No, Metaverse hasn’t failed. It’s just warming up!!!
A lot is happening in the world right now. Much of it is influenced by global developments such as COVID, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, rising tensions between the US, its allies, and China, and the financial stress of a lot of debt-ridden nations. These events are limiting the financial activity across the globe, which in turn is limiting the research and development of the next generation of products. Some novices have already started shouting about the failure of the concept of “metaverse”. Surprisingly, there are groups of people who are talking about new alternatives to social media but they don’t explore what it is going to be?
Though the penetration of products catering to the needs of Augmented Reality (AR)and Virtual Reality (VR) is low, the domain is not dying. It is just warming up and the next generation of products would be highly influenced by it. The research has not stopped but slowed due to financial constraints and lack of environmental support. The inventors are still working and coming up with a lot of ideas. The next generation of social media that a lot of us are expecting is nothing but the inclusion of metaverse in our existing social media platforms.
In this article, I am going to explore the multiple opportunities for the concepts of the metaverse. Since there are a lot of opportunities, this article will only be an introductory piece, to sum up various possibilities that will soon become reality in coming times. To read in detail about each topic, please wait for the future articles where I will explore the possibility in each domain with the evidence from the markets, news, funding, and technological research.
Concept of Metaverse for next generation of Social Media
Since “social media” is the most talked-about application for metaverse, I am starting with it. The existing social media platforms are doing well but more and more people are realizing the profiles and lives that these platforms portray are fake. The initial euphoria is gone and people want a more engaging platform. That’s where the concept of an alternate universe comes from.
Creators are trying AR & VR to create new virtual environments. The environments are highly engaging and created keeping in mind the need of users’ interests. These virtual environments offer users a feeling of reality. You are not looking at any background image while texting, but rather seeing the avatar of the next person.
The user of these next-generation platforms would be able to control their avatars. This will drive engagement because a user would be able to control how realistic or imaginary the avatar would be. The selection of platform in which the avatars will interact would also be customizable. Facebook knew it and that’s why they entered into it. Slowly but surely the crowd will enter this new world of interaction and the players would have tons of opportunities to make revenue.
To read more about next gen of social media:
Evolution of Messages & the future it holds!!!
Metaverse in Education
A majority of the global population doesn’t have access to good classrooms, proper education infrastructure, and the right teachers. With the increased complexity of subjects, the existing infrastructure in the Education sector is failing to impart knowledge to candidates. There are new ways that people are trying and these new ways include making videos, 3D visualizations of complex content, and more interactive sessions.
Metaverse promises a new breakthrough in it. The content can be configured by the Universities to cater to specific needs. You would be able to dissect a non-living body having identical organs and internal structure. You can spread the content to anyone having access to the internet and VR headsets with some other accessories. It would be far more economical than buying a ticket to a foreign country and taking classes there. This concept will decentralize education.
Metaverse in Professional meeting
The only thing that is common in a variety of corporate jobs is “never-ending meetings”. COVID created new issues of effective interaction. The time spent in the meetings increased but the effectiveness has reduced. Using AR & VR holds the key to making these boring sessions interactive and effective.
Your sales team doesn’t need to fly to a country to attend sessions and interact with their clients. You can create an identical experience in a virtual world. This will create new opportunities to spread growth in the remotest parts of the world.
Metaverse in Automation
There is a lot of noise in the world of automation. Everyone is trying to create a fully autonomous system that won’t require human intervention to operate. However, it is most likely impossible. The best systems would be highly autonomous that will turn to human operators whenever they will get stuck. But to control the tricky situations, human operators would need to understand the complexity of the situation the machine would be experiencing. That will require creating a simulation of an exact similar environment.
To understand it better, think about an autonomous car taking kids to school. Suddenly the car’s camera sees a disturbed kid carrying a knife and approaching the car at a fast pace. The car doesn’t know what to do in this situation. The situation can quickly be sent to an operator having access to this exact virtual environment. He would then decide if the car needs to enter in the wrong way or on the footpath to save the passenger kids.
To read more about automation issues:
Why do autonomous vehicles crash?
Everyone is developing AI: But who’s going to win the race?
This is not the only case. There are multiple areas of application in handling cranes, heavy machinery, surgical processes, manufacturing processes, etc.
Metaverse in healthcare
The healthcare sector has unique needs. Though the surgeries need to be conducted by experienced surgeons, the majority of the public doesn’t need surgeries. They only need consultation. To consult a good doctor who sits in a different city, you need to spend a lot to travel to that city for a half-hour consultation session.
The metaverse clinics would eradicate this problem. You would be able to consult the best physicians by visiting common centers having access to the hardware. Otherwise, you would be able to buy good hardware and consult the physicians through your home. And these consultation sessions would not be simple video calls that are non-engaging. They will provide the identical experience of a natural one-to-one session.
The applications don’t stop here but also include real-time patient monitoring which is a very demanding task in itself.
To read more about digitalisation in healthcare:
The future of Healthcare is Digital
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: A world of endless possibilities
Metaverse in warfare
I don’t want to explore this but unfortunately, this is the area that will see great traction. Perhaps the majority of revolution and the earliest adaptations would occur here.
When you have access to the best imaginary systems that capture the exact images of surroundings with their dimensions, it becomes easy to plot a virtual universe that is identical. Controlling drones to hit exact coordinates would become easy. There would be advanced robotic machines controlled by remote operators to attack the enemy. It will reduce causalities and create a good impact.
A good cause would be using this technology for counter-terrorism but you cannot control the side effects.
Metaverse in E-commerce
A lot of sales have moved to online channels in the last two years. Almost everything is available online with reviews, images, product videos, etc. A lot of consumers make up their minds before visiting showrooms to buy these products and a good proportion of the population doesn’t care to visit physical stores. They do the sales from the website and wait for home delivery.
These platforms are interactive but still lack when it comes to providing a real shopping experience to the consumers. Metaverse and virtual universes specifically created to showcase the brands can be a good solution to it. They can be used to drive sales, and give the consumers a real-life shopping experience.
If you look closely, then you realize that the applications are endless, and having command of the technology would give anyone the upper hand in creating an application. That’s why the majority of players are working on this. It’s just that the market conditions are not very conducive and that’s why you don’t see a lot of activity in the domain. A lot of industries would be directly influenced by it and that’s why the field is not dying anytime soon.
Lalit Dixit is a technology researcher who studies various trends to identify the future of markets, technologies, products, and businesses. The above article is written to focus on the endless possibilities of the concept of the metaverse. Detailed analysis of these various concepts along with use cases, latest research, funding, news, etc. would follow in the coming weeks.
