In this episode of Brand2Brand, Thomas and Veronica enter the metaphorical metaverse to discuss what emerging VR/AR technology will mean for the future of business. The news that Meta (formerly Facebook) is embarking on a path to a fully connected virtual metaverse has sent shockwaves across the internet. There are long-standing virtual communities, built on blockchain technology, that have been operating long before Zuckerberg brought them mass attention. As we see cryptocurrencies like Decentraland’s “Mana” climb in value, it’s clear that this brave new world is not something companies can afford to ignore.&nbsp;

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<span style="color: #444444;">TRANSCRIPTION FROM AUDIO PODCAST:</span>

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You're listening to Brand2Brand. A B2B marketing show that’s safe enough for work but not safe enough to be on the radio. With your host, Thomas Stirling.

Hey, what's up everyone? Today on the show we're gonna be diving deep into the metaverse. We'll take a look at Meta, formerly Facebook, and Decentraland to discuss what the hell the metaverse means for the future of business. Alright, buckle up. This one's gonna get weird. Back again, in these four walls that we call a studio, season one coming to an end. This is like, what the final episode? No, no, one more?

We have one more. But we're getting close.

We're getting seriously close. Why are we here today?

Yeah, that's deep. And you know what? If this metaverse thing works out, we might not have to be here anymore. We could be "there" and there is at home in sweatpants and pajamas inside the machine feed, Matrix Reloaded type stuff. Today we're talking about I mean, Facebook, completely changing its name, rebranding, and not like Alphabet when, you know, Google wanted a better name for their core holding company. This is bold. This is Zuckerberg digging deep and saying he wants to control the on-ramp to the metaverse and the profit that comes from it. Just like they do with the current web, I think it's something like one in every two humans have a Facebook account.

Yeah, it's really crazy. There's a lot of talk about the metaverse, mostly conceptual right now. It is a place people are talking about it.&nbsp;

People are buying into it you could say?&nbsp;

It's almost like how we did the seltzer episode. Everyone's got a seltzer. Everyone's talking about developing some sort of a metaverse right now. But it's really interesting because it feels like there is this war that's starting to emerge, which if anyone has read or seen the Steven Spielberg adaptation, on the silver screen of Ready Player One, the book by Ernest Cline, it details this world where society goes into a virtual reality called the Oasis, it gives them everything they want. It's not about just what they can do. It's about who they can be and people are allowed to live their wildest dreams. That is something that seems like we're approaching at a much faster rate than I'm sure this gentleman maybe thought when he wrote this book in 2011. There will be this fight as there was in that narrative between the people and companies or corporations or profit. How are you going to monetize this?

Open source, closed source. Decentralized, centralized. Fortnite versus insert, you know, "alternative version." It's the haves and the have nots, and so much corporate control between what we see and in a world where people are so worried about misinformation and disinformation, you can just imagine how that plays out.

I mean, it feels like it already exists. It's really shorthand for an immersive digital world that is still somehow connected to our physical world. If you think about it, you're using technology to bring your consciousness technically elsewhere. Hmm. And leaving your meat sack back at home.

Whoa, that's tough. That's a tough thing to visualize.

Yes. I'm playing dumb, I've been following this metaverse thing for quite a while but I think for a lot of people, this Facebook announcement was the sort of first thing and it's really, really an interesting pivot. But I'd say let's get into it.

Meta, formerly a Facebook company, or Decentraland?

I am taking Decentraland. Even though no one can take decentraland because it is not owned by a single entity.

Because I think someone has to hold Zuckerberg accountable for his actions and I intend to do that today on the show. No, but honestly, just recently, Mark Zuckerberg declared Facebook will be a metaverse company, not a social media company in the next five years. And he has armed his team to focus exclusively on this young adult market. And this is as you're seeing Gen Z's leaving Instagram, Facebook under fire, a PR nightmare. And VR and AR are really starting to grow and this concept of this metasphere is really just starting to get popularity, but they are investing billions of dollars and he is committed to seeing this come forward at the end of the decade. And so with that I'd love to play a little video so that Zuckerberg in his own words can describe this historic milestone.

Are you gonna troll us with the smokin' meats video?

Hey, and welcome to Connect. Today we're going to talk about the metaverse starting with the most important experience of all: connecting with people.

And for those that are listening at home, you're seeing Zuckerberg in this 3D representational world.

You put on your glasses or headset and you're instantly in your home space. And it has an incredibly inspiring view of whatever you find most beautiful.

And now you're watching him flick through an avatar version of himself that he is dressing in the perfect costume.

This is what he does every morning when he puts on his human skin.&nbsp;

<strong>Facebook Connect Speaker</strong>

And so obviously, that was from Facebook Connect, where they made major announcements, including a whole bunch of tools for developers that want to develop within the metaverse and him ushering in this commitment. This commitment to saying, "We have a family of apps - Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. We're putting that sort of behind us, and we're not leading with social anymore. We're leading with the metaverse."

Dun dun dun. It's so interesting too because, again, we have these two possibilities, these two timelines that are starting to emerge in this metaverse. There is a world where Zuckerberg somehow is I guess, the first to market in whatever market that will be. On the flip side, you already have entities that have been building similar kinds of realities, a lot of them through games, some of them on blockchain technology, like Decentraland, which is a completely different concept. And instead of relying on a corporation to run this, the users actually govern its policies, which is so interesting. It's basically like if anyone's ever heard of, or has kids who have played Minecraft, but it's a game where players can buy land and there is a finite amount of land. And of course, that's what adds value is that there's a finite amount.

And to see it in action is sort of like The Sims playing out, right? People take that land, and they start to build buildings and castles and all sorts of things on it. And to hear some people talk about it is just such a fascinating thing having to talk about like, location, location, location.&nbsp;

Yeah, I think we could play a little bit of a video to give some people some additional context on what the hell we're talking about.

You know what, for the first time it's actually not.

Decentraland is a fully decentralized 3D virtual world where people can own and develop their own virtual land, or they can wander around and interact with what other users have created, as well as other people that are exploring Decentraland at the same time. The landscape can include anything from static 3D scenery to interactive objects. The world of Decentraland is divided into two small fragments called parcels, as each parcel is represented by an X and Y coordinate on the map. And by a "Lands token" on the Ethereum blockchain. Land is an ERC 721 token, which means that it's non-fungible or what we would call an NFT for non-fungible token.&nbsp;

And I think what's fascinating about that is it's kind of like The Sims meets Fortnite meets a lot of these online things, Minecraft, etc. Except nobody owns it. It's not like one person benefits from all of these things, the entire we'll say community benefits. So like those parcels of land, as people start buying those and selling those, they increase in value. I think that's kind of an amazing thing. Is that sort of attracted you to the platform?&nbsp;

Yeah, and it's mind-blowing too and I was thinking about this the other day, the idea that if you buy something, you buy like an in-game purchase with a lot of these games. If you stopped playing that game or it stops being supported, you lose the value that you've put into it. Thanks to blockchain technology, there is a ledger that actually gives transparency into where that value is and where it went. So it almost is a secure place to purchase things in digital assets. Like iTunes - I bought so many songs that I didn't need. Where did that go? I now pay Spotify a minimal tiny fee.&nbsp;

It's probably on your parent's computer somewhere.&nbsp;

But I lost all the value that I've put into it. I couldn't do anything with that. So this is opening up such an interesting way of people actually investing back into a world they created. They're creating their own virtual economy.

Big time. A lot of eyeballs on all this technology because when some 800 pound gorilla, like Facebook, decides to change their name and take the boat and direct it into a new direction, it causes a tidal wave in the industry.&nbsp;

Final comment, $10 billion investment - does this represent a worthy way for the company to launch into the metaverse that is going to be necessary so that they're not left behind by this next iteration of technology? Or does it represent a $10 billion PR effort to get us to talk about something else?

Well, maybe it's a little bit of both. But I mean, look, what we have read in the Facebook paper suggests that Facebook does have an existential risk. They're having trouble holding on to their current generation of users, the next generation of users are not gravitating toward their platform. And think of all the problems that Facebook has been having with Apple in particular, as it tries to build out what it wants to build out without owning the platform. So Mark Zuckerberg is going all-in on owning his own platform, and on owning the next generation of technology. And I'm sure by the time all is said and done that $10 billion is going to look like chump change.

This is a move where Facebook, now Meta has the opportunity to own the whole footprint. They get to own the hardware, and the software, they get to be the conduit for how people utilize things. And Facebook has recently been battling it out with people like Apple, that have made it harder for them to monetize their platform, collect more data. Apple has kind of come under fire, and has been a trailblazer in sort of defending privacy of their users and otherwise, and Facebook does not want privacy for their users. Facebook wants all your information. They want to know who you are, what you like, what your house looks like, where your friends are. I think that you know, all of that makes this kind of an announcement very, very interesting as in many ways, the court of public opinion is fired up. There are a lot of people concerned with what is it? What does Mark really mean when he says he's creating this metaverse, and they're investing $10 billion towards its production over the next few years? What do you think he really means? What does he mean? He means he wants you to put this sensor device on your face, and that thing is going to collect information like biometric information - what makes your heart stop, what makes you have a facial expression or a certain interaction, all of these little telltale things. We had talked about the TikTok algorithm an episode ago, and if algorithms can predict that much information from that little information, imagine what an Apple watch on your face can do.

But what I always found so fascinating about all of this technology is they could just bug you. They could just listen or they could get you to buy a product that gives you a value and then they'll be able to listen through that. So you have a world where, and I know it's very dystopian...&nbsp;

META VS. DECENTRALAND: The Fight to Rule the Metaverse