The new term coined to the virtual world, Metaverse, has created a buzz since Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg released its promotional video. And people’s opinions all over Reddit and tech news websites are divided into pros and cons.
What is the future of Metaverse?
Just this month, CNBC.com published news about investors paying millions for virtual land in the Metaverse, and Reddit users didn’t take it very well.
While the actual real estate industry is skyrocketing, the digital real estate prices have also gone up 400% to 500% in the last few months, that’s according to Tokens.com CEO Andrew Kiguel. In this virtual world or Meta Platform, celebrities have already started shopping for real estate. The Sandbox virtual game player spent $450,000 just to be neighbours with Snoop Dogg. Paris Hilton has already DJ’s on a new year’s virtual party.
As I said, Reddit users are not optimistic about this progression who compares the Metaverse to Second Life. If you are a reader too young to know Second Life, it is a gaming platform where users can create a second life in an online virtual world. It rose to fame quickly in early 2000, but active users declined by 2017. Most Reddit comments fall into saying that Metaverse can be compared to a Ponzi scheme and that this is the result of some people having too much money; they don’t know where to spend it anymore. While the concept is fun and all, it isn’t something people can use in the long term.
But some are optimistic.
Campaign Asia shares insights from various tech names. Aleissa Laidacker, global director of creative technology of The Mill, says the Metaverse future can be both experiences with friends in real life and bridging the gap, integrating those who can’t physically be there to enter the virtual world.
Willfrid Obeng, CTO of AudioMob thinks there is a potential to build ad experiences that people will flock to. Metaverse will change the dynamic of the relationship between advertisers and the public.
The verdict
The past two years proved that technology is unpredictable. Once, part of the industry thought working from home was unproductive but look how we turned out today. With the help of technology, we have proved that you can still manage to get things done, yes, even in your pyjamas!
AWTG’s goal this 2022 is to improve communities through its innovations, and part of these innovations is the technology integrated into this so-called Metaverse, such as AR, VR, and AI. Like how reality works, this created virtual world could be a utopia or dystopia, depending on how users perceive it. But know that these technologies are here to help us create experiences that resonate with all of us, engaging us with various brands in a new way.
AWTG’s products such as iShop, iEducate, iTour are eager to contribute to these emerging technologies, given that these technologies are supplements and not intended to replace reality like human interaction. The balance between positive and negative will still depend on us humans and how we interact with reality using these virtual platforms.