The metaverse is still in its infancy, but well-known brands such as Nike and Coca-Cola have already taken their first steps. And that’s smart, says Randall van Poelvoorde during a presentation at Focusplaza. “The metaverse is happening now.” But what exactly is the metaverse? And why is Van Poelvoorde so enthusiastic about the metaverse? “3D is a very logical interface.”
Randall van Poelvoorde, director of The Meta Company: “It was just before Christmas, I was decorating the Christmas tree and the phone rang. It was an IT friend. The type that doesn’t get excited easily and always stays calm. But now the energy was splashing through the phone. He asked if I was home. He said, I’ve got some now, I’ll come over and show you. In a few minutes he was at the door. Sit down, he said.”
A dinosaur 25 meters high
“He was fiddling with a piece of cardboard and I just thought: what is it? Then he slid his phone into the square box he’d folded and put it on my nose. And suddenly there was a 25 meter high dinosaur in front of me. And that was the first moment I experienced virtual reality. That was also the first time I realized that 3D is a very logical interface. We understand immediately.”
Van Poelvoorde tells this story during a Focusplaza seminar where he talks about the metaverse. The public is a group of retail entrepreneurs who want to discover what the metaverse is and what it has to offer for stores, both online and physical. Several people in the audience already know VR. A sister who is a medical student and trains with VR. Or they know the company Meta. “It’s not worth that much anymore, is it?” someone wonders.
A fringe phenomenon of the metaverse
“It’s true,” Van Poelvoorde agrees, “Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has suffered losses. But it’s also just a fringe of what the metaverse has to offer. It is a much bigger development.” But what exactly the metaverse is, opinions still differ. For example, one emphasizes interoperability and data sharing between all metaverses.
“For example, if I develop my avatar and spend money for it in Fortnite, for example, then interoperability means that I could also take that avatar to other metaverses. That is not possible yet. It’s like the messages you send on WhatsApp; you can only view it there and not via Twitter or Instagram, for example. We are not technically there, but it is a vision.”
Where the digital and physical world meet
Van Poelvoorde prefers to use a definition that applies to how the metaverse is currently structured, namely: the metaverse is where the digital and physical world come together. “It doesn’t matter whether you are in the virtual world or whether the experience is physical: the experience is equivalent,” says Van Poelvoorde. This means, for example, that virtual reality (VR) is the metaverse, but augmented reality (AR) also belongs to the metaverse.
Several brands have already taken their first steps in the metaverse. For example, RTFKT, a brand that was developed especially for the metaverse, but also releases collections in collaboration with Nike. “They sell digital shoes as NFT, a non-fungeble token. An NFT works like a house: you go to a kind of notary to record that it belongs to you and that it cannot simply be exchanged for another product.”
Trying out banks with AR
But not only a fully immersive virtual reality (VR) environment is used by brands to sell products. Augmented reality (AR) is also interesting for brands. For example, an audience member shares how they used IKEA’s AR feature to try out a sofa in their home. But AR can also be used in a supermarket, for example, to make suggestions.
Someone from the audience asks: do you think Google Glass will come back? Google’s glasses weren’t user-friendly enough to wear, but Van Poelvoorde expects a similar experience is in development. “The glasses must of course be light and comfortable before you walk through the store, but I really expect that a similar technology will be developed.”
Gartner Hype Cycle
What does he base this optimism on? “Every technology goes through a hype cycle. This hype cycle was developed by research agency Gartner who discovered that the development of all technologies go through the same phases. You may be thinking about those glasses now: this technology has collapsed so much, it can’t come back. But that moment is also discussed in the hype cycle. It always comes back and then it is widely accepted.”
Another public concern is the power of Meta. Is this the only party that really has the investment power to make something of the metaverse? “The hope is the same as when the internet was
started: an open world, which is more democratic. That’s a great idea, but you saw the internet being hijacked, so to speak, by a Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple. I expect the same for the metaverse.”
Unknown parties
“Still, the dominance of these tech giants is not a given. When the internet started, many of these companies didn’t exist yet. So you don’t know which parties will come up. But if I may choose, a metaverse will also arise as an open world, built on the blockchain, where democracy reigns supreme and the user as a content creator can earn money from the content they create.”
What Van Poelvoorde is talking about is the emergence of Web3. Unlike Web 3.0, which is about connectivity and interoperability, Web3 runs on a blockchain-based metaverse that is much more accessible and where power is decentralized to users through DOAs and smart contracts. “And some of the parties that will play a role in this are not yet known.”
It’s happening now
Although we are at the beginning of the metaverse hype cycle, the first use cases are already visible, says Van Poelvoorde. From supermarkets that offer a virtual experience to Coca-Cola that powers up gamers in virtual worlds when they drink a can. But the first examples are also coming from the public, such as a manufacturer of plastic flower pots that assesses the designs in 3D. “The metaverse is happening now.”
