We all live in the age of the internet. Can you survive a day without it? Have you ever tried?!
Roughly two years ago, businesses, students, and professionals were forced to adjust to a new way of life that required them to shop, meet, learn, and connect online as countries around the world went into pandemic lockdown. As a result of this, we are starting to acknowledge that the traditional physical-centric method of travelling to work, education, and socialising will never completely return.
We will be drawn to the metaverse and its principles of continuous duality if we are forced to adapt to this new way of life. The metaverse simply appears to be the next evolutionary step in the age of connectivity for many individuals who are eager for new experiences.
Active online interactions and immersions are the way forward right now, and add in a whole younger breed of tech-savvy preteens and teenagers who are already using the internet to play (350 million Fortnite users and it’s increasing rapidly), operate, and live a more wholesome version of their life.
The metaverse promises to bring our digital and physical lives closer together in terms of health, socialising, efficiency, shopping, and entertainment. With no need for a headset because these two worlds are already intertwined: Consider how the Uber app uses location data to tell you how far away the car is. Look how Netflix makes recommendations based on what you’ve previously viewed. Content providers may be at the frontline of this new digital age by devising clever tactics and keeping an eye on future trends, then building on them.
Metaverse is going to be more than just about our identity and digital ownership. Just like internet changed the way we shop and how it facilitated e-commerce, the metaverse will see new models of e-commerce evolve and many yet to be created.
This is the point companies and brands need to follow and understand the customer journey in retail and how purchase points are changing. It’s about creating the right strategies now and not wait another two years for this evolution to take shape. From marketing activations to holistic brand strategies, the time is now to think, plan and execute rather than be the last ones to jump on the bandwagon.
As a brand how you will communicate with the digital avatars of your audience for creating new products, customer service, communication and even employee on boarding, is something to start thinking about now.
For businesses, Metaverse opportunities depend on how you can optimally use its positive aspect. The availability for an open, shared and persistent virtual environment is offering you enormous possibilities to create, co-create and collaborate like never before.
The opportunities are endless and include but are not limited to the following:
- Reach huge new audiences
- Sell virtual products and NFTs, thereby developing new revenue streams
- Provide information in new ways
- Improve education and training
- Enhance customer experiences
- Make virtual meetings as real as in person
Lots of people are already utilising the early Metaverse, which is still in its formative stages and far from the complete version that internet titans expect. Some believe it will forever revolutionise the internet, ushering us into an Internet 3.0 era. A really interesting possibility is for the F&B industry for example.
A restaurant could create a presence in a metaverse so customers who are exploring a particular digital space can easily order real-world pickup or delivery. A restaurant could create a seamless experience where the user can virtually enter the restaurant and place an order. In theory, a future metaverse would allow the user to do all this without moving from one webpage and then logging into the restaurant’s website making the customer experience easy and convenient.
A word of advice. Don’t go into the metaverse blind. While there are so many positive outcomes of what the future will look like in the metaverse, there is a need to be mindful.
We only have one chance to develop clear, essential security principles that build trust and peace of mind for metaverse interactions at the beginning of this new period. If we ignore this chance, we will unnecessarily limit the adoption of technologies that have the potential to improve accessibility, cooperation, and productivity. The security community must cooperate to provide the groundwork for a safe place to work, shop, and play.
Cynics may disregard the metaverse as nothing more than a trendy term. Perhaps it is. But the concepts it embodies; a new, immersive digital universe in which new types of content consumption will take centre stage, are far from fads.
We should all be getting ready to live in a vastly more digital world because it is happening now. Anyone who is slow to catch on, like the internet itself, will be left behind.
Shadman Sakib, Tech Entrepreneur