Meta needed consumer product along with foundational model. Manus gives them consumer product now. Pure speculation - must be 5B+ acquisition given their revenue run rate.
Communication, Trade, Commerce, Navigation, Education/Learning, are timeless needs for 100s of years. We buy and sell products all the time. And if something that improves our day to day shopping experience then we are solving for one of the core needs for us as humans.
I have worked on 3D shopping - this seems like a huge step up from the world of photogrammetry to NeRFs to veo. When it comes to shopping - the realism matteres the most. Its not just about 3D model but shadows of light, texture, how it looks in different settings (for e.g. if it's furniture item in a larger scene). That's where the rubber meets the road. Regardless, I'd be curious - how fast can we create 3D models from existing imagery/videos.
This is incredible. I wonder if there will be medicine that cures idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. New class of drugs like Ofev stop worsening of the IPF but doesn't cure it.
As someone who likes to pay for things I use, I'm in the target customer/user group here. Couple of questions -
1. Is it only for FB or across all Meta services (FB, IG, WhatsApp, Oculus etc.)
2. Are ads going to be shown to verified/premium subscribers?
2nd point is particularly important. Especially if key value prop is about security and privacy. Looks like ARPU for Meta is $40 annually. So financially they can afford not to show ads to verified subscribers (annual sub of $100+). However, for verified subscribers it's only about "blue badge" I doubt there will be huge uptick unless it has other "sweetners" like "no ads" like youtube premium.
Overall - this is a great move by Meta. As it gives them ability to diversify revenue streams from ads where they are dependent on 3rd party platform privacy policies. YouTube premium has shown that social platforms can thrive with freemium model and they have roughly 80M subs ($1B+ revenue). Meta is trying to replicate same success with their brands.
It seems M&A door is wide open for 2026.