The individual building elements of metaverse have been long existent, be it the ability to create digital experiences via games like Unreal Tournament, GTA, their respective marketplaces, avatars or the more recent advances with blockchain based micropayment gateways and NFTs. The elements pertaining to hardware, like miniaturization of optics & displays or advanced sensing & haptics are also evolving, albeit with some hobbles. With so many takes on metaverse and what it would mean for its users/inhabitants, it is easy to be carried away with the marketing gimmicks and frenzy.
The need today is to declutter this space and the need tomorrow is to make these existing experiences more immersive and interoperable for the masses
As per PwC, in it's 'Demystifying the metaverse report', there are six key concepts that business leaders should familiarize themselves with. These concepts form the framework of metaverse - Economy, Interoperability, Governance, Identity, Experience, Persistence.
With a structured framework like this, all the euphoria and speculation surrounding metaverse can be ideally put to rest and instead, the focus can be brought back on the basics - customer centricity, experience & trust.
Talking about these basics, we should be wary of any company claiming to be 'creating' metaverse.
For one, the experiences within the metaverse will need to evolve at pace with the digital pop-culture i.e. metulture in metaverse. No one company can/should be creating these experiences. For another, it stifles innovation and the underlying decentralized economy. In all honesty, planting 3D ads in a social networking version of 'metaverse' is not innovation.
The brands of today will thrive in the metaverse if they have the tools to create these everchanging experiences for their consumers, at speed & cost effectively. The brands of tomorrow will be those, that create these tools and can keep up to speed in the age of ephemeral trends and ever-evolving technologies
