The future starts here
What does Fortnite streamer, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Meta’s vertical marketing lead, Andy Mihalop have in common? The answer is, they both believe that within the next two years, VR headsets or goggles will be as ubiquitous as the smartphone.
When I heard Meta’s Mihalop express his personal view on-stage at Confex, I was incredulous. But then, a few days later, I watched Ninja share basically the same viewpoint via the on-demand stream coming from SXSW in Austin, Texas.
The only difference to my ears was that Mihalop was predicting accelerated accessibility to metaverse worlds for event planning, whereas Ninja was begging his wife not to leave him if he spent eight hours a day in Ready Player One.
It made me think though, do these two know something the rest of us don’t? Despite the failure of historic eyewear tech (Google Glass anyone?), plus humankind’s reluctance to ruin its hair by strapping on a headset, VR is getting better and less expensive at a ridiculous pace.
Mihalop may have visibility of the sheer scale and variety of VR hardware coming down the pipe, all at cheaper price-points. But unless that hardware is as light and effortless to put on and remove as standard eyeglasses, the same adoption problems will persist.
Ninja’s Ready Player One analogy may actually be closer to the mark. VR’s mass adoption moment may only occur alongside breakthrough game technology akin to Halo or Fortnite (Saber Fight VR just isn’t cutting it, if you’ll excuse the pun).
The same is true for metaverse event worlds. Meta, or other creators with ‘build-it and they will come’ aspirations will need a ‘Facebook moment’ where we collectively opt-in.
I give it 10-15 years, powered by 5G and Artificial Intelligence’s evolution towards the singularity - the point at which AI can match, and then overtake human smarts.
In 2035, the way we meet, interact and engage with content will look very different from today.
This article appears as the ‘Editor’s letter’ in the March edition of Digital Event News.
