Top 10 metaverse Trends in 2023?
What will happen to the Metaverse in 2023: a brief preview of what’s to come
In 2022 it’s been hard not to hear the term Metaverse . Following Facebook’s rebrand in late 2021, many have been eager to fill us in on their vision for digital worlds where we can work, play, and socialize on a persistent platform.
Anyone who has been paying attention, however, will have noticed that these visions often differ greatly. While Meta is focused on creating virtual reality environments, companies like Microsoft and Nvidia are developing metaverse environments for collaborating and working on digital projects .
At the same time, those who believe that the future of the internet is decentralized and built on blockchain are experimenting with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to enable ownership of digital assets and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) designed to bring digital democracy to the virtual.
With the metaverse concept projected to add $5 trillion to the value of the global economy by 2030 , there is a lot to play for, and 2023 is likely to be a key year to define the direction it will take. Here are the top five trends for 2023.
Metaverse as a new marketing channel
As with search engines and social media (the technological enablers of web 1.0 and 2.0), marketing and advertising will provide the fuel that will propel web 3.0, the metaverse, into the mainstream .
The concept may not have fully caught on yet, but companies from international finance giants like HSBC and JP Morgan to global lifestyle and fashion powerhouses like Nike and Gucci have already taken the gamble and begun to build your presence in the metaverse.
The Corporate Metaverse
Aside from its power as a marketing tool, the metaverse promises to provide platforms, tools, and entire virtual worlds where business can be done remotely, efficiently, and intelligently. We can expect the concept of the metaverse to merge with the idea of the “digital twin” : virtual simulations of real-world products, processes, or operations that can be used to test and prototype new ideas in the secure environment of the digital domain. From wind farms to Formula 1 cars, designers are recreating physical objects within virtual worlds where their efficiency can be tested under any conceivable condition without the resource costs that would be incurred by testing them in the physical world.
Another use of metaverse technology in the corporate world will be to perform training, onboarding, and other tasks . For example, consulting giant Accenture created a metaverse environment called The Nth Floor that features replicas of real-world offices and allows employees and new hires to perform a number of HR-related functions within the virtual world.
Collaborative work environments , such as BMW’s augmented reality labs used to design and prototype new products, will also become more popular as teams investigate new methods of remote work while staying engaged with colleagues and your creative process.
Web3 and decentralization
One vision of the shape the metaverse will eventually take revolves around decentralization . According to web3 proponents, distributed ledgers and blockchain technology will usher in a new internet outside the control of global corporations, who will no longer have the power to censor opinions they disagree with or shut someone off completely.
This vision is based on decentralized metaverse platforms like The Sandbox and Decentraland, which will eventually be organized as DAOs. Buying property rights will give individuals a say in how the organization building the virtual domain is run , eventually leading to the establishment of virtual democracies and user-owned communities.
NFTs are another aspect of the decentralized metaverse . Future in virtual world These are unique tokens that live on blockchains, just like non-unique tokens such as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and can be used to represent unique goods or products online. Brands including Nike, Adidas, and Forever 21 have used this technology to create digital products that their owners can wear, trade, and display in the metaverse. Another shoe brand, Clarks, recently introduced an online tournament using the Roblox platform where users can win unique virtual goods.
The vision of the metaverse as a decentralized, community-owned utopia is at odds with the vision promoted by companies like Meta and Microsoft , which aim to build proprietary digital universes where they themselves will be in complete control. 2023 is likely to bring more exciting developments in this clash of digital cultures.
virtual and augmented reality
The idea of immersive, experiential technology is central to the metaverse : whatever it looks like, it’s going to be more engaging than the digital worlds we’re used to today (like Facebook or the World Wide Web). So many ideas for how we’ll interact with it involve immersive technology like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed/extended reality (MR/XR).
Meta has built its specific vision of what the “next level” of the internet will look like around virtual reality, and 2023 will bring new versions of its hugely popular Quest VR headset, as well as new VR/AR/MR headsets from companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft. Not everyone agrees that entering the metaverse will require us to fix screens on our heads , but it’s certainly one of the approaches to creating immersive experiences that generates the most excitement, and 2023 will bring a host of new developments in the field.
Beyond headsets, we can expect to see new developments in full-body haptic suits, which are already used by organizations like NASA and SpaceX to simulate extreme environments , but will also be used to create metaverse consumer experiences that are even more realistic. and immersive. Several start-ups are even experimenting with technology that can introduce odors into our virtual experiences.
Most advanced avatar technology
Many ideas of what the metaverse will be involve adopting avatars that represent us in the digital world . Just as we are used to playing characters in video games or expressing our personality on social networks, the avatar is the presence we project when we get involved and interact with other users; Hype of metaverse they may resemble us, cartoon characters, or something completely fantastic that could never exist in the real world.
Originally, Meta only offered very basic cartoon avatars, which were widely derided, but more recently they have developed near-photorealistic technology that will allow us to look almost exactly like we do in the real world . Other technologies, like Ready Player Me and Zepeto, allow us to create avatars that can then be placed in a number of different virtual worlds and environments rather than being restricted to a particular platform.
In 2023, we’ll likely see more advanced use cases for technology like motion capture, which will mean that in addition to looking and sounding more like us, our avatars will adopt our own unique gestures and body language . We may even start to see more developments in the fields of autonomous avatars, which means they will not be under our direct control, but AI will enable them to act as our proxy in the digital world while we interact with others, completely alien. the actions will continue based on the general guidelines contained in the Tax and Customs Control Plan.
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