the FinancialTimes reviewed the patents filed by Meta for its future virtual universe. Monetization could be based on biometric data.
Mark Zuckerberg has repeated it on many occasions: the metaverse, this virtual world that his group is building, will be a huge business opportunity. “You’ll need virtual clothes, virtual tools, and a variety of experiences. Our goal is for this market to reach hundreds of billions of dollars,” he explained to financial analysts in October.
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However, who says commerce says advertising. And in the case of Facebook, targeted advertising. The Californian group intends to import the recipes that have made its fortune on Facebook and Instagram into this 3D universe, according to information from the Financial Times.
The British newspaper has gone through the hundreds of patents that the group has filed in the United States, which suggest how the metaverse should be monetized. Some documents suggest that Facebook will analyze a user’s facial expressions and gaze direction to determine the effectiveness of an ad.
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Gaze and expression analysis
Oculus virtual reality headsets, essential for connecting to Facebook’s metaverse, are indeed equipped with cameras inside them. They are necessary to concentrate the computing power on the area viewed by the user in order to display high-quality graphics there, and to replicate their facial expressions on the user’s avatar, which allows for more natural exchanges between users. But these technical data could be diverted from their primary use.
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the FinancialTimes cites a patent filed on January 4 aimed at analyzing the user’s facial expressions in order to “adapt content» displayed on the screen. Gaze tracking could also be exploited. “You do not sell this data to advertisers, but it helps to determine how Internet users react to an advertisement.“, explains to FinancialTimes Nick Clegg, director of public affairs at Facebook.
Eye tracking, or eye tracking, is a technique already widely used in the world of advertising. It makes it possible, thanks to studies carried out on representative groups of consumers, to study whether or not their gaze is directed towards an advertisement online, on television or in the street, and with what intensity.
From stores to personalized stalls
If it deploys such a device in its metaverse, Facebook would have access to a much wider panel of consumers. Above all, it could finely analyze the biological reactions of each of its users in order to better understand what attracts their attention and elicits a positive or negative reaction. This would make it possible to display the advertisements best suited to each profile.
“My biggest fear is that the metaverse will allow ad targeting based on our biological reactions to stimuli.», Comments lawyer Brittan Heller to the FinancialTimes. “Most people don’t know how valuable that is. And today, no law prohibits such practices.»
Other patents refer to the personalization of advertising in the metaverse. One refers to targeting based on age, gender, interests, and “interactions within a social networklike comments and likes – which Facebook already does very well on its current platforms. Another explains that the shelves of future metaverse stores could be different depending on the users. A brand could decide to pay to appear in front of the consumers it wants to reach, via an auction system already used for Facebook and Instagram targeted ads.
Asked by the FinancialTimes, Facebook points out that “the patents that we file do not necessarily represent technologies that we will use in our products.»