Mark Zuckerberg Has A Plan To Bring Facebook Users Into Virtual Reality

Facebook's  Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, which ships to consumers for the first time in a few weeks, may have been conceived of by gaming enthusiasts. However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has bigger plans for the device.

Facebook  recently announced it formed a "Social VR" team to build technology that creates new ways for people to have social experiences in virtual reality and to engage with Facebook's network in virtual settings. The team will build for Oculus devices as well as other technology that's available today, while also trying to anticipate the platforms of the future. Facebook unveiled the team on Sunday, the day before the Mobile World Congress began in Barcelona, Spain.

"VR is going to be the most social platform," Zuckerberg said on Sunday at Samsung's Galaxy S7 event. " Facebook , with Oculus, are committed to this for the long term. We've recently created new teams at  Facebook  to build the next generation of social apps and VR.”

Designers Daniel James and Michael Booth, who have both worked at major gaming companies, will lead the team that is making Oculus social. Facebook said its social VR tools will allow friends in different parts of the world to feel like they are hanging out in the same room together. Zuckerberg told Wired he envisions a pair of lightweight eye glasses that will allow users to shift between the virtual world and real life. The tool would allow users to play a virtual game with a friend as well as peruse Facebook posts and photos. Facebook, however, did not specify further what to expect from these social apps.

"We’ve already helped people connect in a wide variety of ways on mobile devices — ranging from Facebook and Instagram to Messenger and WhatsApp — and now we want to apply that same approach to the new medium of VR," Facebook said in a post.

Oculus, which Facebook acquired in 2014 for about $2 billion, has already incorporated social networking into some of its experiences. Facebook recently shared a demonstration of Oculus "Toybox," a Rift game that allows users to virtually play ping pong together, light a firecracker or play with blocks. Activities like these are facilitated by Oculus' sensor-laden hand controllers that track hand movements.

Oculus also incorporated "Social Alpha," a group chat tool, into its Gear VR headset, a device Facebook made with Samsung. Samsung built the hardware, and Oculus made the software. More than 200 games and apps are available on the $99 product. Facebook says people have watched more than a million hours of video on the headset.

"He [Zuckerberg] wants a billion people on Facebook in virtual reality as soon as possible," Mary Lou Jepsen, director of engineering at Facebook and head of display technology at Oculus, said at a VMware conference in Palo Alto, Calif. on Tuesday.

Online worlds such as Second Life, which saw a surge of interest a decade ago, offered users an alternative reality that even brands wanted to join. The platform gives some indication as to what future virtual worlds could be like, according to Jan Rezab, founder and executive chairman of social analytics company Socialbakers. Even though virtual reality is a high priority for Facebook, the hardware and software challenges ahead of the company are considerable. Barriers to getting people to want to wear headsets every day will likely be high. Other wearables such as Google Glass haven't caught on among consumers, and the adoption will take time.

"Virtual reality's success will depend on the penetration of devices," Rezab said in an email. "VR-capable devices need to be in enough hands to where the technology can flourish."

Rezab estimated that at least 50 million people will need to use virtual reality headsets daily in order to give social VR the momentum it needs to take off. That number should make it practical for users to jump into virtual reality for meetings, for example. However, Rezab, is more bullish on augmented reality than on VR.

"Augmented reality [AR] is the ultimate solution," Rezab said. "It allows you to input external content into your own reality rather than entering a separate reality. AR more closely merges into our lives, just as smartphones are now an integral part of our lives."

Facebook's 360 or spherical video technology is helping pave the way for virtual reality. The social media giant said people have uploaded more than 20,000 spherical videos to Facebook, and the tool will become available on Gear VR.

For now, Facebook's Oculus, priced at $600, is up against a host of other companies and startups: Google has been building its own VR technology in-house and invested about $500 million in the augmented reality startup Magic Leap and Microsoft released an augmented reality headset. The smartphone and table-makers HTC and LG are also both launching their own VR headsets.