Was 2021 the year of the metaverse?
In 2021…
A report by McKinsey says that the number of searches for the word “metaverse” on the internet went up by 7200%.
Over $10 billion has been raised by companies associated with the metaverse.
Three decades back…
In the year 1992, sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson first used the term “metaverse” in his novel Snow Crash.
Today…
Metaverse is being brought to life by one of the most powerful organizations connecting people worldwide. When COVID-19 hit the world, people around the world turned to their smart devices for solace. Amidst the silence in people’s homes, gaming began to create ripples, with people ready to immerse themselves in a world that was far different from the traditional one. It did not take long for technology enterprises to realize that this was the future of the world. The metaverse had truly arrived.
Before we dive in, we’d like to answer a few crucial questions:
What role will software, networks, and behavioral sciences play in the metaverse?
Software
With major tech giants committing their interest, investment, and time to metaverse, software experts understand the need to increase their familiarity with metaverse. Metaverse is all about immersive technologies. As consumers’ interest in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products increases with time, technology enterprises need to formulate new strategies to establish their foothold. Therefore, enterprises have to reconsider software delivery strategies.
At present, mobile app development is a necessary evil to help businesses reach out to target audiences. In the same way, AR/VR development will become an important investment in the future for delivering digital experiences. Long story short, building a development team to deliver AR/VR software is essential. Learning more about virtual reality, augmented reality, non-fungible tokens (NFT), and blockchain should therefore be on the must-do list of people in the software industry.
Network
The shift to the metaverse presents a like never-before opportunity for the network industry. It is important to build a new generation of networks that are ready for the metaverse on a foundation of interoperability and openness. This also means considerable advancements in symmetric bandwidth, speed, and latency. To help the metaverse reach billions of people around the world, however, connectivity providers from all over the world would have to work together to create a common framework for measuring and evaluating metaverse readiness. This would be a top priority.
Behavioral Sciences
Imagine real-world people waking up to live a virtual life every day. This would be a life where they could live as a new character every day. Yes, that is exactly what the metaverse will look like. In the metaverse, a person could show the best or worst version of themselves. One could be The Great Gatsby today and become Khaleesi tomorrow. After getting used to a better, fancier version of ourselves in the virtual world, it would be hard to accept our real, flawed selves in the real world. The consequences for human psychology would be far worse than anyone could have imagined. In short, the person’s whole world could fall apart like a house of cards.
What framework has been adopted to define success in the metaverse?
Emergen Research reported that the metaverse market is expected to reach over US $800 billion by 2028. As the metaverse craze grows in 2022, businesses all over the world have already put a lot of money on the uncharted parts of the metaverse.
Let’s look at a few of the things that affect how successful a business is in the metaverse:
- Advantage to early movers: Gartner projects that 25% of people worldwide will spend one hour every day in the metaverse by 2026. Therefore, enterprises that prepare for metaverse adoption would have a competitive advantage in this new market.
- Experiment with different platforms: Many platforms, each with their own unique set of features, are already being developed for the metaverse. Enterprises can leverage the unique capabilities of multiple platforms and package them into one to present an enhanced assortment to end-users.
- Let Artificial intelligence (AI) do the talking: Aligning communication in the virtual world to be like real-world human-to-human interaction is extremely important. Users expect quick, customized experiences, even while talking to VR characters. Improvement in the conversational capabilities of AI would eventually help the audience become more comfortable in the metaverse.
- Indulge in lifestyle experiences: In the metaverse, art lovers will be able to attend virtual art exhibitions. Likewise, travel enthusiasts would be able to go on virtual trips to their dream destinations. Personalized VR experiences would allow people from different walks of life to experiment with and indulge in activities of their interest.
- Spot booking: Once an organization owns a spot in the metaverse, it is free to do whatever it wants there. Be it creating a customized website or providing personalized experiences, enterprises can evolve within the claimed digital spaces.
Do different industries have different frameworks for success?
Bloomberg Intelligence predicts that the market value of the metaverse will climb to US$2.5 trillion by 2030 from an estimated $800 billion in 2025. Even though it is still being built, the metaverse will be the way to get into the digital world in the future. Metaverse opens up new opportunities in many fields, such as filmmaking, streaming entertainment, advertising, retail, video, photography, technology, healthcare, and many more. This is not the end. A plethora of other industries will also be impacted. New jobs and opportunities will emerge in almost all industries.
Any business that wants to offer interactive products to its customers in the future will have to look to the metaverse. Metaverse will help enterprises discover new ways of doing business. However, frameworks for measuring success will differ across industries. They would vary according to the need, scope, and influence of the metaverse on end-users and changes in the industry landscape.
Is there a possibility that innovation will help build a common framework for success across industries?
The metaverse is being used across a wide range of digitally advanced virtual realities and business models. With the convergence of technologies, the industrial metaverse is already taking shape. Global companies like Microsoft and Amazon have started to adapt to the industrial metaverse trend. In this situation, innovations will help businesses stand out and give new opportunities the most attention. It is not exactly possible to create a common framework for success across industries. But technologies like remote collaboration and immersive experiences will make it possible for businesses to enter the industrial space of the metaverse.
What are the aspects that will be critical when defining success frameworks?
While the metaverse may appear to be a long way from reality, the opportunities it can provide for businesses are very real.
Below are the critical aspects for defining success frameworks in the metaverse:
- Client engagement: Gaming companies are already building larger-than-life content to attract users. Likewise, other enterprises entering the metaverse would need to distinguish their offerings by leveraging the capabilities of immersive technologies. Moreover, service providers must understand the need to go beyond the conventional client base of the real world.
- Building new relationships: In the real world, service providers work with hundreds of companies. However, they prioritize a handful that exercise maximum influence on their revenue stream. The same cannot hold true for the metaverse. Organizations will have to partner with multiple companies to build their pipeline.
- Envisioning metaverse-ready products: Any real-world product or service might need complete transformation to become valuable to end-users in the metaverse. This also implies that companies will be innovating to envision new products with unique capabilities customized for metaverse users.
- Models for business monetisation: No business works without profits, whether in the real world or metaverse. Clients ultimately look to the service providers to seek advice on the possibilities for monetization.
