Here at The Prezenter we love to push the boundaries of the presentation space and constantly challenge what’s possible. So when we attended a Webinar all about the Metaverse and how businesses will use it in the future, we just couldn’t resist getting stuck in and trying it ourselves.
SO WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?
As of this moment (2022) the Metaverse is merely an idea and concept. It doesn’t actually exist yet!
The Metaverse is literally a whole new digital universe in which we can interact with one another in a virtual reality. Think Ready Player One and you’ll know what we mean. It will be the next version of the internet, and all manor of businesses and experience creators are already flocking towards the technology behind it and making some incredible things.
But right now none of it is connected to one big Metaverse. Instead there are mini Metaverses popping up all over the place. Clarks shoes have just created a metaverse inside the popular kids game Roblox. And of course Facebook has their own Metaverse called Horizon Worlds.
Right now these are all different experiences and require different login and accounts, but soon (we hope) you’ll be able to plonk a VR headset on and skip between these online worlds as easy as you jump between apps on your phone.
OUR WEBINAR IN THE METAVERSE
After hearing Jay Scott-Nichols of Circus360 talk about the Metaverse we were blown away and asked him to give some of our clients the same presentation. Except we decided to run the presentation in the Metaverse and invite clients to it!
For this we used a Metaverse called Spatial in which you can create an avatar of your choice and move freely around a environment. Here’s a clip of the talk Jay gave:
THE PROS
Although a lot of fun, this was really just an experiment for us to see if presentign in the Metaverse could be a viable option for our clients.
We can safely say the answer is yes it is.
There’s no doubt it will take a while for everyone to have a VR headset at home or in the office, but that is happening faster than most people realise. And the more big brands get involved, the quicker they’ll drag the population with them.
A few things we liked were:
HOW EASY IT WAS TO LOG IN
Some of our guests had a VR headset and experienced the full effect of actually being there, but most didn’t. However, they were still able to log in to Spatial using a link we provided and their laptops.
HOW REAL IT FELT
Logging in to the event using a VR headset literally made you feel like you were there. Right down to small details like the fact that if you sat at the back of the room you couldn’t hear the presenter as well as if you’d sat at the front. Spatial also uses a clever technology to take a photo of you and wrap it around your avatars head which really gives you the feeling you are talking to actual humans!
TELEPORTING
Inside Spatial you can teleport a group of people to any other virtual environment you have set up. At the end of our talk Jay teleported us all to a campfire so that we could have Q&A aroudn a roaring virtual fire under the stars. It was fantastic.
THE CONS
There weren’t many bad points to this experience apart from these few points:
HEAVY HEADSET
The Oculus Quest 2 is still quite a heavy headset and after an hour we couldn’t wait to get it off. This will change over time of course. Remember the first mobile phones!
NEW USERS
This was actually quite funny but a few people were so new to the VR space that they forgot other people could see them. We had a couple of people break-dancing in front of the presentation, and another attendee who stood up at the front in everyone’s way through most of the talk. This will change in time of course, and every week in a Zoom call we still hear some technophobes shouting ‘Can you see me? Can you hear me?’ 😂
FROM A PRESENTERS POV
Below you’ll see how Russell introduced the session. Quite simply he just had to make sure he was in a good clear environment with nothing in the way, put on his Oculus Quest 2 headset, and voila, he was presenting and interacting with the audience just like in a Zoom or Teams webinar.
There were also the usual options to mute yourself and others if they forgot to do so. This made it very easy to control the audience during the talk. Although we couldn’t do anything about the breakdancers!
WANT TO EXPLORE THIS FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
We’d be happy to give you a free demo of how the Metaverse can be used to present to audiences. What the benefits and pitfalls are. And of course how you can breakdance in VR as well.
Get in touch with us on the form below and we’ll see you in the Metaverse.
