Spatial News™ #022
This week we're all about the metaverse, "anti-metaverse", NFTs, XR, holograms, and more!
Welcome to Spatial Zoo™… News™! We’re back with extended metaphors and emerging tech stuff. “Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know.”
―Irene Pepperberg, Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process
Metaverse, Metaverse, Metaverse:
The Metaverse Hype Cycle Rides Again
“‘Metaverse hype cycle’, you say? Sure, I’ll bite…” said the piraña.
For Avi Bar-Zeev, Founder of RealityPrime and 30-year XR industry veteran, the word ‘metaverse’ has lost all meaning.
Furthermore,
“Personally, I don’t think that thing [between the ‘Future of Everything’ and ‘The Next Internet’] has truly been named even yet. And I don’t think it really takes off until we solve for the same kind of standards and interoperability that allowed the WWW to take off in the 90s and 2000s.
I figure that’s still a few years out, given the current pace of standards work and the requisite ubiquity of comfortable new hardware to support it. I’d guess 2026, but the standards and devices are coming in waves too.
Whoever solves this vertically could become the next Google, a term now so generic it replaced the word ‘search.’”
Into the Multiverse of the Metaverse of Madness
“While the term ‘metaverse’ remains almost as nebulous as it has in years past, its potential to transform the world, or at least gaming, is evident.
“The idea of the metaverse is so attractive [because] it feels like something where you will have more agency, which is related to power,” [Hilmar] Pétursson [CEO of CCP Games, creator of EVE Online] says. “Why do people go and play games online? It’s about the power fantasy. I cannot currently build a space empire [in real life].”
This idea of improved agency (via data ownership and having a self-sovereign identity, for example) seems to be what drives the more idealistic proponents of Web3 as well.
The article’s well worth a read in its entirety.
Axolotls, Apes, & Owls in the News:
Actually, we don’t talk specifically about any of these, but that’s metonymy for you.
NFTs Don’t Work the Way You Might Think They Do
If you haven’t read this article yet, why haven’t you?
The article’s three main points:
NFTs Aren’t Authoritative Tokens of Ownership
NFTs Can’t Let You Take Digital Items Between Games or Apps
NFTs Can Cost Artists More Money Than They Make
<Paste “the more you know” meme here>
When the expert speaker at an NFT tech panel goes rogue
Said expert went on a rhino-like rampage under the guise of playing “devil’s advocate”. Follow the link to read about the scandal.
An Anti-Metaverse NFT Marketplace?
Outside Interactive—the Boulder-based parent company of outdoors and healthy-living-focused media brands[…] that it’s launching an NFT marketplace, a publishing platform for outdoors-focused content, and a loyalty program that incentivizes people to spend time outdoors, all of which is collectively being referred to as the Outerverse.
“The concept of the Outerverse is to be the anti-metaverse,” Outside CEO Robin Thurston tells Fast Company. “It is not my goal to get people to spend more time in VR or inside on screens.”
I call dibs on ‘Innerverse’ an anti-metaverse that incentivizes people to look within, ruminate, keep journals, and do phenomenological research on each other’s journals. Cha-ching!
Fun factoid: Rumination comes from the word “ruminate” describing how ruminants (like cows) chew cud over and over.
NFTs = another form of worldbuilding
A joy of an article by Marvel (yeah, that one) writer B. Earl!
“At its core, an NFT is a ticket or passport to a show or world. NFTs are one-of-a-kind digital or virtual assets that can take on any use applied to them. To me, anyone selling an NFT creates a world, whether they know it or not. Whether they planned to or not.
What brands should learn from thriving NFT communities is that NFTs are Web3 access keys to new worlds. In these worlds, brands add a new layer to customer relationships. When marketers grasp that NFTs are passports, their a-ha moment arrives. This understanding unlocks the limitless possibilities they can offer their brand culture and customers.
These NFT-led worlds should be treated — and created — with the same level of care and attention to detail that physical stores, websites, concerts, theme parks, and movies receive. Just as the Apple store immerses us in an environment, NFTs allow a new layer of connection to be established between a seller and buyer.
The best fictional worlds — Marvel, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars — are nourished by stories, shared values, and fandom.”
I think I quoted too much, but I didn’t want to leave anything out, caterpillar.
“Do we need 'Interoperability' from the start?”
Remco Sikkema, Senior Marketing at Movella, asks about the Web3 project.
Reading about Roblox’s blog about their new feature called 'Layered Clothing’ where users can create 3D clothes and accessories for any Roblox avatar to wear, he found that it took them two years of hard work to create and release the feature.
If “this is what it took, for Roblox, to develop virtual clothing on just their own platform [… it] would mean a massive project 🤯 […] to do this for all separate platforms[…]
Maybe we should just lower the priority for 'Interoperability' and focus on building and expanding the 'walled gardens' first before we even get into this? […Then] we just gradually tear down the walled gardens?”
Not that I’m completely sold on interoperability, but this idea sounds like a slippery slope and not like the kind penguins slide down for fun.
Despite the rhetoric of decentralization found in Web3, there is a (strong) tendency towards centralization in one way or another (see SN #007,#008,#009,#012,#013,#015… yeah, you could say I’ve covered the ground). What would be the impetus to decentralize after a walled garden is already fully grown and reaping its rewards?
“Too many people throw the word ‘Community’ around...”
Faye Yang, the Founder of Unschul, states in her LI post.
“(Yes, NFT creators, I'm talking about you!).
When a product solves a problem for a certain group of people, this group of people will gather and share the benefit of this product. That, is community[…]
So everyone who claims messaging and community-building is key in product success (especially in NFTs), GTFOH. It may work in cash-grabbing scenarios, but don't call yourself a founder pls.
A good product gathers and grows the community. This, is called organic growth.”
Check out her slides on community (no penguin joke this time).
Could a community outcry be a strong enough impetus to decentralize a ‘walled garden’?
Speaking of community…
Spatial News™ from Europe:
AiR Holograms
is one step closer to creating a social network which enables 3D communication. It’s now possible to share human holograms, instantly, with all of your friends and family (or doctor similar to what’s been seen in the news lately.)
See what it looks like scrolling through chats.
Read more about them in an earlier Spatial Spotlight (nee Citizen’s Spotlight).
France’s National Council for XR has hatched
Thanks to Frederic Lecompte, Co-Founder of Backlight, for sharing in his post that the French XR associations have come together to create the National Council for XR (CNXR).
“Representing some 500 public and private organizations, from the scientific, industrial, technological, educational and cultural sectors making the XR ‘made in France, the CNXR's mission will be to federate, structure and develop a French sector of excellence in order to meet the challenges of this emerging and strategic sector. 💪🐔 “
Félicitations!
Here is a visual mapping of the French XR ecosystem courtesy of cnxr.fi
I wonder if the German or UK or any of the Nordic XR associations will follow suit.
Thanks for joining us on this safari, Spatialists! Quick Quiz: how many animal references did I make in this issue? First one to post the correct answer in the comment section gets a virtual dap (no, not a dapp) and a shoutout for them or their company next issue.
Joh of Spatial8, infinitely monkeying around on the keyboard
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