establishes an easy entry point into the metaverse. This is why the likes of the Quest 2 VR headset is costed a lot cheaper than other headsets in the market. Now with their partnership with EssilorLuxottica, they can get their hardware, like cameras, into aesthetically pleasing glasses.
If they are able to continue to build out their virtual world with the power of Oculus, feed that into AR smart glasses, while also making controlling as simple as wearing something that looks like a watch, the proposition of entering and engaging with the metaverse will continue to get easier.