Quick take:
- One in 4 people will spend at least one hour per day in the metaverse.
- A report published by Gartner also indicates at least 30% of businesses globally will have a product ready for the metaverse in 4-5 years.
- The report also says people will be joining the metaverse to work, shop, study, socialize or for entertainment.
The metaverse buzzword is not going anywhere any time soon according to a recent report by Gartner. The new immersive world exploded during the third quarter of 2021 after social networking giant Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms.
The technology giants change in identity was seen as a huge nod to the potential of the metaverse, sparking a massive influx of leading brands into the 3D virtual realm. Since then, we’ve witnessed some of the largest technology acquisitions in history with Microsoft coughing $69 billion to buy Activision Blizzard.
Samsung’s new metaverse platform, dubbed “My House” attracted more than 4 million cumulative visits in less than a month.
Last month, metaverse gaming platform Splinterlands said it crossed the one billionth battle demonstrating the growing appetite for the play-2-earn NFT games.
Taking all these figures into consideration explains why Gartner thinks one in every four people will be spending at least an hour in the metaverse by 2026.
The analytics and research firm said that people leaping into the metaverse will mainly be joining to work, study, shop, socialize, or for entertainment reasons, which include gaming.
However, the research report also cautioned investors about investing heavily in a specific metaverse project due to fragmentation and the nascent nature of the industry.
Marty Resnick, research vice president at Gartner said it is too early to tell which segments of the industry will last the short-term turbulence in the long-term, adding that “product managers should take the time to learn, explore and prepare for a metaverse in order to position themselves competitively.”
However, Resnick thinks that from an operational perspective, multinational organizations could use the metaverse to improve employee engagement, helping them to connect across the borders and collaborate on projects.
“Enterprises will have the ability to expand and enhance their business models in unprecedented ways by moving from a digital business to a metaverse business. By 2026, 30 per cent of the organisations in the world will have products and services ready for metaverse,” he said.
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