How will businesses adapt to the metaverse?
Unless you have been living offline and under a rock for the last year — which let’s face, isn’t likely if you are reading this article — you will likely have found it hard to avoid talk of the metaverse.
Touted as the next step in the evolution of the internet, you will likely have heard how the metaverse seems set to usher in a new era of digital connectivity. While it is not exactly clear what the metaverse is, with no official definition existing as of yet, this has not stopped tech companies from betting big on it.
Microsoft, for example, spent a staggering $68.7bn acquiring gaming giant Activision Blizzard, with the specific hope that this will better position them in the interactive gaming space. Bloomsburg dubbed this a $69bn “down payment” on the Metaverse, with the acquisition viewed as Microsoft setting out their plans for this new digital space.
Similarly, just a few months before, Mark Zuckerberg announced a fundamental restructuring and rebranding of the legacy internet giant Facebook as part of his opening gambit in the rush on the metaverse. To this end, Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook as ‘Meta’, which reflected the social media platform’s transition into a “metaverse company” that was building the future of social connections.
Facebook’s pivot towards the metaverse precipitated a broader shift across a wide range of industries. Since then, we have seen companies, such as Nike and Walmart, making a push towards the metaverse.
This also includes several metaverse casinos, which look set to redefine iGaming in this new digital space. In many respects, iGaming companies are at the forefront of this push, and were similarly responsive in making the shift towards digital currencies such as Bitcoin when they first burst onto the scene!
Despite this, there still exists a large degree of confusion about what exactly the metaverse is and how it will feature in our digital lives going forward.
With that said, let us first set out what the metaverse is, before looking at some of the ways that companies are adapting to it!
What is the ‘metaverse’?
Although no ‘official’ or accepted definition exists, the metaverse is essentially the name for the digital world that runs parallel to our physical life.
To a large extent, this encompasses the internet as we conventionally understand it. Additionally, however, it also includes the collection of virtual worlds where individuals can meet, play and interact.
Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse has come to be viewed as the archetype when we discuss the term, although this is largely because his company moved first when it came to setting out their vision for the future of the metaverse.
It should also be noted that both the idea of and term for the ‘metaverse’ have existed for quite some time, having first been coined in a 1992 novel by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash. In this novel, the metaverse was described by Stephenson as a digital world that runs parallel to the real world.
What will businesses use the metaverse for?
With a rough idea of what the metaverse is, now let’s look at what some of the potential uses for it might be.
Given that 71% of executives say that the metaverse will be good for business, it is clear that the current generation of business leaders are already eying up the commercial possibilities that this new digital frontier presents.
JP Morgan has even gone as far as to predict that the metaverse will present a market opportunity worth more than $1tn in annual revenue. It is this earning potential that has led to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg committing a whopping $10bn to developing hardware and software for the metaverse.
However, it isn’t just Zuckerberg who is betting big on the metaverse. Other companies such as Disney have already patented metaverse technology for creating virtual theme parks. Similarly, Warner Bros have already hosted parties in the metaverse as a way of promoting upcoming releases, such as Roblox.
Moves like this have created a ‘real estate’ boom in the metaverse, with companies scrambling to acquire digital space that can be used to generate revenue.
Popular brands are securing space they predict will be popular in the metaverse, in much the same way that they previously scrambled to secure advertising space on popular websites. As part of this real estate boom, companies such as Price Waterhouse Coopers, Adidas and Warner Music have all started scooping up digital property.
Ultimately, however, we are only at the beginning of the metaverse boom. As the technology that will support the metaverse going forward becomes further developed, we will soon start to see more and more commercial business uses for this new digital frontier.
While we ultimately do not know what exactly this will entail, what we do know is that the only limitation is our creativity!
