Facebook acquiring Oculus VR was a bold move, a move that does not seem to be beneficial to the company for the short term. Since the purchase, Facebook shares fell by 7 percent, proving beyond a doubt that investors are uneasy about the question.
By purchasing Oculus VR, Facebook is hedging its bet on Virtual Reality becoming a popular thing in the future. The company would be on the forefront with the Oculus Rift ahead of any potential competitor in the market.
As it stands, Facebook is preparing itself for a future where social interaction and entertainment may happen in a virtual world, and that world should exist in Facebook's universe.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, is on a roll with making key purchases to keep his company relevant ahead of time. His swift move to acquire Instagram has proven wise, as the app now has over 200 million users and counting.
Furthermore, the purchase of WhatsApp for $19 billion is quite expensive, but it might turn out to be one of Zuckerberg's most prominent decisions yet. WhatsApp currently sits on 400 million active users each day, and this number is increasing at a fast rate. This means WhatsApp could hit the 1 billion user activity per day milestone in a few years and that would be extremely beneficial to Facebook's bottom line.
With Oculus VR now under Facebook, Mark could be sizing up the social network for something highly interesting and it might one day prove to be his most forward thinking decision in the history of his company.
Investors who are scared of what the purchase of Oculus VR means for Facebook should simmer down and look at the bigger picture instead of an early financial gain, as people spend 40 percent of their time playing video games, claims Facebook's David Ebersman. This means the possibility of the social network opening new market for advertisements high and it could turn out to be very fruitful.
It is not clear, however, how Facebook plans to monetize VR content or how it plans to make Facebook part of the experience. As time goes by though, we expect all these questions to be answered.
