| Author of
from Huxiu Technology Group | Zhou Zhou
header image | Vision China
Zuckerberg finally "got started" on his most important product, facebook, and he began to explore NFT and Web3.
On June 30, 2022, a spokesperson for Meta stated on Twitter that it had begun testing NFTs on Facebook for some American creators, and these NFTs run on Ethereum and Polygon. Soon, it will also add support for Solana and Flow NFTs. Prior to this (May 2022), Meta's Instagram has begun to open the use of NFT to some users.
NFT, also known as non-fungible tokens, runs on the blockchain (such as Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, etc.). Each NFT is unique and cannot be tampered with. NFT is essentially a piece of data, which allows the data to be owned by individuals, instead of the current situation where all data is basically controlled by the Internet platform.
NFT has various forms. In the future, a post you post on Facebook, a picture posted on Instagram, and a piece of music you upload may all be NFTs. What is different from the past is that every NFT you send online comes with its own price, and it belongs only to you. This innovation has overturned the current Internet business model from the bottom up. Internet entrepreneurs no longer pursue monopolizing data and expanding scale, but pursue data ownership by individuals and platforms that serve people to better trade and circulate data. The failure of
Libra (a cryptocurrency project launched by Facebook that attempted to overturn the monetary sovereignty of various countries) made Zuckerberg realize that radical strategies are unrealistic and will trigger a strong counterattack by traditional forces. But Xiao Zha's ambition has not disappeared, and he has chosen a more moderate approach.
NFT, the first step in the metaverse. How does
take the first step in the metaverse?
Some people choose AR, VR, some people choose the Internet of Things, and some people choose Web3 (the next generation Internet based on blockchain). As the head of the world's largest Internet company, Zuckerberg doesn't have to make a choice, he wants everything.
Wang Miao, a Ph.D. working at Meta, told Huxiu: "The team currently working on NFT should be in Reality labs." Wang Miao is a member of Meta, although his research fields during his Ph.D. were artificial intelligence and machine learning , but I paid attention to Crypto and Web3 five or six years ago, and I still maintain a strong interest today.
He is not an exception. In the United States, not only Silicon Valley talents are pouring into Crypto and Web3, but Wall Street elites and SEC officials also regard Web3 as their next stop.
NFT is one of the sexiest application tracks in Web3. Meta product manager Navdeep Singh took to Twitter on Wednesday to share what NFTs will look like on Facebook. Users will have a "NFT Collection" place on their Facebook profile where they can display their NFTs. NFT represents your ownership of certain data.
Users are able to connect their cryptocurrency wallets to their Facebook profiles. They can also convert their NFTs into Facebook posts, which will be reacted to like, comment, and share just like before.
Judging from the current applications, NFT does not actually make Facebook more fun, so why does Meta add the NFT element to its two flagship products?
This may be related to the fact that NFT can bring many new characteristics to the Internet.
In the real world, people create a painting. If this painting has great appreciation value, collection value or artistic value, it will be given a very high price by collectors, such as Van Gogh's paintings.
However, in the digital age, more and more artists, including but not limited to painters, writers, musicians, and designers, prefer to create on computers. Many of their works are of great value, and more and more great works will be displayed in digital form in the future. In today's world, people spend more time in the virtual world or metaverse than in the real world. People, especially those of the Internet generation, have a strong need to create, collect and trade "digital masterpieces". and NFT provide the best technical form for this demand, and will break the free status of everything on the Internet and encourage excellent creators to create excellent works.
When Facebook entered NFT, it actually felt in advance the needs of "Internet natives" for creation, collection, trading and sharing in the digital world, and made a layout. The
metaverse represents an inevitable trend in the development of human beings in the digital age. WeChat, Douyin , Taobao... are actually "rudimentary versions of the Metaverse", which represent that people can chat, enjoy and shop online. If Metaverse 1.0 is very crude and can only achieve partial immersion, then Metaverse 2.0 goes a step further and allows people to be more immersed in it.
People can do many things that could not be done on the Internet (Metaverse 1.0) before, and through the advancement of technology, they can do it in Metaverse 2.0. NFT is such a technology.
The contemporary Van Gogh may be a young man who creates on a computer. The things he creates are extremely subversive in art and humanities, and NFT can confirm the rights to his works and make his works unique.
The new era's Jay Chou is a young man who publishes music works on the Internet. Its musical works will still be sung by people for free, but the first music NFT it releases will increase its value along with its musical status. Internet natives will have a strong need for immersion in the Metaverse. And NFT can achieve it. The
metaverse is a "mapping" of the real world. In the real world, people have economic systems, creations and collections, and every item is unique and has its own price. So, the same is true in the metaverse. The digital currency (FT) corresponds to an independent economic system, and the non-fungible token (NFT) corresponds to every work in the metaverse.
Tencent’s Q coin cannot replace digital currency, and no major manufacturer can independently create unique and consensus-based NFTs. This is the core value of blockchain. Big companies, centralized institutions, and countries cannot do it, but it can. The fusion of
FT (digital currency) and NFT (non-fungible token) became Web3. Web3 is an indispensable cornerstone of the immersive metaverse.
Meta’s opponents
At present, most major American Internet companies have realized the importance of NFT and Web3.
Huxiu wrote in the article "Major American Internet Companies "Gathering Together" Web3": Meta, Google , Amazon , Twitter , eBay , Netflix, Paypal, Square and other at least 8 major American Internet companies. Take action to explore Crypto or Web3.
Especially Twitter, which is also a social giant, is leading the major Internet manufacturers and is the first to "embed" NFT in its products. Video giants such as Netflix are also experimenting with the use of NFTs in many of their high-quality film and television works, such as "Stranger Things" and "Love, Death and Robots."
Many fans sneer at NFT and regard NFT technology as a scam. However, major Internet companies know what they are trying to do. An investor once told Huxiu: "A phenomenal product becomes popular all over the world very quickly. It would be crazy to want to get a piece of the pie by then." Whether it is the Internet giants in the United States, China, or even Russia Internet giants in Japan, especially the social giants in the United States, China, Japan and Russia, are already deploying NFTs, and this is the reason why.
For Meta, its opponents are not only traditional Internet giants such as Twitter and TikTok, but the greater threat lies in Web3 companies.
According to Huxiu’s observation, there are more than a dozen Web3 social companies in China, and even more in the United States. They are the “aboriginals” of the Web3 world and have a deeper understanding and exploration of NFT and other things. They are committed to creating a decentralized social graph that is completely different from Meta, which may enable users to truly have their own "social relationships". No matter which platform they go to, users can migrate their social relationships autonomously.
Huxiu found that in China, Ant ’s NFT platform Whaletan and Tencent’s NFT platform Huanhe are also exploring social networking based on NFT relationships. However, the current usage scenarios of the entire NFT are too single and the social functions have not been launched online. . Boring Ape is not only an NFT, but also a close social ecology. As more and more boring apes appear and the relationship graph becomes greatly enriched, social products based on NFT may become possible.
By then, will Meta still become the "social overlord" in the next era?
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