Recommended Reading: Metaverse & Web3
Title: Into the Metaverse — The Essential Guide To The Business Opportunities of the Web3 Era
Who: Cathy Hackl is a practitioner, entrepreneur, metaverse/ web3 strategist and tech futurist, having worked for companies like HTC VIVE, Magic Leap, and Amazon Web Services. She’s the Chief Metaverse Officer & Co-founder of Journey, working with branding for metaverse/web3 strategies, NFTs, gaming, virtual fashion, and how to extend their brands into virtual worlds.
Published: 2023
Why: Cathy approaches the Metaverse from the perspective as the Chief Metaverse Officer (CMO) of a corporate entity. Therefore, she:
- defines the Metaverse, describing fascinating and entertaining vignettes of future life;
- articulates how the salient elements of NFTs, cryptocurrencies, AI, AR/XR/VR, will cooperate to support efforts to build “new worlds”, and,
- explains how a CMO would serve the strategic interests of a corporate entity today, as a new realm of questions / concerns / issues need to be addressed including development of synthetic digital assets — from clothes to real estate.
Consequently, she identifies the major players, who are leading in the software and hardware efforts, doing what, why, where and how. We get glimpse of how creatives and celebrities (artists, athletes, politicians) are adapting to this new world. Cathy makes reference to aspects of community, collaboration, and co-creation in building new worlds, raising questions about authenticity of digital assets, intellectual property, legal issues and privacy.
This book is current, well written, informative, and easy to read. It has informed my thinking about how branding and marketing of synthetic media and digital assets will unfold, driven by the gaming and fashion world as we know it today. The book has an excellent glossary and much supporting material (accessed by scanning QR codes).
What: This book identifies new responsibilities and opportunities to be addressed in enabling companies to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology and applications in the Metaverse.
Cathy defines the Metaverse as a collection of virtual spaces accessed from anywhere (VR/3D games on 2D screens) and virtual information accessed in specific physical spaces (augmented reality). Her thesis is that there are generations (think consumers) for whom ‘traditional’ social media is no longer the place to “hang out”. They are attracted to online games where they get to be themselves interacting with their communities. The establishment of such social networks is facilitated by technology that seamlessly binds entertainment with various aspects of world-building and personalization.
Noting that the Metaverse is built on born-digital and digitized content, she argues that this is where brands want to be: developing synthetic media. Whereas developing digitized data is becoming better, faster and more affordable, there remains a challenge lies with born-digital content. Giving rise to new opportunities for a diverse set of artists and creatives working remotely. Advances in AI and machine learning, will support creative efforts to address the need of virtual stylists, virtual clothes and virtual voices for your avatars. Fashion and identity in the Metaverse are about “embodiment”.
Brands must rethink how they engage with audiences in virtual spaces, “where authenticity and community are the kings, and the old advertising ways of Madison Avenue no longer work”. Blockchain technology and NFTs in particular, will addresses concerns about the authenticity of synthetic assets, and crypto and community-based currencies will be used in transacting those items.
The Metaverse economy will prompt changes in data markets, as new devices and corresponding experiences (biometric psychography) will generate significantly more volume of data, thereby affecting how data is stored, transferred, and sold. Giving rise to interoperability (making the Metaverse truly “metaversal”) requiring secure storage and fluid transfer of data and assets.
There is however, a concern about how this data might be used by agents. Currently, there are virtually no legal protections for users: as terms-of-service invariably allow companies to collect, use, and sell this information. Arguably, companies with strong ethical platforms will win out in the long run.
If human history has taught us anything, it is that when brilliant minds come together to talk, discover, discuss, and share powerful ideas, change starts to happen. By building community we can nurture each other’s ideas and propel our industry forward.
Selected Quotes:
As for the Metaverse now, it’s all about the convergence of spatial computing and extended reality, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. In the future, however, it will be so much more.
Market innovation is rapidly driving the evolution of asset classes, such as avatars, 3D models, mixed reality, and spatial environments. Asset classes work together with metadata to comprise content packages that populate the varying platforms of the Metaverse.
We may project ourselves as different avatars in different situations, but we will still have one identity. .. we’ll see fashion evolve from clothes and accessories as we know them today to something entirely new. … Upgraded body parts will be a norm.
Advertising must evolve into an experience, which is most easily achieved as a 3D environment. People buy the why not the what.” The “why” is the experience they will find in the Metaverse … a “digital face” with whom people can form a relationship.
The Metaverse is driven by spatial information, making location data more necessary and more valuable than ever. Further, the headsets aren’t only reading our environment, they’re also increasingly able to read us.
We need a realistic vision of what is good about the Metaverse, as well as what might be bad. Too many of us have already made our minds up. And that, perhaps, is the real danger.
Other media: (sorted by date, most recent first).
Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve — Faith Popcorn and Cathy Hackl for Fast Company — The Metaverse (Oct 2022) How fashion and art pushing innovation in the metaverse. Competing visions of the internet. Politics, Intellectual property, open decentralized vs walled gardens, data ownership, regulation, health care, and virtual real estate.
Republic Podcast: A Beginners Guide to the Metaverse Investing with Cath Hackl (Jan 2022) Cathy Hackl, shares her insights on the metaverse economy and why so many investors are joining in. She explains Clinique’s strategy entering the marketplace, buying digital assets e.g Gucci’s product, virtual real estate. There is a discussion about communities, NFTs, cryptocurrencies as they relate to economics and commerce in the metaverse.
House of Beautiful Business: Are you ready for the metaverse? | Cathy Hackl (Dec 2021) fascinating discussion about how things are changing, gaming, fashion design, collaboration, digital ownership of digital assets, tribe, collaboration, co-creation, community, social good — world builders.
Exponential Africa: Augmented Reality Futures — Cathy Hackl — Spatial Computing — S2 E10 (April 2020) Cathy discusses Spatial computing which is a new form of computing that combines AI & computer vision to seamlessly blend digital content into our reality. Watch the full episode and learn more about what’s to come and the future of story living as opposed to storytelling.
