Meta officially launches Horizon Worlds

Ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its name to Meta, the whole industry has waited to see how they would conceptualize its version of the Metaverse.  Now we have our first glimpse, the company officially launched Horizon Worlds to anyone in the USA or Canada. This marks an important first step in creating the virtual ecosystem that is set to become the core foundation of Meta’s strategy.

What is Horizon Worlds?

Horizon Worlds is a social VR platform where users can build virtual experiences of all kinds. People can collaborate with friends, meet with work colleagues, and get a taste of what a future metaverse might look like. It has been in private beta for over two years now, but the company is finally opening up to users in North America.

This app is still completely self-contained, but it’s expected this beta version will eventually form the foundation of Meta’s larger interoperable ambitions. The experience itself is quite impressive and it’s clear to see that they’ve made a lot of progress in recent times. There is a wide range of game-creation capabilities, and a virtual space can now host up to 20 different people, up from 8 people in the previous beta.

All the in-platform building is designed specifically for collaboration, allowing groups of people to create experiences together. Making this possible opens up a lot of room for creativity and it will undoubtedly set a line in the sand for all the other metaverse creators to aim towards.

What does this mean for businesses?

This app joins the Horizon brand which also includes Horizon Workrooms, the more business-focused VR platform that some companies may already be familiar with.  It’s natural to expect that we’ll eventually see more overlap between the various apps as the wider metaverse comes together.

Companies are already using virtual worlds like this to meet and engage with stakeholders of all kinds.  These meetings are ofcourse more immersive, collaborative, and much more interesting than a Zoom call. Additional opportunities include creating training, induction, and teambuilding experiences in VR that can bring remote workers together from wherever they are.  This is crucial as we move towards a distributed future. 

Then, if we look at the project from a bigger picture perspective, there are opportunities for companies to build tools and projects for the VR ecosystem itself.  Any organization that is trying to create immersive social experiences should be watching this space carefully and seeing how it might play out in their space.