Top 5 metaverse moments you need to know about right now

This month: Virtual boxing, an SEC scare and a moment years in the making. No. 5: A first in phygital boxing Boxing officially came to the metaverse when Roy Jones Jr. took on NDO Champ in a phygital event. The fight occurred in physical reality, but each fighter was equipped with motion capture technology so that their bout could be projected into virtual reality as well. Jones Jr., a former Olympian boxer, scored a technical knock-out (TKO) in the seventh round. Roy Jones Jr. got a TKO win in the 7th round in the 1st ever boxing fight in the metaverse…and hopefully the last. 😂😂#Boxing 💀💀💀🥊🥊🥊🥊 pic.twitter.com/nNWXEEpVYS— Danny (@dantheboxingman) July 1, 2023 Put on by Official Celebrity Boxing, the pay-per-view event drew ire on social media for its dubious graphics. For example, spectators appeared as little more than blobs of light, and the boxers themselves did not quite live up to the realistic display that virtual reality often seeks to exhibit. Metaverse platform Galaxy Arena hosted the virtual projection. No. 4: Roblox launches advertising partners program Roblox unveiled a partners program to scale its ads business by courting more brands to appear on the platform. The program effectively deputizes partners to show brands the ropes to advertising on Roblox through education, research and measurement. Dentsu and Vayner3 are among the seven founding partners, which also include ad agency Playwire, creative studio Sawhorse and developers Century Games, Dubit and The Gang Group. The crux of the new program is Roblox’s immersive ad offering, which it launched last fall. Immersive ads allow brands to reach users through actual experiences, such as via an in-game billboard. Partners will also assist brands in other types of marketing, including branded experiences and virtual wearables. Read more about the program here No. 3: Metaverse awareness still lacking Roughly 36% of global consumers are familiar with the metaverse, according to a recent survey conducted by ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company, and analytics technology group YouGov. The finding suggests that branded efforts to court mainstream consumers to virtual spaces have not yet paid off. Still, metaverse awareness is significantly higher than awareness of the concept of “Web3,” with which only 24% of global consumers claimed familiarity. NFTs, on the other hand, are about as well known as the metaverse (34%). In the U.S., familiarity is higher for all three concepts. Roughly 50% of U.S. consumers are familiar with the metaverse, between 40% and 50% are familiar with NFTs and just over 30% are familiar with Web3. Web3 and metaverse marketing blog Catch up on the latest virtual experiences and more Click here No. 2: SEC comes after The Sandbox, Decentraland As part of the Securities and Exchange Commission's ongoing pursuit of crypto players, a handful of new cryptocurrencies were named as unregistered securities, including The Sandbox’s SAND token and Decentraland’s MANA token. Both metaverse platforms have been home to branded activations in the past few years, though with decreasing frequency as of late. An unregistered security means that the asset in question does not fully meet the criteria to be offered for sale to the public. As such, the continued sale of these assets is considered to be breaking the law. Cryptocurrencies have often been viewed as unregistered securities by the SEC, with the exception of bitcoin and sometimes ether. It is unclear whether The Sandbox and Decentraland are actually subject to litigation, given their mentions were just a small part of a much larger SEC investigation into the crypto industry, which mainly focused on Binance and Coinbase. Speaking at an NFT conference last month, Sébastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, acknowledged the SEC’s claims, saying “We do not necessarily agree with the characterization that’s been put in that litigation, including the qualification of SAND as a security there,” according to Decrypt. No. 1: Apple plots possible metaverse course with launch of AR headset Apple had everyone’s attention last month when it unveiled its AR headset at WWDC, ending years of anticipation. Dubbed “Vision Pro,” the device opens the door to all kinds of immersive experiences, from work-related activities to gaming to movie watching. What remains to be seen is just how metaverse-y the headset will be. Apple has previously balked at the term “metaverse,” with senior VP of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak going so far as to say that the term is “a word I’ll never use.” During the launch presentation, Apple never said “metaverse” nor “virtual reality,” instead opting for the term “spatial computing.” “Augmented reality” was used once. Also read: A marketing guide to Apple's headset Marketers appear to be split over Apple’s plans. Julie Ask, VP at Forrester Research, told Ad Age that highly immersive technology is not the right access point for the metaverse. On the other hand, Keith Soljacich, head of innovation at Publicis Media, said the Vision Pro “is the intermediate step we all need to get to the immersive metaverse.”

Top 5 metaverse moments you need to know about right now

Featured Stories