Owning virtual land on the blockchain is not a new thing. Using an immutable ledger to record ownership of land parcels in the VR equivalent of ‘Second Life’ is a cool idea, especially for those gaming die-hards that are prepared to fork out thousands of dollars to own exclusive content and desirable land patches; indeed ‘gemming’ in Clash of Clans has proven profitable for Supercell.
The problem is there aren’t any real world problems being solved in these examples. Virtual reality is confined to the realm of a bit of hardware that completely immerses you in another world, confining you there. No physical movement allowed (well not too much, wild gesticulating is allowed due to advancements made in haptic technology) but actually travelling distances in real-world spaces is impossible. You can’t drive a car with a VR headset on.
The case for Augmented Reality (AR) is much stronger. Pokémon Go, made popular the idea that you could place objects into real-world locations and saw many risking life and limb in order to ‘catch them all.’ Looking beyond Pokémon however, Pandora’s Box has been opened leaving us hurtling towards a future where AR content will be able to climb down off billboards, walk up to passer-by’s and engage them in the real-world. Keiichi Matsuda’s cautionary tale is fast becoming a reality.
Recent updates from disruptors Samsung and Apple in the form of ARcore and ARkit respectively means that the next generation of smartphones and the majority of those currently in the pockets of millions are AR capable — they are now able to see AR content in real-world spaces. Indeed, companies like Blippar are taking strides towards communicating to audiences in this exciting new medium.
However, what about governance? Renowned artist Sebastian Errazuriz defaced the work of another artist Jeff Koon to highlight the problem with AR content. Don’t worry, this was all done virtually. Perhaps, in the first case of ‘graffiti by AR’ Sebastian ‘defaced’ (or made better, depending on your perspective) an AR sculpture created by Jeff and commissioned by Snapchat to start a conversation around the very real threat of ‘un-governed virtual space’ — what gives a company the right to ‘invade’ a public space with its content?
Imagine a scenario where age ‘in-appropriate’ content is ‘invisibly’ placed inside a school and made visible by kids with a specific app on their smartphone. Or, businesses bypassing regulations set by Ofcom or the ASA because there is simply no way to regulate ‘invisible ads.’ One of the questions Sebastian raised in his stance was the damage caused to physical infrastructure by having an influx of visitors invading a space simply not designed to cope with high traffic. Who is responsible for the virtual space? Is there a way for real-world owners to claim and own their virtual space for matters of protection or monetisation?
Bubbled is the first platform taking steps to achieve a global consensus using the blockchain to manage this new frontier of outdoor advertising. Using patent pending methodology we split the planet into its uniquely individual latitude/longitude coordinates and using our utility token BBL, individuals’ can purchase these as virtual land blocks and record their ownership on a publicly available blockchain. Individuals, brands and businesses that #BuildOnBubbled can own their virtual space to communicate in AR, rent space to third parties, protect public interest spaces (or create public interest virtual spaces) and join a host of other dApp’s (Decentralised Applications) and app’s adopting our protocol via our SDK to start sharing AR content in the #Bubbleverse.
Space is something used by all, we believe a decentralised methodology is key to ensure it is owned by all.
Bubbled is an AR platform whose framework is solving issues of ownership and governance within real-world spaces hosting augmented reality content. Join our Telegram and follow for updates on our Token Generation Event.
If you are keen to learn more about Bubbled or partner with us, please let us know.
