A virtual shopping video, purportedly illustrating the future of mass market consumption in the “Metaverse”, has been widely viewed and shared. Problem: It’s actually from 2017. So, futuristic or absurd?
Who would have believed that? Well, just about any observer stepping back on the Metaverse, one of the most used and least understood words in the world of tech in early 2022.
It all started with a tweet from a certain Homo Diditalis, an account that claims to be dedicated to “ information at the heart of the metaverse There, on January 3, 2022, he shares a 2-minute video: This is how Walmart presents your groceries in the Metaverse.”
We dive into a kind of first-person video game, where a customer strolls through the shelves of the large American retail chain behind his virtual shopping cart, helped in his selection by an equally unreal shop assistant.
The tweet, which was shared 30,000 times, resulted in this clip being viewed 7 million times. However, the video has nothing to do with the Metaverse: it actually dates back to 2017 and was invented by a startup called Mutual Mobile to ” shine at the South by Southwest festival “, we can read on the company page, marked with a developer. However, it was Walmart who approached her to ” reinvent the shopping experience “.
At first glance, however, the reinvention seems more than modest. What we observe, on the other hand, includes everything from the classic trip to a supermarket, depressing wandering and an overdose of your choice. We even briefly see how the consumer picks up a bottle of milk, but his virtual hand lets it slip away due to the lack of precision of the interface. Adding some problems in a virtual universe. Is the future here?
The metavers exist because they say it exists
The discovery of the actual year of music video creation is something to laugh about as it illustrates the excitement surrounding the development of a concept that exists simply because someone said it existed. This guy is not just anyone: it’s Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, finally we have to say Meta now.
On October 28, the 37-year-old billionaire released a lengthy video announcing the change of his group (which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus, which is no longer called Oculus, but also Meta) to match his group. futuristic ambitions: the development of the Metaverse, a virtual universe project in which humans would evolve in 3D. To create it, Meta plans to hire 10,000 people over a 5-year period.
It was pointed out back then: the Metaverse doesn’t exist yet that it already looks corny, with its fake Second Life airs, its frozen avatars, its virtual personalized outfits, its transparent screens and its holograms tricky.
We think back to the videos of MagicLeap, the company that promised in 2015 that its revolutionary “mixed reality” glasses (a mix of virtual and augmented) would make virtual elements appear in real life. Where we could already ask ourselves: what’s the use of showing my Gmail in augmented reality, virtually for me?
Worse, the company’s promises back then were: debunked, when observers realized MagicLeap was just making assumptions: The startup had neither the right technology nor the software interface. Just the ideas. Does that remind you of something?
So yes, Mark Zuckerberg is not a young entrepreneur looking for fundraisers to help him build his project. Mark Zuckerberg has all the money he could wish for: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are worth hundreds of billions of dollars and his personal fortune stands at $129 billion.
If he wanted to, he could build his Metaverse with his own money. And yet that is not even its greatest asset. The greatest strength of Mark Zuckerberg is that all other men want to become Mark Zuckerberg. Experts, investors, companies are so afraid of “missing the boat” that their bosses are already following Meta with their eyes closed.
It doesn’t matter that technological progress is still so unconvincing in virtual reality, that the public has not appropriated a virtual or augmented reality tool, that all companies that have started on the subject eventually “turn to B2B”, that 30 % to 40% of users suffer from cyberkinetosis or the fact that we call anything and everything Metaverse these days (even video games that have been around for years).
“ Carrefour, first on the metaverse “, we can read here. And why would he rob himself? ” Tomorrow, consumers will choose to live a shopping experience with a brand, in-store, online via mobile or through a VR experience. “, assures Guillaume Cavaroc, commercial director at Meta France, and continues this most depressing statement: “ We can imagine it in two ways: by doing augmented e-commerce through virtual reality experiences that enable the purchase of physical products in the metaverse; but also by offering dematerialized products and services in this ecosystem (eg around avatars).»
Back to virtual shopping. The joy of reproducing a humbling consumer experience, but from the comfort of your couch.
The future is now.
Or of course in 2017.