san francisco facebook on monday said it was combining specialists from across its hardware gaming and virtual reality units to build an immersive digital world known as the metaversethe metaverse a term coined by scifi writer neal stephenson refers to a shared online world in which multiple users can hang out spend money consume media and potentially even workthe project is seen as central to facebooks future by ceo mark zuckerbergtoday were standing up a metaverse product group to bring together the teams focused on responsibly building this ambitious work facebook executive andrew bosworth said in a postthe defining quality of the metaverse will be presence the feeling of really being there with peoplefacebook hardware such as portal smartscreens and oculus virtual reality head gear are already tools for making people feel close together despite being far apart according to bosworthto achieve our full vision of the metaverse we also need to build the connective tissue between these spaces he saidvishal shah from the instagram team will head a new metaverse product groupepic games the us company behind video game sensation fortnite early this year announced it raised 1 billion in new funding with some of that money to support its vision of the metaversehit video games such as fortnite have seen use soar during the pandemic and their creators see potential to expand to virtual parties gettogethers or work events