Picture a future where tourists will visit your local attractions prior to vacationing to determine if coming is worth their time. Through technology, they will place themselves in a resort, bed and breakfast or canoe/kayak on the water while sitting in the comfort of their home trying to decide if they want to explore your area in real life.
Potential move-ins of your community will stroll through your streets virtually to determine if your community is an acceptable place to live. Want to showcase your community to potential businesses looking to relocate? Want to provide an attraction that will excite younger generations providing them incentive to remain around after graduation? Well, all of this is currently possible and will be mainstream in the not-so-distant future. Welcome to the metaverse!
What is the metaverse? The metaverse isn’t one thing, but keeping it simple, it is the process of creating a virtual and digitized world. To perfect the metaverse, businesses and communities will incorporate many new technologies. These might include the blockchain, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, data, and other hardware and technologies.
I get it, technology can be very intimidating. The smaller the business and community, the more daunting it will appear. That is no excuse. Let’s face it, the businesses and the communities surviving in the future will be those understanding and ultimately embracing new technologies.
Certainly, there is a place for traditional or legacy systems and methods in both our communities and businesses, but those alone will prove inadequate to meet the needs of consumers and residents. It will be those businesses and communities systematically throwing off the ineffective systems of yesteryear and replacing them with the power and finesse of the upcoming data and technology boom.
Let’s get back to the metaverse. Is it all internet fun and games, or is it the future of many aspects of our daily lives? Many already utilize what might be called pre-metaverse options.
Here are some examples: We take virtual tours of homes when looking to relocate. Take that to the next level and in lieu of video tour, you are now walking through the home in 3D style talking with your agent, asking questions as if you were there. We often in person or online visit government offices, file for business licenses, documents and so forth. In the metaverse, it might be as if you are standing there discussing the process with the city or government employee.
As for businesses, those failing to provide various components of the metaverse will simply die. For business, being able to sell your products via augmented reality is crucial. Customers want to experience things before laying down their hard-earned cash, or shall I say digital currency.
Beauty products and others will be sampled virtually. Trips will be experienced virtually. If you are in the media industry, the metaverse is built for you. You will have the opportunity to take readers, viewers and listeners on a virtual trip through your story. No longer view the story as words on pages, but as an actual participant so to speak.
My advice, start now! Make sure your schools are at least starting to educate your children at a young age. Your business or community IT specialists need to be upgraded to metaverse specialists – start getting them the training. Technology speeds up exponentially as time goes by, the longer you wait, the farther behind you will be. You need not be an expert, but you need to understand the potential impact in order to meet the future head on.
Let me close with sharing a quote I read in a piece by Bethany Quinn, VP Strategy and Content Development for Golden Shovel Agency, where she quoted their CEO, Aaron Brossoit, Golden Shovel Agency.
He said, “I predict most industries will find a use for the metaverse. Ultimately, I imagine it will be a lot like the internet has become, always there and available. For industry leaders and site consultants, being able to meet virtually, take a virtual tour, and communicate with community leaders will be a huge advantage in prioritizing the most promising locations.”
As they say, let the games begin.
John Newby, Pineville, Missouri is a nationally recognized publisher, community, business & media consultant, and speaker. He authors “Building Main Street, not Wall Street,” a column appearing in 50+ communities. The founder of Truly-Local, dedicated to assisting communities create excitement, energy, and combining synergies with local media to become more vibrant and competitive. He can be reached at [email protected]
