Roles in the young and evolving VR industry continue to change as executives, developers, and more leave and join new companies frequently. Investors are pouring billions into the VR and AR markets and the biggest names in the tech world are trying to build teams that can help win. Today, we’ve learned the former VR Content Vice President from Samsung, Matt Apfel, has officially joined the Daydream team with Google VR, according to Variety.
Apfel left Samsung in March of this year, after working with the company for two years, where he focused on creating and acquiring original content for the Samsung VR video platform on Gear VR and Oculus (formerly known as Milk VR.) Presumably, Apfel will bring that expertise to the Daydream team and YouTube 360-video platform as well. Apfel’s LinkedIn page simply states, “Content, Daydream VR,” so the exact nature of his position is still a bit unclear.
His career is highlighted by similar high-level content leadership positions, bringing insight and experience to the growing Google VR team. Clearly, Google is taking VR very seriously and recently added Paul Debevec of the USC ICT Lab and WebVR leader Josh Carpenter to the team as well.
One area of interest that would be highly relevant for Apfel to focus his attention is the growing stable of innovative and immersive 360-degree videos Google has been producing on YouTube under the Google Spotlight brand. Special Delivery, a Christmas-focused story from late last year, was the first endeavor, with Pearl, the most recent addition, Google is showing a penchant for creating and publishing high-quality content.
Since Google already has the world’s largest video platform at their disposal in YouTube, Apfel could bring his content acquisition experience to help Google VR and the Daydream platform secure some of the 360-degree film and animation industry’s best content.
