Socializing Isn’t Just A Physical Thing Anymore

Can you socialize in the Metaverse?

Many experts like to talk about the future of the Metaverse and how it will radically change people’s lives. And while that’s certainly true, it hides the fact that when it comes to the basic concept of socializing in the Metaverse: we already do it.

History

During the mid-to-late 1990s, ten years before the invention of blockchain, a counterculture was on the rise. During the Dot-com boom that engulfed Silicon Valley, a techno-utopian movement took its philosophical roots from the anti-authoritarian hippie movement of the 1960s. His followers included many of Silicon Valley’s young tech workers. What these techno-utopian thinkers envisioned was a cyberspace that would shatter the world’s old hierarchies of power, nationality, and class. What they were working on was a partition-less internet. A space where people exchange information and share experiences as equals.

Unfortunately, their utopian dream of how the Internet could radically reshape the world did not come true. But now we have another chance to achieve this vision. Now we have even more powerful technology that billions of people use every day to improve their lives. We now have the potential to create a better world.

The role of COVID

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have changed the way we socialize. Skype birthday parties, Zoom work drinks, and deep and meaningful Facetimes with your BFF have become the norm. Human beings are social animals. From day one, we depend on others to survive, thrive, and thrive. It wasn’t that the advent of social isolation, lockdown, and WFH would stop us from socializing. It simply reshaped it. And the fact that virtual gatherings with friends and family haven’t taken off like the dodo in the post-Covid world proves that people still make a lot of use of this alternative way of socialising.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are adapting to the so-called “new normal”. The new norm is not limited by physical interaction but is defined by a new environment and form of communication. The recent emphasis on metaversion development at this time is not a coincidence, but the result of adapting to this “new norm”. A positive externality of metaversion is the ability to maintain an anonymous status and shake off the limitations of the physical world. Users can be anonymous, which improves freedom of expression and further moves us towards a privacy-based culture. Additionally, due to the unique, decentralized nature of blockchain technology, users have complete control over not only their identity, but also their assets and data within the metaversion.

People still feel a sense of belonging and connection when they interact virtually.

For kids raised on social media apps like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, it really is the norm. And with more than half of the world’s total population, approximately 4.5 billion people, already on social media, it really is possible to connect with almost anyone on the planet instantly. This is unprecedented in human history. For ages, people would live their entire lives limited to only interacting with people in their immediate tribe, village, or town. Now, during the digital age, we can extend our social experiences outward and interact with people across the spectrum of human experience. Which will only strengthen our interconnectedness and sense of belonging as members of the human race.

Process

First, interaction is the most important element of social interaction. If the interactive experience isn’t good, it certainly won’t attract more people to use it. Metaverse gives users another tool to express themselves through 3D and virtual realization and other technical basics. Combining the real world with the virtual world allows everyone to see different selves and different friends. This way of breaking text and traditional social interaction with a new and customised approach gives users a better social experience.

In some meta-universes, real scenes such as clubs, garden fairs, and shopping districts can be reproduced, allowing players to easily engage in various interesting interactions. Metaverses have also launched virtual house games. Users can decorate a virtual house, and view various digital collections, videos, and pictures. You can also use the house as a social place to invite friends to visit, virtual meetings, exhibitions, and parties and communicate with users from all over the world. At home, you can experience the pure fun of communicating and interacting with users from all over the world.

Second, it’s easy to model a “triad” of creators, brand owners, and fans in the Metaverse. Many well-known brands have started to accelerate the exploration of Metaverse business use cases. In this brand-new business model, brand freedom is going to increase and will be easier to monetize. Marketers can break the traditional limitations of regions and markets. Shorten the distance between brand owners and users, and give consumers more freedom. Good virtual experience. In some metaverses, we will see the release of related virtual props. These props can digitally present content created by the creator/IP. In addition, the creator/IP can also publish and sell it around and support real-time account splits. It may also be sold in conjunction with reality and virtual peripherals. More interestingly, some Metaverses will also launch customized virtual blind boxes with very varied gameplay.

How to boost?

Creators and internet professionals can gain more flexibility in the meta-universe and fans are also more easily motivated. As the main link connecting a huge number of marketers, content platforms, and consumer users, Internet experts are not only a marketing resource but also a completely new element of productivity. They led and supported the consumer market. They will be on the Internet. Create and share content online to get people’s attention and some people even make a living out of it.

However, historically, although the Internet has undergone several industrial innovations, many platforms for Internet experts are still highly centralized. There are still quite large restrictions that not only affect the interaction between experts and fans but also do not contribute to building a community. In the future scenario-based social virtual world, Meta Universe will provide creators with a new way to expose, interact and connect free IP derivatives. The decentralized social model will be applied in the virtual world, and creators and Internet experts will also have it. Safe, interesting, and highly customized social assets (which may become a way to monetize intellectual property in the future) that will then bring disruptive innovation to the traditional economic model.