Social VR: The Next Gamechanger?

Until recently, Virtual Reality (VR) was a thing of sci-fimovies. The launch of VR headsets in the last few years, however, changed everything. At Facebook’s F8 conference in April , the company launched its VR social media platform, Facebook Spaces, giving opportunities beyond gaming and entertainment for this technology.With VR becoming mainstream, it may be time for marketers to leverage Spaces and social VR as a platform to connect with consumers.

- Shubhi Tandon

THE launch of Facebook Spaces in April showed that Mark Zuckerberg is betting on virtual reality (VR) as one of the important future technology trends to lookout for. The Facebook CEO has repeatedly talked about VR being the next step in connecting with the world, since the $2-billion Oculus acquisition by Facebook in 2014. “There’s always a richer, more immersive medium to experience the world, and after video, the next logical step is fully immersive virtual reality,” he had said back in 2015 at the Oculus Connect event.

GEAR UP, MARKETERS

With the rise of VR devices, apps and content since 2016, there is a VR ecosystem that is looking to shape up. A report from IHS Markit from October 2016 showed that VR headsets sales are expected to grow to $7.9 billion, while spends on VR entertainment by users would be at $3.3 billion by 2020.