Gary Knight, CEO at WOLF (The World’s Online Festival), shares his thoughts on what businesses can expect in 2023
From an evolving metaverse, Web 3.0 and immersive virtual reality, is 2023 about to level up ‘the new normal’ for businesses? Could we step into a world that we never imagined would ever be our ‘normal’? Here are three predictions I believe we’ll see in the coming months…
- The next evolution in social connection is here, but who’s joining?
The metaverse is the next evolution in social connection – the next iteration of the mobile internet. It isn’t one overall virtual world just yet and it will be some time before we see people moving seamlessly between different virtual worlds. What we can expect in 2023 is more consumers experiencing purpose-built virtual 3D experiences that deliver on very particular needs that they have. And, like anything in business – those that get their product-market fit spot on, will succeed.
While gaming has been proven and somewhat the driving force of early adoption of the metaverse, the creativity afforded to brands now will offer many other virtual world experiences. The big question is what will the first real use case of the metaverse be beyond gaming?
In my view it’s entertainment. Being entertained in the metaverse is the next frontier in what people love to do on their digital devices and entertainment brands must grab the opportunity. We see entertainment as the gateway for the metaverse to go mainstream and open a 3D world of possibilities for businesses and consumers alike. To have their brand fans and audiences immersing themselves in a fantastical 3D environment where they can interact with others, and be transported to a new type of reality, engaging with the creators they love.
Will the metaverse go mass market in 2023? Absolutely not! It will take a few more years to reach that tipping point, where engaging in 3D worlds is a normal part of life. But what we will see is lots of early adopters regularly checking out concerts in 3D worlds and if there is enough value and cache in the experience, well, we know what happens then. People fall in love with it!
- Gifting in a virtual world
Virtual gifting will grow in popularity in 2023 and I expect to see businesses capitalise on this new area in many ways – an example is gifting items and rewards to consumers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
Let’s take flowers as an example. Buying someone flowers is always a nice touch and regarded as an act to show you care, rather than because the person loves flowers. That sentiment is no different in a virtual space. We brought that concept to life in our app and it was a huge hit – we saw 700,000 sales where people bought each other beautiful bouquets in the metaverse that the recipients could wear to decorate their avatar.
- 1, 2, web 3…
Web 3.0 is about to revolutionise the way businesses operate online: enabling new offerings and different monetisation opportunities. Up until now the internet has been centralised – Web 2.0 has been controlled by the big tech corporations (think Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Bytedance, Twitter and so on). These tech giants have had all the power at their fingertips – they have had the capability to delete users’ content without warning sometimes, and introduce new rules to how users engage with a particular app. They have been able to collect data and use it to create advertising spend – the monetisation coming not from the choice of users to spend but from putting often-unwanted ads in users’ way.
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
Now, Web 3.0 is here to offer an iteration of what we already have, but this development is going to put more control into consumers’ hands where they, until now, have been passive.
For businesses across many sectors, this is an incredibly exciting area to develop. This is all about platforms and their users teaming up to create valuable experiences together, wherein they can mutually generate revenue.
Offering amazing new experiences in mobile apps, websites and VR and AR that really entertain people and have them talking about it will drive enough value to have people spending money in the future.
While making money is of course important, from the users’ perspective it’s about a lot more than just that, so businesses must always remember that. There’s a degree of pure enjoyment of using cool technology. For us, it’s about our community getting instant gratification from the feedback of live audiences, and from getting feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem from being recognised and respected by their peers.
