Why Are We Not Having Conferences About the Metaverse on Actual Metaverse Platforms?

Reuters is having a free webinar tomorrow on the future of the Metaverse featuring several esteemed panelists, which you can register for here.

But wait a minute: If we're so excited about the Metaverse, why are we talking about it... on the web? Especially when there are a number of metaverse platforms on the market which could easily host a hundred or more attendees, with an overflow crowd who could watch it streamed on YouTube and Twitch. 

I put it to Reuters' event manager Pete Carkeek, who defends the use of webinars to talk about the Metaverse this way:

“The reason we’re running this discussion in a traditional webinar format, rather than on any kind of metaverse platform, is because we’re targeting tech and business leaders from across a whole variety of industries. Understanding of – and access to – emerging platforms is limited currently in many of the industries we work with so - for the time being at least - it’s much easier for people to access this kind of content on the open web than anywhere else. This may change in the next few years, but for now this works for us.”

And that's fair enough -- there's definitely a human inclination to privilege ease of use over everything else. And Reuters is hardly the sole culprit here. So far, roughly all of my conversations with media outlets interested in the Metaverse were conducted not on a metaverse platform, but instead, on Zoom or Google Meets -- or almost as often, on an actual phone. Similarly, the most avid and widely-shared conversations about the Metaverse among people in the industry rarely occur on a metaverse platform itself, but on Twitter and LinkedIn -- or via webinars.

Don't even get me started with people telling me how the Metaverse is going to completely change business and culture -- from the stage of an actual, in-person conference at a fancy hotel.

But for the record, it is possible to have it both ways. In 2021, for instance, I hosted a conference in Breakroom, a metaverse platform architected for enterprise use, with Metaverse author Matthew Ball and the Washington Post’s Gene Park; about 100 attended live as avatars, and many thousands watched the recorded event on YouTube. (Watch above) What's more, being in a virtual world context was part of the experience, showing what's possible, in a tangible way, with the technology we were literally talking about at the same time.

What is more likely the case is this: Many evangelists and media outlets interested in the metaverse as a business opportunity are not personally interested or familiar with the experience themselves, or they do not have the extra time required to learn a new virtual world UX, customize an avatar, and so on.

But this tends to undermine any overly-broad statement they then make about the Metaverse: If you really do think it’s the next generation of the Internet, why aren’t you using it as much as you can? 

Hopefully that topic comes up in tomorrow's webinar. Which again, you can register to watch here.

Comments

[mirinaeman]

I agree!!!

[Adeon Writer]

Was the first discussion of creating the internet held on the internet?

If they're making the Metaverse, it doesn't exist yet. Gotta pick a narrative.

[Tad Noodle]

Speaking of conferences, have you checked out Gather Town? https://www.gather.town/

[Nadeja]

Before the Internet, there were precursors (e.g. Arpanet). Still in the 1980s, video conference systems were big, bulky and very expensive. Desktop video conferencing wasn’t a thing until later. You could however send mail and messages on the pre-Internet early networks and discuss about future networking.

If you define the Metaverse as “the next generation of the Internet”, then it isn’t here yet, but there are possible precursors (e.g. the current social virtual worlds) and they can host conferences already since a while. However, they aren’t so immediate and easy to use, it’s even worse if you have to put a VR gear on, and the power and hardware requirements are higher and the avatars aren’t as expressive as someone just facing the cam. The virtual 3D environment has advantages, also for education, but the current implementation isn’t so practical to fully replace video conferencing as a communication system. Also there is the habits factor.

There are already ways to translate your movements and facial expressions to your avatar with just a cam, so eventually, perhaps, to attend a virtual conference, seminar, classroom, or to meet your friends on Google Earth, and feeling yourself there would be as simple as to use your mobile device and a pair of normal-sized glasses. Or, in more decades we will have neural implants, you just close your eyes and welcome to the Metaverse. Or others things we can’t imagine yet.

But for now we have these virtual worlds, that can do interesting things, can be used sometimes for conferencing and education or in a mixed way with YouTube as you said, and indeed it would be cooler to discuss the future Metaverse on these platforms. Still the classic way is accessible for a wider audience. Which is the key of success about many things these days.

[Martin K.]

Over the years, I've seen presentations in various metaverse-apps (SecondLife, AltspaceVR, Breakroom, Rec Room, VRChat, Virbela, Engage VR, etc.). My personal conclusion so far is that the presenter should use an avatar with motion-tracked head and hands/wands - if they are just sitting in front of a screen and control their avatar with mouse and keyboard then their animatronics-like avatars are likely to do a disservice to the concept of talks and panels in metaverse-apps.