Seems Like Meta Wants To Flood The Metaverse With Ads, Patents Suggest

thegamer.com:

Meta has plans. Big plans. Plans for a metaverse to rival the one portrayed in Ready Player One. And just like the villainous corporation from the film, Meta's plans for the metaverse could be to fill its virtual world with advertisements.

The Financial Times recently got a hold of several Meta patents that relate to its coming metaverse. The overall theme appears to be monetization in the form of targeted advertisements that go way beyond what we experience surfing the web.

Related: The Dystopian Origins And Future Of the Metaverse, Explained

Advertising in the metaverse will be hyper-targeted based on age, gender, your comments on social media (specifically Facebook), and how long you look at other advertisements. Patents detail how eye-tracking software will record how long you look at certain things and use that information to feed you sponsored content.

"Clearly, you could do something similar [to existing ad targeting systems] in the metaverse — where you’re not selling eye-tracking data to advertisers," said Meta's head of global affairs Nick Clegg in an interview with The Financial Times. "But in order to understand whether people engage with an advertisement or not, you need to be able to use data to know."

Besides ads, Meta also patented an idea for virtual stores for buying digital things, but that's really no different from any other digital store for in-game cosmetics.

Avatars will also play a big role in the metaverse, and Meta has plans for an "avatar personalization engine" to essentially digitize yourself for the virtual world. Magnetic sensors on your body could track your every movement in the metaverse, while eye-tracking tech will make certain objects (like ads) appear brighter depending on where