Sanyam Surana is a tech enthusiast, Cloud evangelist, writer by choice, and cook by passion. Working at the heart of the Cloud Consulting industry at Searce, and collaborating with leading cloud companies like Google and Amazon provides him with extensive exposure to all the latest in technology, which in turn fuels his passion for all things cloud. Specializing in the Well-Architected Review of multiple Client Environments, he strives to obtain a specialty in implementing Complex Architectures in Multi-Cloud.
What is Metaverse?
The trend along with the technology has been revolving a lot around the term Metaverse these days but what exactly is Metaverse? Metaverse refers to a virtual, artificially created environment where users all over the world can exist in their virtual forms. It can basically be termed as a Virtual Universe where people from all parts of the world are present and interacting with the created universe and each other while still sitting at their Homes, cafes or any other place.
How is this Possible?
Just like we create Profile pictures, Avatars in games or social media to identify ourselves, We create Virtual Avatars or characters which represent us in this virtual universe. The features of these characters can be customized based on our own physical features such as face, arms, legs, clothing, hairstyles, skin tone and even eye color. All of this is possible due to extensive Software, IOT Hardware development, Computation power coupled with Artificial intelligence and computer vision.
What is the Hype behind Metaverse?
The ability to connect with people from all around the world just by sitting at home in 3-D has attracted a lot of interest and attention from all businesses and walks of life. Celebrities like Justin Beiber have hosted virtual concerts in Metaverse which meant people just by sitting at their homes could listen to their favorite singer sing their favorite songs live in a virtual environment at their own comfort. Imagine sitting in a reclining chair sipping on fresh Ice tea while being present in a Hard Rock Concert listening to music.
The Photo above is from the concert of Justin Beiber singing the song “Ghost” in a metaverse. In the right hand bottom we can see sensors attached to the real Justin Beiber which transmit the data to the computers in real time and the movements are replicated exactly by the Avatar in Metaverse thereby making it a real live concert with the Real Justin Beiber in a Surreal yet Amazing experience.
Is this worth the Money?
The first thought any individual considers before adopting such a technology is the Cost Aspect. Let us Deep Dive into this. Like mentioned before, it is a Metaverse – A Virtual Universe but for a universe to exist and people to walk on there has to be terrain, weather, land, water, resources etc. Even Though all of these are programmable. They still need to exist nevertheless. The pieces of Land in Metaverse are called Parcels and platforms such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels and Somnium Space are already selling Land in Metaverse. What is the cost? Well the metaverse’s biggest deals have been by Republic Realm, which splashed out $4.3 million on land in The Sandbox, and Tokens.com’s $2.4 million purchase in Decentraland. Someone paid $450,000 to be the neighbour of Snoop Dogg.
The Retail Business in Metaverse
As explained earlier, since thousands of people login and explore various parts of the metaverse, there is a huge footfall and leads generation possible from the Marketing and Sales standpoint. In fact Companies are buying into the metaverse in the hope it will help them reach new customers. PricewaterhouseCoopers has a plot in The Sandbox, where it aims to set up “a Web 3.0 advisory hub to facilitate a new generation of professional services, including accounting and taxation”. Adidas has also bought land there, as “a way of expressing our excitement around the possibilities it holds”, and Warner Music Group is working to set up a virtual concert venue.
Companies such as Microsoft have bought game publisher Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion while majority of the people have speculated that they will launch their own setup in the metaverse with the help of Microsoft’s Hololens which enables users to transport them to the virtual reality metaverse.
With such a growing presence and user base it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Metaverse would soon be an important aspect of business presence all around the world with multiple businesses setting up shops, delivery centers, offices and even homes in Metaverse.
Just imagine working with your colleagues in a completely professional office environment while sitting in the lawn at the back of your houses while interacting and chatting with them face to face in virtual avatars. Companies such as Facebook have rebranded themselves as META and are working on enhancing the human experience of the avatars which can translate to exact emotions as done by the humans such as smiling, frowning, laughing, crying, angry, agony and many more.
Seems Futuristic…. Doesn’t it?