Hello everyone and welcome to ZD Tech, ZDNet’s daily editorial podcast. My name is Guillaume Serries and today I explain to you why the publisher of the Snapchat application is getting rid of its very recent projects around the concept of Web3.
Snap, maker of teens’ favorite app Snapchat, has just dropped its Web3 plans just months after becoming interested in the subject.
The Californian company has just declared a 20% reduction in the number of its employees and cut investments in all projects that do not directly contribute to what CEO Evan Spiegel describes as the company’s three strategic priorities, namely: community growth, revenue growth and augmented reality.
Exit Web3 projects
As a result of this refocusing on the fundamentals, exit Web3 projects.
So there, maybe you’re saying to yourself: “But what is Web3? Well, to find out, I invite you to listen to an episode of ZD Tech from last January, mischievously named “What Web3 is not”. You will learn, in hollow, what this concept covers.
A now ex-employee of Snap, who had set up a dedicated team last year on this subject, very linked to that of digital property, affirms that his entire pole has recently been “put on the back burner”.
And the metaverse then?
And the metaverse then? Yes, because one of the challenges of Web3, in addition to cryptocurrencies and NFTs, the famous non-fungible tokens, is the visualization of virtual universes. And what better than virtual reality and augmented reality to show customers and users these famous universes?
Well no, Snap now claims that “the first explorations in the Web3 space represent a project that does not directly contribute to our priority and our investment in augmented reality”. So yes to augmented reality, especially via the famous Snapchat glasses, the famous Spectacles. But there is no longer any question of mixing virtual universes and augmented reality.
This reversal of strategy will obviously not only make people happy. Several non-fungible token creators had previously worked with Snap to release augmented reality filters, known as Lenses. Filters that made it possible to create photos and videos that showcased their NFTs in 3D.
So, is this already the end of Web3?
No. Other companies persist in exploring this new space for now, admittedly, very poorly defined.
Meta, the publisher of Facebook and Instagram, Snap’s great rival, is continuing its efforts in this area, having adopted the name Meta earlier this year to reflect this new direction.
The company is building a virtual reality platform called Horizon Worlds. And YouTube, an Alphabet subsidiary, also announced that it was recruiting a Web3 manager at the start of the year.