As you know, Facebook has made a substantial bet on the future of virtual reality with their purchase of Oculus Rift. The next step in their plan has arrived with Spherical Video.

Put simply, Spherical Video is a 360 degree video captured by multiple cameras that move in unison, facing different directions. The resulting video can be viewed in a VR headset, or in software like a browser using the mouse to turn – not unlike Google Maps street view.

What this means for MapMerge is that of all the 360 degree scenes Mark Zuckerberg could have demoed, he choose a town that would appeal to virtual travellers.

I’m sure that, at this stage, Facebook are imaging a collection of videos, each distinct from the other. And not any formed of inter-connectedness…