05/04/2023
Elizabeth Clark talks metaverse with Nick Robinson on Radio 4 Today program asking is the Metaverse too early or a big flop?
Post the Metaverse Fashion week in Decentraland, there was a drop off in brands from 70 to 60. Google trends reported less traffic attending than in 2022, there is currently no way for either Google or Microsoft to commercialise the Metaverse with ads so they have little interest in it. Love it or hate it you have to agree Mark Zuckerberg has spent a fortune on it, to the detriment of Meta’s company performance and share price.
Nick asks is he ahead of his time or is it an expensive flop? As a metaverse widow, I’d have to say that it’s too early for the kids who live in other parts of the metaverse like Roblox - which attracts a stunning 67million visitors a day and where my 10 year old spends hours a week playing with his friends. What makes it more addictive than an offline gaming is there is no ‘pause’ ability on it. When you leave play it carries on without you, creating terrible fomo. He meets up with all his friends and they converse in voice on various discord channels (as they’re too young to chat on Roblox), he only trades in digital currency (no sterling pocket money in this house, he knows exactly how much he’s getting for his dollars). The house is filled with sounds of happy children, but with the convenience of only having one to contend with, while they play collaboratively in Roblox, one of the earliest metaverse’s. My husband is all on the headset (Ted can’t use it as under the age of 13 their optic never isn’t fully developed so they recommend they stay off it so as not to affect optic nerve development) from the Ann Frank experience, where he got stuck in the room (not sure it was supposed to be part of the experience but at least he knew how poor Ann felt) to golfing on Pebble Beach. You can choose sun or rain (obvs rain is a daily occurrence in Ramsbottom so he always chooses sun), it’s a totally immersive experience, you can look up and see the sky and the golf course around you, you can hear the sea gulls squawking and you can have a chat with your friend or client on the other side of the world as you take a round together. Best of all there’s not all the paraphernalia of golf, you can use the handset or the meta golf stick. I narrowly avoided having my feet smashed in one night by him only for him to smash the handset, at speed, into the wall.
I read in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that they’re trying to crack the brains neural codes which will enable interaction far easier with the metaverse, you can just ‘think’ what you want to do and it over comes all those perky UI issues, which will be perfect for all those suffering from loneliness but who might struggle with the interface. If you’ve ever done one of those experiments where you fire a nerf gun with the power of your mind you know how incredible that is! Our older generation will be able to go for group walks to round a volcano and look into it and up at the ash clouds above them. They’ll be able to invite their grandchildren to trips to the prehistoric zoo to take the kids “off their parents hands for half an hour” , just by thinking about it. When Ted was 3 he couldn’t type, his search engine of choice was Youtube using the voice command, if he wanted to know how fireworks were made, he just asked it and it would show him a video. His thirst for knowledge was quenched in a way his siblings, 18 years his senior, could never have enjoyed. Loneliness could be eradicated by an immersive world full of otherworldly experiences, we could create our own worlds in anticipation of our mental decline to help keep memories alive. There’s a tremendous potential for the metaverse, it’s bigger than just Zuckerberg and I hope it’s here to stay for the benefit of all.
