FIR #427: The Metaverse Lives! Just Don’t Call It The Metaverse.

Are we really talking about the metaverse?

Isn't the metaverse dead?

Isn't AI everything these days?

Well, not so much.

We'll explain in this short midweek episode of 4 Immediate Release.

Another fine podcast from the FIR Podcast Network.

This is 4 Immediate Release, the podcast for communicators.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to 4 Immediate Release.

This is episode 427.

I'm Neville Hobson.

And I'm Shell Holtz.

And if you've been listening to FIR for a few years, you know that we spent a fair amount of time

authenticating.

A few years ago, talking about the metaverse.

I even did a presentation at the IABC World Conference on the metaverse.

People don't talk about it very much because artificial intelligence has sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.

It's also pretty much sucked all of the VC money out of the room.

But the metaverse does continue to evolve and shape the future of how we'll communicate, how we'll work, how we'll interact with each other.

And we're going to talk about why.

Why?

Based largely on an interview with Matthew Ball that was published recently on a website called Freethink under the headline,

You're Thinking of the Metaverse All Wrong.

Now, Matthew Ball is CEO of a diversified holding company called Apillion and the author of a book called The Metaverse and How It Will Revolutionize Everything,

which we talked about on several shows back a couple of years ago.

Well, he's out now with an updated edition of the book that accounts for the changes in the tech landscape.

Along with progress that has been made, mostly outside of the glare of media coverage, which is focused on artificial intelligence.

The book has a new title, The Metaverse, Building the Spatial Internet.

So I want to clear up a few misconceptions before we jump into details here.

First of all, the metaverse isn't just Meta's version of the metaverse with Horizon Worlds and VR headsets.

The problem is that Meta's version seems to be what everybody has.

It's fixed in their mind about what the metaverse is, and that's one of the reasons it's been so broadly dismissed.

It's not synonymous with crypto and blockchain, even though there are connections.

And most importantly, it doesn't mean that we're all going to be living in virtual reality 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ball defines the metaverse as the next evolution of the Internet itself,

a three-dimensional immersive layer that will augment our reality through a variety of technologies.

Now, why does this matter?

Why does this matter for all of us?

Well, to imagine onboarding employees in realistic 3D simulations of your workplace

or holding global team meetings in shared virtual spaces,

the metaverse offers new platforms for brand storytelling and customer engagement.

You'll be able to create immersive product demonstrations or virtual stores that are accessible from anywhere.

And there are a lot of other use cases that we're seeing in the enterprise,

everything from practicing or conducting surgeries to doing.

Now, while some claim the metaverse has basically failed, it's a done deal,

the reality is different.

Hundreds of millions of people regularly engage with metaverse-like platforms,

such as Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft.

Major industries from oil and gas to healthcare are already using VR and AR technologies to improve training and operations.

Also, contrary to popular belief, artificial and the metaverse are complementary technologies.

And that's why we're talking about the metaverse.

AI is going to improve hardware capabilities and efficiency.

It's going to make creating virtual environments faster and cheaper.

And it'll help populate the metaverse with intelligent virtual agents.

But while the term metaverse might fade, again,

because everybody sort of dialed into Mark Zuckerberg's vision of what that is,

the concept of a spatial 3D internet isn't going anywhere.

It's not a question of if, but when it becomes ubiquitous.

As ubiquitous as mobile computing,

now the idea of spatial computing may find an easier path to acceptance than metaverse.

That brings all that baggage with it.

As Ball says, any company deploying the term metaverse as subscribing to meta's vision,

and perhaps worse, trying to catch up and compete,

NVIDIA is using the term omniverse, which has trademarked,

and Roblox has stopped using the term metaverse.

It's all just too linked to meta's approach.

But to suggest,

it's dead because meta's approach didn't take root is like saying nobody has any interest in social networking

because people didn't flock to Google Plus, according to Ball.

Spatial technologies are any of the technologies that create immersive,

interactive experiences that are deeply connected to physical spaces,

enabling users to perceive and interact with digital information in three-dimensional space.

Spatial computing is already well-entrenched in education, healthcare, retail, and architecture,

among other disciplines.

There has been significant growth, innovation, and diversification across a number of platforms and technologies.

There's been a proliferation of platforms with names like BlueJeans, CryptoVoxels, and Gather,

complementing those that have been around a while,

like AltspaceVR, Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, and others.

Together, they offer a range of experiences,

from social connections and virtual events to gaming and crypto-centric virtual worlds.

Estimates put,

the AR, VR, and mixed reality market at $252 billion by 2028.

By next year, the number of AR and VR users is expected to exceed $1.73 billion,

with $17.6 billion invested in these technologies just this year, so far.

There continue to be a lot of people working on the technological hurdles to the metaverse

that everyone envisioned a few years back, including interoperability

and the need to deliver realistic, immersive graphics,

on stable network connections that are compatible across multiple devices.

In the Freethink interview, Ball talked about Starline,

which he said is essentially a version of a traditional telepresence booth Google created.

Creates a hyper-realistic 3D avatar of you.

Ball has seen it. He's used it. He calls it utterly remarkable.

Here's a quote from him. He says,

You can see hair falling down from someone's hairline.

They can eat an apple, and you see every aspect of this apple.

Now, why do I talk about this, he says?

When Starline is tested, we see remarkable advances in human behavior and experiences.

There's a roughly 30% increase in nonverbal forms of communication,

and we see a 20% increase in memory recall, and up to a 40% increase in eye contact.

We do know that these technologies will show substantial benefits to human existence.

So for organizations shrugging off spatial computing because, you know,

Apple's headset didn't do well,

would be a mistake.

The time is definitely coming when your employees, customers, and stakeholders

will expect to engage with you in immersive 3D environments.

A lot to absorb there, shall I think.

It's interesting because I remember the conversation we had back in 2022,

I think it was in July, when we reviewed Matthew Ball's first book

called The Metaverse and How It Will Revolutionize Everything.

And I remember when I got hold of that book and I read it,

I was, wow.

This is really, this is fantastic, what he's writing about.

But it's kind of, as you're pointing out, it's not maintained its kind of trajectory of interest.

Metaverse, or rather meta, has kind of become associated with it in many people's minds,

as you've mentioned, but it's gone off the radars.

I've seen little mention, little talk about the metaverse anymore.

And as you said, AI's got all the attention and all the money.

But if he is, if Matthew Ball is able...

If he is able to stimulate renewed interest in this topic with his new volume,

because he got a lot of attention over his first book.

I've not read the new one, I've not bought it.

I've just downloaded, or yesterday, in fact, I downloaded a sample from Amazon's Kindle,

which is typically 3% of the book.

So I'll take a look at that, and if I like it, I'll then buy the book.

But it is interesting.

And I'm reminded, in fact, of what he said about the metaverse,

how he defined the metaverse back in 2022.

And I'm wondering, how different is this?

He talked about the metaverse being a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds

that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences

and also underpin much of the physical world.

Is that, I mean, from what you've studied about this,

is that different to what he's saying now?

Or is that simply kind of like the first version of what he said,

and now he's come out with the second version?

Well, I'll have to confess that I haven't read the book either.

In fact, I don't think I have ever read a second edition of a book

that I have read the first edition of,

because much of it's going to be the same.

But, I mean, I don't know if he has completely changed his definition.

I suspect not.

He sounds like he's backed off on it a little bit, though,

to just embrace this whole notion of spatial computing.

This is the concept that Apple,

like, leapt on when they released their headset.

But, yeah, I mean, you're right.

I'm in my virtual reality headset, which is a MetaQuest 3,

probably three or four times a week.

And I do not visit Horizon World.

I've been there a couple times.

The only time it was ever worthwhile was for a Foo Fighters concert,

which was fun.

But the couple of times I went there just to wander around and observe,

man, I think I would have felt better in second life.

Yeah.

It just isn't what people want from this.

It's Mark Zuckerberg's vision of what he wants from this.

He got excited.

He created this vision in his head,

and then he spent billions of dollars to try to create it.

And it's terrible.

So this is not what it's going to be,

but it is going to be people working in headsets,

whether it's attending a company meeting

or getting inside the heart of a patient that you're about to operate on.

Yeah.

It's going to be ubiquitous,

particularly in light of AI now being a factor.

Okay.

That I could see.

At spatial computing,

and the fact that spatial internet he talks about,

and then he talks about spatial computing.

So I'm not yet clear on what the difference is between those two things.

I think I can help with that.

Spatial computing is what Apple has in mind with a virtual keyboard

and having the monitor in front of you anywhere,

even if you're sitting,

in a seat on a plane it's doing your computer computing with a headset rather than a physical

computer and keyboard and monitor the spatial internet is what he defined in the first edition

of the book it's it's an internet that is made up of these three-dimensional spaces where you can do

your work engage with other people interact shop do whatever it is you're gonna do go to a foo

fighters concert okay so they're basically the same thing one is your ability to do your computing

work and the other is where you're going to engage with people okay because because his definition of

spatial computing is the convergence of digital and physical spaces okay i can see that then so

that's just the space and the internet is the various networks the spatial internet is all of

these different networks combined pretty much like the internet

i think someone's gonna have to come up and explain this even more simply than that to get

people's imagination fired up on this because i think i find it's still pretty confusing or not

confusing but not as clear as it ought to be to be able to understand it and grasp it well

but i think what he says and listen to what you've been saying is that it is yeah it is the next stage

from what he wrote about in 2022 what i find interesting as well shell is no i've not seen

and when i knew you were talking about this

talking about this talking about this talking about this talking about this

topic i took a look around say who else is talking about this no one else is talking about this right

now so i guess you could say he's actually then got second mover or first mover second advantage

here if he's the only one talking about this he'll sell his book in like hot cakes no doubt

but it is it is interesting the artificial intelligence aspect i think depending on how

he is able to weave that in there so it doesn't look as though he's just hanging a hook on the

latest kind of hot button trend that people are talking about

to make it worthwhile and the book is a weighty tome that he's written the second edition it's

quite substantial so it probably is worth taking a look at it but i'll take a look at the sample

and see what i think of that you tell me what you think and yeah i'll decide whether i'm going to

read it again read it again for the first time right yeah exactly so but the blending of the

physical the digital my immediate thought to that is that's what we've been talking all of us been

talking about four years so what's different about matthew ball's

talking about it is what i want to know because this is not a new a new idea this kind of

combination of the physical and the virtual you mentioned second life i'm still there quite

frequently these yeah i know i haven't been in years and years it's it's every time i go in there

it's a throwback to 15 years ago it's it's it's great but the the graphics and all that stuff

improves and cause your own hardware and software have improved to be able to deal with this is our

much better experience the huge thing that the

that the developers wanted it to be and i'm still i'm still not convinced that the time is now for

this to really get attention and and make make big moves forward i'm not sure it's the time for

that still well i don't think it needs attention i think it's coming whether it gets attention or

not when you consider how many people are on the planet and then realize that there are almost

two billion people in what matthew ball defines as the

metaverse anyway okay you're just going to find it and use it you probably won't even think of it

as the metaverse if that term survives at all i mean as as i mentioned they're calling it the

omniverse they're dropping the term metaverse doesn't mean what it is is necessarily changing

they just don't want to be associated with the the concept that everybody has sort of baked into

their minds that that zuck put out there so it's it's coming there are people who are working there

not all day of course but you know if you put that headset on to work with your colleagues in

other countries on the design of a new car or a new widget that's where you are you're in the

metaverse if you're dealing with digital twins you're in the metaverse so the more of this that

becomes available that is going to be useful to people the more they're going to jump into it

without saying hey i'm in the metaverse it's just how they're going to be using the internet

it's it's this enhancement this additional layer that happens to be

three-dimensional and as more and more of it becomes available people are going to spend more

and more time in those spaces as their work or their back in 2022 when we reviewed matty ball's

original book part of the conversation we had in the podcast episode was talking about richard

karras who is at that time not sure where he's now but he was a senior executive at nvidia at that

time he talked about uh he made a kind of clarity statement on what is the

metaverse and this seems to me to be a precursor to what matty ball is saying today two years

further on according to karras he said the metaverse is not a place it's the network for

the next version of the web so that's pretty close to the spatial internet it seems to me so

maybe the problem with with this is all these different terms floating around that are

connected with each other a bit and it needs to settle down into something quite clear that does

define this better than it currently is it seems to be yeah i think that's needed

sorely but the point for listeners is don't shrug this off just because it's not getting media

attention there's only so much space even online for all of the content that that people are

writing and everybody is enamored of ai for good reason and so they're not writing about this much

i still find things i still share articles to my metaverse magazine on flipboard not as frequently

as i used to because there's not as much but it's still

pops up in my feeds so you know there are definitely people who are out there still

working on it because there are practical applications for it that can make money

so it's coming so you know i i think you need to be prepared for you need to be considering

how this is going to affect your internal and external communications your marketing efforts

i wouldn't be waiting for the metaverse you know neil stevenson's vision from snow crash to arrive

as i say that it's largely available now in very

various forms depending on what it is you're trying to do so get up to speed and figure out

if it's appropriate to dip your toes in sounds a good good plan i think i might dig out my copy

of ready player one and take a look at it again in a few years i saw that so it's a good movie

yeah i i saw the movie a couple of times i liked it a lot i've never read the book it's it's

on my list that's supposed to be excellent yeah and that'll be a 30 for this episode of

immediate release

you