Internal Meta docs detail its metaverse struggles; Horizon Worlds has ~200K MAUs vs. a goal of 500K by end of 2022; 9% of worlds are ever visited by 50+ people (Wall Street Journal)

Alex Heath / The Verge:
In an internal memo, Meta’s VP of Metaverse said Horizon Worlds is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much  —  Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues …

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Windows Subsystem for Linux is now generally available for Windows 10 and 11 via the Microsoft Store, as Microsoft makes the Store version of WSL the default  —  Microsoft announced today that the Store version of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is generally available for Windows 10 and 11 customers.

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
A look at life in Meta’s VR-based social network Horizon Worlds, interacting with early adopters including preteens, parents, insomniacs, and aspiring comedians  —  Every hour of the day and night with the gamers, parents, insomniacs, preteens and aspiring comedians who are the earliest adopters …

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta announces Horizon Worlds avatars are getting legs using an AI model to predict the body’s position, an avatar store, avatars are coming to Reels, and more  —  Meta’s Horizon avatars will be getting legs.  So far, the company’s avatars have weirdly just hovered off the ground …

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Unsealed court docs in a privacy user profiling suit against Meta show that apps from Zynga, Yahoo, and others had extensive access to users’ friends’ data  —  It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up… The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep …

TechCrunch:
A look at Snap’s decision to close Zenly, popular in Europe and Asia with a claimed ~35M MAUs earlier in 2022, to “focus on Snap Map”, which has 300M+ MAUs  —  Snapchat’s parent Snap became the latest tech company to announce a huge round of layoffs, confirming ongoing rumors yesterday …