socialTrendsVR & ARHow they work and how to share 3D Facebook posts

For a few years now, Facebook has been investing in augmented and virtual reality technology. Mark Zuckerberg implied that he sees VR and AR as a natural development of the social network that has already gone from text to photos to video. 3D posts are the next step, but let’s see how they work and how to create them.

How they work and how to share 3D posts

The announcement about 3D posts came from Menlo Park back in October. They’re a unique chance for users to interact with 3-dimensional digital objects by simply hovering with a mouse. Now the news has come out that 3D Facebook posts will support a new file type, glTF 2.0. This format allows high quality rendering and graphics to give users the most realistic experience possible. At the same time, the new Graph API allows third party app developers to share 3D creations on Facebook, or build websites that are visible as 3-dimensional posts. The whole project is an initiative by Oculus VR, the company Zuckerberg acquired in 2014.

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“We’re trying to make 3D a native part of the Facebook ecosystem. Stage 3 is getting these 3D objects into AR” Ocean Quigley, Facebook’s Creative director for social VR recently stated. And it seems that the integration has gone well: posting a 3D object on the social network is really easy. You just need an app or website that supports Facebook APIs, but you can also upload a 3D file from your own computer. Not only that, but users can even bring 3D objects from their Newsfeed to Spaces, Facebook’s VR hangout rooms.

When you share a 3D object, you can also choose the background color or texture to post on. Quigley explained that the idea is to keep everything very simple so that users don’t need any special skills to be able to share high-tech posts.

Lego, Peroni and Sony: why brands are looking to 3D

Brands like Lego, Peroni and Clash of Clans are experimenting with 3D posts. And Wayfair, the American e-commerce company for home goods, can now show furniture within a room so customers can see the product from every angle before buying. But it’s definitely Peroni that’s showing off how useful this new feature can be for marketers. “With Facebook 3D, you can turn it, move it and see from every possible angle. Drinking it is still better at the bar though.” That’s the tagline of a post that shows a 3D model of the beer. And Sony is particularly tied to the 3-dimensional experience. Users of their 3D creator tool can share their creations right from their smartphones.

With the introduction of this new feature, as the company’s product manager Aykud Gönen said, the prospect for the future is to create a “seamless digital world” full of highly engaging experiences through VR, AR and Facebook. A world accessible both through desktop and smartphone, or even – why  not? – through VR headsets. Who could benefit more than e-commerce from the direction Menlo Park is taking?

In the last few years, Facebook has brought in many new formats for content – 360° photos, Live Videos and gifs – in an attempt to appeal to younger users. And it’s among teenagers that 3D posts could have the most success, for their intuitiveness and playful side.  

But the effects of this simple update, in the long term, will invest in more sectors than we can imagine. For now, we predict that they’ll offer an important opportunity for marketing, but it will also be a useful tool for video game producers and the entertainment sector in general.