1 Oct 2021 | Ori Inbar
AWE Talks: Metaverse, Shmetaverse
Augmented Reality

Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that plucks the greatest hits from the vast AWE conference archive. To get the juices flowing for AWE USA 2021, we're highlighting insightful videos from the recent past. 

This week, we turn attention to the ongoing Metaverse mania. AWE Nite NYC tackled this topic to clarify some ambiguity around the M-word. Though it's futile to debate definitions at this early stage, there's still room for legitimate discourse as a thought exercise.

We go down that road with XR legend and thought leader Avi Bar-Zeev, as well as LDV Capital Partner Abby Hunter-Syed.
 
See the full video below along with TLDR (or TLDW) quick-hit takeaways.

– In all the excitement, there's no shortage of strong opinions for what the Metaverse is and isn't.
– Everyone attempting to define the M-word signals excitement and popularity (good) but also ambiguates it a bit (bad).
– Bar-Zeev asserts there’s a baseline of consistent concepts in all these definitions, but they sometimes fall short in granularity.
– For example, we should be talking more about how the metaverse can avoid the pitfalls of today’s web (e.g., privacy)
– The metaverse will likely span virtual worlds as well as real-world augmentations (a.k.a., the AR Cloud).
– In real-world contexts, Bar Zeev contends that the Metaverse is the data (think: IoT), while AR will be the interface.
– Simplified visual tools will increase visual content 100x and may usher a creative boom
– Diversity is an imperative for the success of the Metaverse if we want it t oreach everyone
– With the advancements in synthetic data and virtual humans real and fake information will be indistinguishable 
– To protect privacy corporations will need to change their business models - paying for content is good for consumers
– The Meteaverse opportunity s pans many sectors, but tools and platforms will grab the bigger pie
– Advice to startup founders - use the Metaverse term in your pitches with a grain of salt

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Further reading:
LDV Metaverse Report
Avi Bar-Zeev Blog series about the Metaverse




  Want more XR insights and multimedia? ARtillery Intelligence offers an indexed and searchable library of XR intelligence known as ARtillery Pro. See more here.  

 

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