A women on a laptop using Facebook within a browser. Photo by: Kaboompics // Karolina / Pexels.com
A women on a laptop using Facebook within a browser. Photo by: Kaboompics // Karolina / Pexels.com

Facebook Aims to Connect Music, Gaming and Messaging

The first day to the Facebook F8 Conference was held today. Overall I felt it lacked focus at demoing new products to get people excited about upcoming developments within the company.

“We’re making the camera the first Augmented Reality Platform.” – Mark Zuckerberg

The conference did shine light on social interaction within virtual reality. The Social VR application launched today on beta. Overall it looks cute, but has a lot of work to be done before it has a definable purpose.

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One major flaw I see in virtual reality shared experiences in general is compatibility. Users will need to have the same equipment to interact with one another. Even if you find someone with enough money to afford the latest virtual reality gear, they are most likely so busy working non-stop that they wouldn’t have much physical time for entertainment.

Basically, Social VR is currently for wealthy, rich kids with free time on their hands. Not the biggest demographic overall.

In a weak attempt at delivering engaging products, all we got was ripe off versions of Google Glass and the new Snapchat glasses. A knock off of Google VR for developers, and no mention about job growth.

My suggestion for the next conference is to focus on creating software that would allow students a way to submit ideas and share copyright with a major corporation. Instead of having each person pay a fee to copyright an idea, Facebook could provide a platform that would allow users to submit projects, and have a team of new hires go through them, picking out the most economical viable projects.

Think of it as Shark Tank meets social networking.

Read more on this event with WIRED’s coverage of Facebook F8 conference.

Watch over TIME’s stream via YouTube from the conference in McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.

Facebook Reveals Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality & More At Annual F8 Conference | TIME