Diwali, the festival of lights, is around the corner. We all have seen so many events celebrated in various metaverses worldwide and wondered why big festivals like Diwali are not celebrated there. Finally, we have the World’s First Diwali in Metaverse! The celebration will happen on AltWorld — India’s own Social Metaverse platform, between the 22nd and 24th October.
Diwali Celebration in the AltWorld Metaverse
Subham Boundia, Co-founder at AltWorld, says “A strong component of user experience in any industry is the culture connect of target audience. A virtual Diwali experience inside metaverse is our attempt to bring an Indian phenomenon into the wave of 3D content consumption for socialising in virtual worlds.”
In AltWorld, people can join and experience the festival in a thrilling new way with Diwali-themed decorations and various activities to sparkle the festive vibe. People can create 3D Avatars that look like them, which include facial features, hairstyles, and dress up in multiple options available in clothing, footwear, and accessories. On top of these, there are also newly designed ethnic clothing options for users during this Diwali celebration.
There are various fascinating merriments for the users to enjoy with their friends & family on AltWorld. For example, users can eat & share 3D sweets and light up different types of crackers at AltWorld’s favourite spot, the Beach Club. This is also an eco-friendly way to enjoy the fun of lighting crackers. This festival celebration also introduces the much-awaited “Night Sky” at the Beach Club. The whole club has been transformed and lit up with stunning lights for Diwali.
What is the AltWorld?
AltWorld is a platform for users to play and create immersive 3D social experiences across genres. It is building a social-gaming Metaverse that hosts casual 3D experiences created by developers or users.
AltWorld recently hosted their 1st event property, Fan Jam — A “Meet & Greet” event line with some of India’s biggest gaming influencers. Excited fans who follow these influencers on platforms like YouTube & Instagram interacted directly with these influencers on the AltWorld app. Around 10,000 fans joined the platform to meet their favourite gamers, and a staggering 2L+ people witnessed the event on YouTube.
AltWorld has launched new Diwali themed outfits
People can join the Diwali festivities at AltWorld by downloading the beta app, which is available on Android & iOS devices here: AltWorld App Download
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Lepasa.
The global metaverse market size is projected to be worth 1 trillion by 2030. The next wave of digital disruption is clear. The days are not far when people will spend most of their time roaming in virtual reality. The metaverse encompasses different technologies, including virtual reality platforms, gaming, machine learning, blockchain, digital currencies, and more.
Lepasa is a Jaipur-based startup that is building digital asset-based ecosystem for business and customers. Read to know about Lepasa, its founders, the startup story and its growth
Lepasa metaverse envisions an autonomous, cohesive & opulent digital economy in sync with the real-world use cases.
Lepasa is laying the foundation for the immensely potential digital asset-based ecosystem for content creators, businesses & consumers by developing a decentralised virtual world with numerous revenue generation opportunities.
Lepasa – Industry
The elements of a new digital age are converging at scale. The metaverse is the driving force bringing these elements together in a unified immersive experience. Users should increasingly be able to access a host of use cases, including commerce, art, media, advertising, healthcare, and social collaboration. A device-agnostic Metaverse would be accessible via personal computers, game consoles, and smartphones, resulting in a large ecosystem. Using this broad definition, the total addressable market for the Metaverse could be between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030, with total Metaverse users numbering around five billion.
Lepasa – Founders
Ashish Agarwal – Co-Founder, Lepasa Metaverse
Ashish has been in Blockchain for almost a decade, He started his Blockchain journey with a handful of visionaries’ way back in 2013. Before venturing into blockchain, Ashish has been an entrepreneur for a long-term selling its enabled services. Before Starting Lepasa, he has been an integral part of the Blockchain development in India. He has developed multiple Blockchain-focused solutions ranging from digital custody to full-fledged exchange.
Alok Joshi – Co-Founder, Lepasa Metaverse
Alok has been in the IT consulting business for more than 2 decades. Ha has vast experience in consulting corporates like banks and large-scale government projects.
Lepasa – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Lepasa Logo
Lepasa is inspired by the Spanish term “Que Pasa ”? They named their immersive, realistic, sustainable project with real-world use cases “Le+Pasa” to make the audience believes that It happens.
Lepasa – The Idea and Startup Story
2021 has been crazy or we may say the craziest year for the Crypto community. DeFi & NFTs have stolen the show from top cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. It is such strong evidence that NFTs are bringing a massive number of “New Crypto Owners” to the industry. A scenario where a new user buying any crypto for the first time to buy NFT is too common nowadays.
They had started working on the “NFT” concept back in late 2020 when Cryptopunks were everywhere & the entire industry was in awe of the pixel arts. On that very day they had decided that if they are going to NFTs, it has to be something else, not just one another project in the crowd.
Being in Blockchain Tech for almost a decade, their seasoned & dedicated team suggested having an equal proportion of Tech & Art go ahead. Oh WOW! That was one strong statement that laid the founding stone for this world-class Fine Art 3D Game Ready NFT project.
They onboarded world-renowned Traditional Fine Art Artists, and CGI Artists and formed a strong bond with the Tech team. Even though NFTs have been one of the largest real-world use cases of blockchain and smart contracts to date, their adoption has been unidimensional. NFTs have been restricted to GIFs and JPEGs in popular culture, failing to incorporate the vastness the technology is capable of.
Virtual lands are envisioned as spaces where anyone can go and hang out with their friends via a monitor or through their virtual reality headset. Eventually, enthusiasts expect metaverse real estate properties to support virtual structures, where users can build whatever they’d like. But contrary to the fact most of the existing options are either low poly, cartoonish, or tokenised games. It is difficult to think of a real, immersive experience in the current scenario.
Web 3.0 will lay the foundation for the phenomenal evolution of the Internet. That’s the reason the millennials are flocking into this, their expectations from metaverse could be immense in the context of enhanced experiences, gamification, and financial gains. True to the belief of web 3.0, they are adding a 3D layer to the existing model of the tokenised, low poly/2D version of the constrained metaverses. They are building an enthralling, immersive 3D visual experience. A planned Metaverse will provide immense opportunities to participants.
Lepasa – Customer Acquisition
They had worked day and night almost a year before launching their project, and they had worked a lot on launching it when there is a lot of demand and curiosity for the project, they had 200+ customers on the day of launch.
They have been working hard to sustain their early customers and at the same time gain more new customers. Their customer base is constantly growing in the last six months they have organically grown multiple X.
Lepasa – Challenges Faced
The most challenging part in such futuristic, comparatively newer concepts is mostly around finding the right resources/talent. They have been lucky on this part as they have been in this space for a long. Still, they too have to struggle while growing their team.
Their Launch event was one of the most exciting and successful events so far, as mentioned above they had 200+ customers on day 1. They have been working constantly and their user base is growing constantly since.
The integration of blockchain technology with the real-estate could bring a revolution in the industry & will result in a lot of benefits including increased trust, enhanced loyalty, proficient data management, and access to real-time information. They have added a layer of state-of-the-art conceptualization & planning to bridge the gap between virtual & real. To create a Virtually-Real experience, it needs to perceive, conceptualize & planned as a real-world project.
Lepasa Metaverse is planned exactly like any state-of-the-art real estate project shall be planned and developed. Right from the ideation phase to town planning, they have followed real-world objectives & principles. At the ideation stage, they were driven by the idea of “Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life” based on a study of the Blue Zones – the geographic regions where people live longer and have fewer diseases than anywhere else in the world.
Lepasa – Advisors
They have been fortunate to have the industry’s leading name in their core team & advisory. Their technical advisory associations include Polygon, FalconX, EPNS, etc.
Looking at the vast use cases and humongous possibilities with metaverse, they have been very careful and futuristic in their vision to develop such a solution that is relevant not just in the current scenario but also capable of serving the future phases of the business use cases.
FAQs
What is Lepasa Metaverse?
Lepasa Metaverse is a startup focussed on the developmnent of decentralised virtual world.
When was Lepasa founded?
Lepasa was founded in 2021 in Jaipur.
Who is the founder of Lepasa?
Ashish Agarwal and Alok Joshi are the founders of Lepasa.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Facebook.
In the world of digitalisation, there are only a handful of people who are not on this social media platform, Facebook. Although the company, Facebook, began as a social network for particular college students, it has now evolved into an important tool for day-to-day socialising and business professionals.
As a small company owner, Facebook may be precisely what you need to find potential workers, get new clients, or see what your competitors are up to. And doing so – browsing content on Facebook– does not need creating your new Facebook profile.
Facebook is an American online social networking website owned by Meta Platforms. Mark Zuckerberg, along with other three Harvard University undergraduates, launched Facebook in 2004. Facebook is free to use, yet ads on the platform provider for the bulk of the gross profitability. Members may establish accounts, upload photos, join established communities, or start their own.
Facebook’s popularity stems in part from creator Mark Zuckerberg’s insistence from the beginning that members be truthful regarding who they really are, as phoney pages are just not permitted.
According to the company’s business, transparency is necessary for developing interpersonal relationships, exchanging information and recommendations, and strengthening society as a whole. It also noted that the bottom-up, peer-to-peer networking of Facebook users makes it easier for businesses to connect with customers about their services and goods.
Know more about the Meta-owned company, Facebook, and how it is helpful to us, its business model, startup story, and much more by reading this article further.
Facebook – Company Highlights
Startup Name
Facebook
Parent
Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook, Inc)
Headquarters
Menlo Park, CA
Industry
Social Media Platform
Founders
Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
Facebook, a US-based online social media and social networking website is owned by Meta Platforms. The site’s features include Timeline or wall, a section on the user’s homepage where users can post content and friends can send messages, Status, which allows users to notify friends of their current location or set of circumstances, and News Feed, which notifies users of changes to their friends’ statuses and profiles.
Through Facebook, the users can communicate with one another and send and receive messages. Besides, they can also signal their approval for posts and comments on Facebook using the Like button, which can also be seen on many other websites.
In 2006, Facebook allowed anybody above the age of 13 to join, expanding its enrolment beyond students. Advertisers were able to develop new and successful consumer connections, just as Zuckerberg expected.
In October 2021, Facebook announced that its parent business will be renamed Meta Platforms. The name change signalled a shift in focus to the “metaverse,” an augmented reality realm in which people would participate. The Meta Platform now includes Facebook, the social networking platform.
Facebook – Industry
Customers can engage, produce, and share material and information through the social media market, which is made up of sales by entities (organizations, single traders, or partnerships). Social media platform users can exchange photos, videos, and audio clips.
This market generates revenue from advertising sales and other services provided through social networks. Advertising on social media and social media subscriptions are two different segments of the social media business.
The worldwide social media industry is predicted to increase at an annual pace (CAGR) of 39.7% from $159.68 billion in 2021 to $223.11 billion in 2022.
Businesses are reforming their operations and recovering from the effects of COVID-19, which had previously culminated in restrictive measures such as social distancing, the closure of commercial firms, and remote work, all of which caused operational challenges. Growing at a CAGR of 39%, the market is estimated to reach $833.50 billion in 2026.
With 46% of the global social media market in 2020, Asia Pacific was the most important region. The 2nd-largest area, North America, accounted for 32% of the worldwide market. Africa was identified as the fastest-growing region in the social media market between 2020-2021.
Facebook – Name, Logo, and Tagline
Facebook Logo
According to David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect, the name Facebook was picked because every Harvard student was given one of these, which held images of their classmates and were referred to as Facebook.
A majority of the American university students received face book directories, which consisted of individuals’ names and photos and were distributed among the university students to help them know each other. This is where the name “Facebook” came from, the sole aim of which is to connect people with their friends and family via its social media platform. The small F sign on Facebook’s site is considered to represent the name Facebook.
Facebook’s tagline used to be, “It’s Free and Always Will be” which was changed to, “It’s Quick and Easy.” It was changed silently between 6th and 7th August 2019, and Facebook didn’t clarify the reason why.
Facebook – Founders and Team
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
Co-founder and current CEO of Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg is an American businessman, media personality, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Meta Platforms, Inc. (previously called Facebook, Inc.), where he currently serves as chairman, CEO, and dominant shareholder. He is also a co-founder and board member of Breakthrough Starshot, a solar sail spacecraft development initiative.
Andrew McCollum
Andrew McCollum joined Philo, an entertainment-focused OTT streaming service, as CEO in 2014. Philo debuted countrywide in November 2017. Andrew was on Philo’s board of directors, supervised the company’s co-founders, and was one of the company’s early investors before becoming CEO.
Andrew was a member of the founding team of Facebook before joining Philo, and he has a long-standing interest in the social design of products. Following Facebook, Andrew worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Flybridge Partners, two of Philo’s investors. He is still an active angel investor and counsellor in the early stages of a company’s development.
Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes (November 26, 1983) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded and served as spokesperson for the online social networking and directory site Facebook with his Harvard companions. He was the editor-in-chief and publisher of The New Republic from 2012 until 2016. As of 2019, Hughes is a co-chair of the Economic Security Project.
Dustin Moskovitz
Dustin Moskovitz is the CEO and Co-Founder of Asana. He co-founded Good Ventures and the Open Philanthropy Project. He is also one of the co-founders of Facebook.
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin is a B Capital Group co-founder and partner. Saverin is a co-founder of Facebook and the initial investor. Saverin is eager to put money into the next wave of technical developments. He has counselled and worked closely with an array of firms of different kinds and stages as a technology investor and supervisor, all of which share one consistent theme: a love for people-centric technology, as well as a mobile platform lean with pan-global ambitions.
The Facebook team last registered 71,970 full-time employees in December 2021.
Facebook – Startup Story
Facebook, a social networking website, was established on October 28, 2003, as “FaceMash” before rebranding as “The Facebook” on February 4, 2004. It was established by Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard University classmates. The website’s designers initially limited membership to Harvard students.
Nonetheless, it was gradually expanded to include additional Boston-area colleges, the Ivy League, and finally most universities in the United States and Canada, businesses, and, by September 2006, everyone over the age of 13 with a valid email account.
In September 2004, the Wall was added to a Facebook user’s online profile. This widely used feature allowed a user’s friends to post information to their Facebook wall, and it rapidly became an important part of the social aspect of the network. Facebook had gained one million active members by the end of 2004. However, the firm was still lagging behind Myspace, the top online social network at that time, with five million users. Nevertheless, in the long run, MySpace failed to compete against Facebook.
2005 was a momentous occasion for the company. It was then that the idea of “tagging” people in photographs posted to the site was born. Tags were used to identify themselves and others in photos that were viewable to other Facebook friends. Facebook users can upload an unlimited amount of photos but the facial recognition feature of Facebook, which tagged the persons on the photograph earlier, is not there anymore now.
Outside of the United States, high school and university students were allowed to join the ‘Facebook army’ in 2005. By the end of that year, it had six million monthly active users.
Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
Based on the company’s social media service offerings, Facebook’s corporate vision statement is “People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, discover what’s going on in the world, and share and express what matters to them.”
This corporate vision demonstrates that the company is more than just an online social networking service. Rather, the firm aids in the gathering of information and meaningful dialogue among individual customers.
Facebook – Business Model and Revenue Model
Facebook makes money largely through showing commercials from businesses on its Facebook and Instagram apps. Ads contributed to 98% of Facebook’s $86 billion revenue in 2020. The remaining 2% of profits came mostly from Oculus and Portal device sales, as well as development payment fees.
Facebook’s business strategy is centred on providing its products and technologies to billions of users for free and then generating money by enabling businesses to show advertisements to Facebook’s consumers. Advertisers pay Facebook auction-based pricing depending on supply and demand.
This implies that the individuals who consume Facebook’s services (users) aren’t the people who are paying for them. Small companies who advertise on Facebook’s collection of applications are the real clients. With the launch of Facebook Shops, the initial iteration of Facebook’s e-commerce capabilities, the company’s focus on small companies became much more obvious.
Notwithstanding its history and present problems, Facebook is doing incredibly well. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, sales increased by 22% to $86 billion in 2020. It had a profit margin of 38% and a net income of $29 billion.
Facebook – Funding and Investors
Facebook raised a total of 16 funding rounds to date, as of July 12, 2022, which helped the organisation raise over $16 bn. Here’s a look at the Facebook funding table:
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
Oct 20, 2014
Post-IPO-Equity
$13.8B
–
May 10, 2011
Secondary Market
–
–
Mar 4, 2011
Private Equity Round
–
–
Jan 21, 2011
Private Equity Round
$1.5B
DST Global, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners
Jan 1, 2011
Secondary Market
–
–
Jun 28, 2010
Secondary Market
$120M
Elevation Partners
May 26, 2009
Series D
$200M
DST Global
May 1, 2008
Debt Financing
$100M
TriplePoint Capital
Mar 27, 2008
Series C
$60M
Horizons Ventures
Jan 15, 2008
Series C
$15M
Global Founders Capital
The Facebook investors include Elevation Partners, DST Global, Horizons Ventures, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and more.
Facebook – Investments
Facebook has made 44+ investments in total to date, as of July 12, 2022. Here’s diving into the most recent Facebook investments:
Date
Organization Name
Round
Amount
May 27, 2022
OlaClick (YC W21)
Seed Round
$4.4M
May 4, 2022
Ami
Seed Round
$3M
April 6, 2022
VerSe Innovation
Series J
$805M
Jan 1, 2022
PlayCo
Corporate Round
$40M
Nov 8, 2021
Inworld AI
Seed Round
$7M
Oct 5, 2021
echo3D
Series A
$4M
Sep 30, 2021
Meesho
Series F
$570M
Aug 3, 2021
Formaloo
Grant
–
Jul 5, 2021
Helpmum
Grant
$55K
May 3, 2021
Obviously AI
Seed Round
$3.7M
Apr 5, 2021
Meesho
Series E
$300M
Jan 1, 2021
FEMCA Financial Services
Pre-Seed Round
–
Dec 24, 2020
ArtyOwl.com
Grant
₹100K
Dec 4, 2020
Com Olho
Grant
–
Facebook – Acquisitions
Facebook has acquired a total of 95+ companies to date. The last acquisition of Facebook is presize.ai, which the company acquired on April 14, 2022.
Here’s a look at some of the recently acquired companies of Facebook:
Acquiree Name
About Acquiree
Date
Amount
presize.ai
Presize is a Germany-based company that is fuelled by the Computer Vision and Deep Learning technologies to develop the most accurate body scanning software
Apr 14, 2022
–
ImagineOptix
ImagineOptix is a US-based company that manufactures optical thin films to help the production of small, affordable, battery-efficient video projectors
Dec 21, 2021
–
Within (VR/AR)
Within is a virtual reality and augmented reality media and technology company.
Oct 29, 2021
–
AI.Reverie
A leading provider of synthetic data to train machine learning algorithms.
Oct 12, 2021
–
Unit 2 Games
Unit 2 Games is a game creation and sharing platform designed to develop video games
Jun 4, 2021
–
Kustomer
Kustomer is an omnichannel Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM platform specializing in customer service
Nov 30, 2020
$1B
Lemnis Technologies
We set a new standard for visual fidelity in VR/AR head-mounted displays, opening new opportunities for professional users.
Sep 22, 2020
–
Mapillary
Mapillary has built a street-level imagery platform that uses photos which have been uploaded by members of the public.
Jun 18, 2020
–
Giphy
Giphy is an online database and search engine that allows users to search, share, and discover GIFs.
May 15, 2020
$400M
Sanzaru Games
Sanzaru Games is an independent console video game development studio.
Feb 25, 2020
–
Scape Technologies
Scape is a computer vision startup, building the localization engine for city-scale augmented reality.
Feb 9, 2020
–
Packagd
Packagd is a series of app that offers new mobile shopping experience.
Dec 20, 2019
–
Facebook – Growth
Facebook is the most popular social media network in the world, with 2.91 billion active monthly users as of the fourth quarter of 2021, which went up to become 2.93 bn in Q1 of FY22. Here’s a look at the rise of Facebook’s monthly active users.
Facebook’s Growth of Monthly Active Users
The number of registered Facebook members topped 1 billion in the third quarter of 2012, making it the first social networking service to accomplish so. In the first quarter of 2021, the company said that 3.51 billion people used at least one of its key platforms on a monthly basis (Facebook, Whatsapp, Messenger, or Instagram).
Facebook initially began with only 150 people working with the same firm back in 2006. This rose and rose over the years, and was last registered with 71,970 full-time employees in December 2021.
What’s Facebook Changing to Ramp up Growth?
Facebook and Instagram both will see some changes, and many of these changes will be inclined towards altering the process of how Facebook and Instagram users share posts and videos. On this, Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platforms will make it easier for the users to control what they “see and discover on Facebook.” Here are some of the proposed changes that will take place:
Feeds will be introduced as a new tab. This will help the users see the most recent posts from their friends, groups, and Pages.
A Favourites list can be curated of the friends and Pages the users care about.
The first thing that the users will now see is Home.
According to Bloomberg, Facebook is on a mission to change the way it shows its users’ posts and videos in order to enable the users to watch content from accounts that they don’t already follow. This will, thus, help the Meta flagship product, Facebook to better compete with viral video app TikTok.
Facebook’s Annual Revenue :
Year
Revenue
2010
$1.97 billion
2011
$3.71 billion
2012
$5.08 billion
2013
$7.87 billion
2014
$12.4 billion
2015
$17.9 billion
2016
$27.6 billion
2017
$40.6 billion
2018
$55.8 billion
2019
$70.6 billion
2020
$85.9 billion
The revenue of Fb in Q3 2021 was registered at $29.01 bn, which included $28.27 bn in ad revenues and $734 mn worth of other revenue.
Facebook Begins Testing Ethereum and Polygon NFTs on Profiles
Facebook announced that it has already started rolling out NFTs for some of the American creators in a report dated July 1, 2022. A spokesperson of the social media giant mentioned that the platform has started initially with NFTs on Ethereum and Polygon and will eventually add support for NFTs on Solana and Flow as well.
According to a post by Meta Product Manager Navdeep Singh, the users’ Facebook profiles will have a “digital collectibles area”, where they can display their NFTs, which are special blockchain tokens representing ownership. Singh also mentioned that the users will also be able to link their Facebook profiles to their bitcoin wallets. Also, they will have the option to convert their NFTs into Facebook posts that may then be shared, liked, commented on, and responded to, just like any other Facebook post.
Here’s the first look shared by Navdeep:
Facebook NFTs
Face Recognition Shutdown
Face recognition will be phased out of Facebook’s social network, as announced by the company in November 2021. Its use will be limited across all products, and over a billion saved faces will be deleted, according to Meta, Facebook’s newly formed parent company.
According to a blog post by Meta’s VP of artificial intelligence, Jerome Pesenti, the action will destroy over a billion saved faces in the following weeks. The removal of such a large database signal that Meta would limit the use of facial recognition in its planned “metaverse” projects, which will involve actual people interacting in vast virtual settings, including game environments, at least initially.
“The many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole,” wrote Pesenti. “There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use,” he said. “Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.”
Facebook – Competitors
The top competitors of Facebook are technology giants like:
The prominence and magnitude of Facebook have prompted condemnation from a variety of quarters. Internet privacy, its face recognition software, excessive data retention, DeepFace’s addictive nature, and its function in the workplace, including access to employee accounts by employers, are all challenges.
Facebook has been chastised for its consumption of electricity, tax evasion, real-name user verification regulations, censorship, and participation in the US PRISM surveillance program.
Users of Facebook are said to have negative psychological impacts such as jealousy and tension, a lack of focus, and social media addiction. Facebook has been slammed for enabling users to post obscene or illegal content. Copyright and intellectual property infringement, hate speech, rape, terrorist incitement, fake news, crimes, murders, and live-streaming violent situations are among the specifics.
Sri Lanka suspended both WhatsApp and Facebook in May 2019 as a temporary fix to restore peace following anti-Muslim violence, the worst in the country since the Easter Sunday attack the preceding year. Between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, Facebook removed 3 billion fake accounts, bringing the total number of monthly active users to 2.39 billion.
The company said in late July 2019 that the Federal Trade Commission was investigating it for antitrust breaches.
Facebook Layoffs
Facebook is looking to lay off employees and has already asked the process managers to identify the low-performing employees and move them to exit, as per reports dated July 15, 2022. The company has been reportedly struggling with macroeconomic pressures and incurred hits to its advertising business.
Facebook Parent Meta Faces Trademark Lawsuit
Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook has been hit by a trademark lawsuit filed by Meta X LLC., a virtual reality-based company, in Manhattan federal court, as of the reports dated July 26, 2022. MetaX alleged that the Facebook owner (earlier Facebook, Inc.), which is now renamed Meta Platforms Inc., has stolen its name since its pivot to metaverse. MetaX also reported that Meta has infringed its federal “Meta” trademarks.
Following the renaming of Facebook as ‘Meta,’ the firm will be “metaverse first,” according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which means you won’t need a Facebook account to access other Meta products in the future.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity as we begin this next chapter,” he said. “Facebook is an iconic social media brand, but it just doesn’t encompass everything that we do.”
It also suggests that the company would divide its activities into two segments: one for its future platform efforts (Reality Labs is going to be the tag for that segment) and another for its app family.
Whilst expanding their social networking applications will remain a priority, he believes that the company’s identity will become less tied to a single product/ service over time.
In short, the metaverse will be an embodiment of the internet, according to Zuckerberg, who believes it will be the next integrated virtual media to emerge after video (which evolved from photos and texts).
Rather than staring at a screen, you’ll be able to immerse yourself in these activities. That’s most probably to be accomplished through instilling a strong sense of presence in a shared environment, which would be the metaverse’s distinguishing characteristic. This will demand hardware from the firm, such as the Oculus Quest 2 or others.
The firm is thinking about offering incentives to developers and new users to join. To boost adoption, these alternatives include cutting costs, subsidizing gadgets, or selling them at a loss.
It’s crucial to stress, though, that the metaverse of Zuckerberg’s visions is far from complete. Currently, just the fundamental building pieces work, according to Zuckerberg. In the end, technological obstacles remain—compressing augmented reality technology and sophisticated computers into a pair of spectacles, for example, is a difficult task.
Although Zuckerberg vows to encourage security and privacy on this new “social technology” network in a founder’s letter, it remains to be seen if he can persuade people to use it, particularly younger generations who have been abandoning Facebook. Many people question if a new interface would simply reintroduce the same old issues.
FAQs
What does Facebook do?
Facebook is an American online social networking website owned by Meta Platforms.
Who founded Facebook?
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
When was Facebook founded?
Facebook was founded in the year 2004.
How does Facebook make money?
Facebook makes money primarily by showing advertisements from businesses on its Instagram and Facebook apps.
Which companies do Facebook compete with?
The top 10 competitors in Facebook’s competitive set are:
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by XR Central.
Metaverse, a 3D immersive digital reality technique that combines augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), blockchain, and IoT to create a virtual world and collaborate within it. The global metaverse market was valued at $41 billion in 2021. According to ‘Metaverse Market Report 2022’ by Grand View Research, the global metaverse market size is expected to grow to reach $678.8 billion by 2030. Extended reality(XR) are the building blocks of the metaverse. that will help in uplifting the user experience in the metaverse.
XR Central is a metaverse technology based startup that provides innovatively designed solutions for metaverse creation for a diverse array of industries. Read to know about XR Central, its founder, the startup story, growth, and more.
XR Central is a Gurgaon-based metaverse technology startup. It was founded in 2020. XR Central has a vision to democratise extended reality technology and the metaverse. This means empowering businesses and individuals to use the metaverse to solve a diverse group of problems. When they bring new technology to the masses, it always leads to a leap in innovation which benefits and impacts many industries.
XR Central – Industry
The metaverse and XR industries are expanding at a phenomenal pace. There has been a large influx of investment by private and government entities in the field, and the market is projected to grow at a rate of 57.91%. The regions where most growth is projected is the Asia-Pacific region, and they anticipate that products from this region are poised to take the lead in metaverse services globally in the next five years. In the next year or so they want to introduce MetaQube to markets in the Middle East, European, and North American sectors.
XR Central – Founders and Team
Anshul Agarwal – Co-Founder of XR Central
Anshul Agarwal, Co-Founder & Director XR Central, is a mechanical engineer and Master of Business Administration who now spearheads sales, marketing and strategy development for XR Central. He has over a decade’s worth of extensive experience in sales transformation and corporate portfolio management has driven the progression of the XRC and MetaQube brand.
Anshul has a passionate work ethic and has traveled across the globe to liaise with clients. This empowers him to work closely with individual teams to deliver quality solutions. His robust educational background, coupled with experience in the corporate enables him to meet the expansion requisites of XR Central.
Shrey Mishra – Co-Founder of XR Central
The other half of XR Central is Shrey Mishra, Co-Founder & Director XR Central – a computer science engineer who spearheads technology, operations and product development for XR Central. With 12 years of experience in storytelling and finding innovative, technological solutions to complex problems, Shrey has delivered unique concepts and driven innovation.
XR Central extends its services to the corporate and commercial segments in particular, and Shrey plays a critical role in the creativity and implementation of the concept. His flair for perfection and innovation motivates the team to experiment with unique ideas and implement them with the assistance of technological processions like Metaverse, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Interactive technology.
This passion and synergy between technology and marketing strategy has resulted in the founding of XR Central. They have a flat work structure, which means that they have no hierarchies. Each member of the team is as important as the other and all team members, from interns to engineers, can approach us, the co-founders, without hesitation. They have created an open work environment where team members can brainstorm and experiment without obstacles and deliver the kind of top-notch performance that makes a product truly unique.
Before XR Central the founder ran one of India’s largest platforms for gaming content, Gaming Central. The highly organic and sophisticated participation of the gaming community coupled with the constant output of the gaming industry made us ask ourselves a question: can gaming be used to solve real world problems? And that was the seed which has led Anshul and Shrey to conceptualise, develop and implement their DIY metaverse builder MetaQube.
They ideated and designed with a small team of passionate individuals which is growing every day, and they continue to iterate and innovate even now to ensure that their product reaches a level of quality which puts it far above its competitors.
XR Central – Products and Services
XRC is an XR (AR, VR, MR & WebGL) based interactive tech studio based out of Gurgaon and is founded and led by experienced industry experts Anshul Agarwal and Shrey Mishra.
XRC has been delivering a wide range of interactive and immersive XR solutions that have helped brands elevate customer experiences and brand recall. They specialize in metaverse creation for a diverse array of industries, as well as creating interactive design content using immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (MR, VR and AR).
They are currently developing their flagship product, a powerful, game-engine-based metaverse builder called MetaQube. They provide B2B services and a forthcoming B2C product is in the final stages of development. They have worked with partners like Infosys, HCL, etc. to bring experience centres and immersive experiences to life, and are currently working with a diverse portfolio – from e-sport fan zones to building complex 3D models for training purposes in specialised fields.
Most of these experiences are run on MetaQube, which will be their B2C product. MetaQube will be a no-code world builder, where you can build a digital environment for your friends and family or at scale for thousands of people in a matter of minutes.
XR Central – Challenges Faced
The biggest challenge for them was educating the target audience and educating stakeholders about the possibility of XR. As the age of Web 3.0 arrives, XR technology is seen as the new frontier for experiencing content of all kinds.
But exposure to new technology in enterprise and wider consumer settings is very limited, and explaining and providing PoC, collating ideas, iterating and reiterating, and defining the full scope is a lengthy process which requires repeated starts and stops.
They overcame these challenges by creating their own PoCs and developing material to educate people on these new technologies. This is how they have gained the confidence of leading brands.
XR Central work for clients all over the world from its offices in Gurgaon. Their users come from a very wide selection of industries, from aviation to coating manufacturers, and they empower them to build different experiences which connect them to customers, manufacturers, and their stakeholders.
During their fun work sessions they use MetaQube, their own platform, for effective internal and external collaboration with a unique hook.
XR Central – Recognition and Achievements
They are always in the news, and have received widespread press coverage for many of their projects. For their project with India Art Fair, they were featured in Financial Express, The Print, Outlook, The Hindu, and Business Today. For their collaboration with GIGABYTE and Lucknow Super Giants XR Central was covered in newspapers all over the world. Over a hundred news and media agencies have covered XR Central’s projects, with glowing testimonials from clients.
Anshul and Shrey also write a regular column aimed at de-mystifying the metverse and XR technologies for the wider public for The Sunday Guardian.
XR Central – Future Plans
As well as the Indian subcontinent, they want to provide services to regions in the Middle East and Europe. Their work is multicultural and intuitive and they are sure they will be able to bring that knowledge to develop timeless metaverse products for a diverse set of countries and audiences.
FAQs
What is XR Central?
XR Central is a Gurgaon-based startup focussed towards metaverse creations and using AR/VR for innovative design solutions.
When was XR Central founded?
XR Central was founded in 2020.
Who is the founder of XR Central?
Shrey Mishra and Anshul Agarwal are the co-founders of XR Central.
Is XR Central funded startup?
Yes, XR Central has raised funding of $135K in a Seed Round.
The world has evolved and is still in the process of evolving. We are surrounded by technology and have our hands on things that are making our life easier. However, the more we have evolved, the more we started ignoring nature. This has resulted in drastic climatic change, so much is that we are losing 149 billion metric tons of ice in Antarctica. This has led to the rise of the global sea level in a big way, and researches shows that by the year 2050 big populated cities will get under the water.
Now, the richest and wealthiest people have also contributed to climatic change. The richer they are, the more their carbon footprint increase. Reports claimed that half of the global emission is caused by the 10% wealthiest people in the world. Nw, with great power, comes great responsibility. This rare planet now needs to be saved. We do not have a planet B. Fortunately, some of these wealthy people are aware of what their actions are doing to the world. So all of them are doing their part to save the planet. In this article, we will talk about some billionaires and what they are doing to tackle climate change. So without any further ado, let’s get started.
The second richest person in the world and the founder of E-commerce giant Amazon, Jeff Bezos is clearly aware of what carbon emission is doing to the world. To counter the situation, Jeff Bezos along with Amazon has started an initiative known as The Amazon Climate Pledge, it is signed by other 104 corporations and its main target is to achieve net-zero carbon emission by the year 2040. Apart from that Bezos also has set up a fund called Bezos Earth Fund. Amazon also has a climate fund of $2 billion and this will be invested in new unique technologies that are needed to make a zero-carbon economy. In his Bezos Earth Fund, it is $10 billion and already 16 groups that working on climate change are given $790 million.
Elon Musk
There is hardly anyone who isn’t aware of this person, Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world with his company like Tesla and SpaceX. He is now the owner of the popular social media site, Twitter as well. From the very first, this person is aware of what Carbon emission is doing to our world. His company Tesla is an electric carmaking company which is an alternative to fossil fuels. His company is known for energy-saving and also for avoiding waste. In 2021, Musk donated $100 million to an NGO called XPrize. XPrize has hosted a competition of four years through which they pledge to find a solution to achieve the removal of 10 gigaton carbon removal target per year by 2050.
Bill Gates
Bill Gates is not only known for his wealth but also for his philanthropy, the founder of the popular multinational tech company Microsoft. Gates is very much aware of the climate change issue the planet faces and has always spoken about its drastic consequences. Being that upfront about climate change, his company Microsoft took many steps to save the planet. In 2019, Microsoft pledged and set a target to source 100% renewable electricity by the year 2030. It has also decided to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as well. Bill Gates has already authored a best-seller known as ‘How To Avoid A Climate Disaster’. Apart from Microsoft has taken a big challenge of being carbon negative by the year 2030. Microsoft is also part of Amazon’s Climate Pledge and has signed it.
Bernard Arnault
The French business Tycoon Bernard Arnault is the chairman and CEO of the biggest luxury goods company LVMH. Some of the biggest luxury brands like Louie Vuitton, Dior and Sephora are under this. Under the directive of Arnault, LVMH has its own program called LVMH Initiatives For the Environment (LIFE) program, it has decided a target to achieve the use of 100% renewable energy and eradication of fossil-based plastic use in packaging by 2026. Apart from that, LVMH claimed to achieve their goal of 25% reduction of carbon emissions by 2020, in fact, they reportedly surpassed 37% of carbon emissions 12% more than their target.
Mark Zuckerberg
The man behind the biggest social media platform, Facebook and the company Meta is Mark Zuckerberg. Meta in 2021 said that it has reached its target of net-zero of carbon emissions and energy that it has purchased. In 2019, it was one of the largest buyers of renewable energy and is also on the path to investing funds in the projects of carbon removal and nature-based compounds. Zuckerberg along with Meta is focusing on sustainability and is working to tackle the impact of climate change in the world.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison is the co-founder and the former CEO of Oracle Corporations. The Oracle Corporation has always believed in sustainable business and has several sustainable goals. Larry Ellison started the SailGP catamarans race in the year 2018, it is to be the first climate positive sport. Its main slogan is ‘Powered by nature’ and has set a target to be 100% charged by renewable energy sources by the year 2025. Apart from that, Ellison has also bought a Hawaiian island and has pledged to turn the island into a place of clean energy. He brought the island in 2012 for $300 million.
Conclusion
With the threat of global warming rising every day, the planet is in danger. There are companies that are playing a big role in the increase of global warming as they are producing carbon emissions. The Billionaires are now taking responsibility and are coming forward by initiating new projects and taking part in sustainable development programmes to save the planet.
FAQs
Who is the richest person in the world?
Elon Musk is the richest person in the world.
Who is Jeff Bezos?
Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur and the founder of the biggest E-commerce platform Amazon.
How much CO2 does the world produce?
Approximately, the world produces over 43 billion tons of carbon emissions every year.
Technology is taking the world to unprecedented heights, which could not be predicted even ten years ago. The digital world is growing at an unimaginable pace and is bringing some of the best experiences ever in the history of mankind. VR or virtual reality is one of such extraordinary experiences that is steering our viewing experience to the next level. Hundreds of companies all over the world are striving to make metaverse a reality. It is undoubtedly one such thing that will require a lot of time and effort to be established perfectly and be reach the masses, but with the recent advancements in technology, it’s not a far-off dream anymore.
The term metaverse refers to a virtual environment created with the help of special virtual technology that people can live in. This sounds like a science fiction movie, and science fiction movies are made to resemble life as it will be in the future. It’s like accessing any location, such as virtual concerts using gear similar to video games. By using this, you can live the moment instead of only watching it. Metaverse is also considered the future of the internet. However, this internet universe will also be linked with virtual spaces, and provide a 3D virtual experience while surfing. In this future technology, the big tech giants are investing heavily, with the sole aim of bringing the virtual world to life.
Cryptocurrencies, games such as Minecraft, virtual conferencing, etc., come under the example of elements of the metaverse. The expanding digital world with an extended cyberspace will see a technological revolution soon. Tech giants are in the race to create what seemed impossible a few years earlier. Metaverse will form the base of this revolution to take Virtual and Augmented Reality to the next level.
What is Metaverse?
Companies Chasing Metaverse Dream
Major video game company Roblox corporation is adapting and developing the metaverse concept. This concept will take their video games to the next level. Another well-known tech giant in the race is NVIDIA corporation that has developed omniverse technology. They called it ‘metaverse for engineers’ by adding millions of users using blender software to create three-dimensional imagery.
The NVIDIA corporation, Blender, and Adobe have joint plans to expand the NVIDIA omniverse. This collaboration by these tech giants may bring a brilliant result to the market soon in the near future. Facebook recently announced that it would hire 10,000 people in Europe to develop the metaverse. Also, Facebook acquired Oculus VR, and now it’s a complete part of Facebook. This branch of Facebook makes virtual reality gadgets.
Facebook rebranded itself as meta to prepare for metaverse development. Also, Facebook selected the European Union to develop the metaverse rather than focusing on the USA. This is to create more employment in the European region and maintain a long presence in that region. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said that the internet is broken, and they have a plan to fix it. Sweeney’s dream of bringing the metaverse to reality is a long project with huge investments and acquisitions.
We all might have seen Mark Zuckerberg displaying the giant robots and time travels to ancient Rome to announce the brand’s aim to establish a metaverse, which started with the recent renaming of the corporate name of Facebook. However, there are numerous other companies that are working in silence, pacing towards the same goal of achieving metaverse.
Here we list some of the companies that share the same dream of developing metaverse.
List of Metaverse Development Companies:
Roblox
Roblox Corporation – Metaverse Development Company
Roblox Corporation, the American video gaming company that went public this year, visualizes the concept of metaverse as a place where “people can come together within millions of 3D experiences to learn, work, play, create and socialize.”
The California-based gaming corporation is aiming to help the users and developers with ways to create digital worlds. Roblox Founder/CEO David Baszucki has also mentioned that the company is looking forward to creating future shopping and business experiences on the platform, which is powered by its own virtual currency, Robux. Roblox is among the highest valued startups in the World.
Microsoft
Microsoft – Metaverse Development Company
Microsoft Corp is not far behind the world of metaverse either. In fact, the company’s CEO Satya Nadella has already hinted at the same during an earnings call when he said that Microsoft was aiming to converge the physical and digital worlds by building an “enterprise metaverse”.
With the famous Xbox and Minecraft under its belt, Microsoft is a distinguished player even in the gaming world, which will also see advancements to bring in the concept of the metaverse. Phil Spencer, the chief of Xbox, has even talked about the company’s planning to create “a metaverse or mixed-reality construct.”
Meta
Meta – Metaverse Development Company
Meta is a prominent player in the space of metaverse and is currently in the news as well following the recent change in its name to Meta Platforms Inc., which was earlier Facebook Inc. The social media giant is one of the most revered investors in the spaces of augmented and virtual reality and has been in the quest to build a metaverse out of its VR environment Horizon, which is accessible through the Quest headsets launched by the brand.
Nvidia
Nvidia – Metaverse Development Company
Popular computer chip producer, Nvidia Corp has already been successful in building its Omniverse platform, which can be used to connect the 3D worlds into a shared virtual universe. This Omniverse will be used for projects that can create simulations of the physical buildings and factories that are here in the living world and will stand as the “plumbing” on which metaverses could be built.
Unity
Unity Software – Metaverse Development Company
Unity Software Inc, the American video game software development company is quite popular for the real-time 3D projects it handles powered by 3D, 2D, VR, and AR. Talks are that Unity would also help in empowering businesses and startups with advanced tools and technology to build the metaverse.
Snap
Snap Inc. – Metaverse Development Company
Snap Inc., the owner of Snapchat has long been credited as the company behind the creation of custom avatars and augmented reality filters to overlay digital features in the real world. The company has made a bigger push in 2021, with the launch of its augmented reality glasses that are available for the developers to experiment with creating experiences for the spectacles.
Autodesk
Autodesk – Metaverse Development Company
Autodesk, the cloud software firm that hails from California, US, also creates programs that can be used by engineers and architects to design and produce buildings and products. Besides, the software created by Autodesk Inc. is further used to build virtual world experiences for games and other entertainment purposes.
Tencent
Tencent – Metaverse Development Company
Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, the world’s largest video gaming firm by revenue, which also boasts of having stakes in major game studios like Epic Games and Activision Blizzard has already registered many metaverse-related trademarks for its social site QQ, according to the South China Morning Post.
Epic Games
Epic Games – Metaverse Development Company
The name behind the video gaming phenomenon, Fortnite, Epic Games has paced ahead of usual shooting games to bring in social experiences like dance parties and virtual music concerts. The users are seen, in such projects, paying to drape their avatars in various costumes and building their own islands and games. The company is also the owner of the massive gaming engine that goes by the name Unreal, which is used to develop games and other visual effects, such as the backdrops of TV shows.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who also happens to be a vocal critic of the other big platforms like Apple Inc and Google, has stated that metaverse needs to stand as a participatory, common space.
Amazon
Amazon – Metaverse Development Company
The world’s largest cloud services vendor and the owner of the exemplary ecommerce website, Amazon.com, Inc is ever-increasing in terms of its media offerings. Furthermore, the company is also seen as a potential player in the metaverse.
Apart from foreign tech giants, many Indian startups are also approaching the goal to develop metaverse. India has a high gaming user base that accounts for a large percentage of the global gaming user base. Due to this, there is also a responsibility on Indian engineers to actively participate in the creation and development of the metaverse. Some of the key players from India, who are pacing up to see the success of their metaverse projects are:
Bolly Heroes
Bolly Heroes – Metaverse Development Company
Bolly Heroes can be described as a parallel Bollywood world that is built in collaboration with production houses, music labels, brands, celebrities, gaming studios, and animation companies. The partners of Bolly Heroes have already gone a step ahead to launch the Bollyverse, a limited edition NFT collection platform, the pre-registration for which has already started from September 21, 2021. With the help of this platform, the users can now create a ‘Bollyverse,’ where they would be able to write, act and produce their own stories and characters, which will ease the launch of community-driven films, games, shows, and animation.
OneRare
OneRare – Metaverse Development Company
Founded lately in March 2021, New Delhi-based OneRare has been successful in launching its first play-to-earn game designed as a food metaverse game on 0xPolygon.
Loka
Loka – Metaverse Development Company
Loka is based in New Delhi and is distinguished as the first multiplayer gamified virtual Metaverse of India based on the 3D maps of the real-world cities and other physical locations, in which the players can participate in live and concurrent experiences powered by their preferred third-party apps.
Cope.Studio
Cope.Studio – Metaverse Development Company
Founded in November 2020, Cope.Studio is a product studio focused on deep technology, which is developed on a platform for repeatable creation and growth of successful products, revolving around early-stage ventures. The company is based in Bengaluru and strives to combine design, product support, and capital in order to create innovative ideas about the Metaverse into category-defining companies.
Some other Indian companies that are working on their metaverse projects are Interality, Tamasha.Live, Zippy and NextMeet.
When Will The Metaverse Get Developed Completely?
Metaverse Development
The metaverse is a very vast concept if we see it through the eyes of engineers developing it. For common people, it will be a smooth and easy experience to feel the virtual experience. But for the developing team working behind, it’s a challenge that will snatch their sleep. The metaverse concept has been getting planned for years, and finally, we are witnessing some really good progress in the process. Tech giants are now investing huge sums in this project to take their company values to higher levels. People are excited to test this new experience, and the market is growing with demand for such digital technologies.
The first ideas of metaverse came to light before the year 2000, but the enthusiasm about this concept has come to the limelight in the year 2020. Many tech giants are setting their footprints into the development of their metaverse. Different ideas are diversifying the development process. But for the metaverse to function fully and get affordable for a large section of the society is still a bit far. But at the speed with which these companies are rising in this concept, work will bring metaverse to life soon. The pandemic has shown the importance of the virtual world and its importance in our daily lives. Now the Metaverse may have got a boost due to this push, and it’s now getting closer and closer.
Benefits of the Metaverse
Metaverse as a whole is a very futuristic concept, and it has a lot of benefits. With the arrival of metaverse technology, virtual living standards will improve, and it will be possible to merge digital platforms into a single segment. Medical professionals can now treat diseases that can be easily detectable at an earlier stage due to metaverse technology. Retail vendors will be able to display products to the customers through this technology. The most diversified use of this technology is in the gaming universe, which will feel more real through a metaverse. Also, the travel experience will get better through this technology, allowing users to travel to foreign places through a metaverse. Apart from these, many other benefits exist and will surface with time.
Metaverse is not a dream anymore, it’s now coming to reality, and our real world is getting more virtual in the coming days due to this technology. With time, Virtual reality will develop and will take our experiences to a new level. Many people will get employment through this technology, and millions will get a new technological wonder to experience. Every technology has its own negative and positive points, and for Metaverse, you can figure them out when it will come to reality.
FAQs
What is metaverse?
The term metaverse refers to a virtual environment that you can live through using special virtual technology.
Which are the companies working for metaverse development?
Some of the metaverse development companies are:
Roblox
Microsoft
Meta
Nvidia
Unity
Snap
Autodesk
Tencent
Epic Games
Amazon
Why Facebook rebranded to Meta?
Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta to reflect its focus on metaverse.
This article is contributed by Anshul Agarwal, Co-founder of XR Central.
Most people we know, when they need to buy supplies, will take a few hours or more in order to: a) go to the shops, b) search for the desired shop, c) go to the relevant section in the desired shop, and so on and so forth, you get the picture. The internet has made e-commerce faster and more convenient than ever before, but there are still things that we hesitate to buy online. We want to try on glasses, try on clothes, see how everything fits before we click that button. And for that, you have to take a few hours to go to the shops.
The advent of the metaverse, and technology like 5G, will make e-commerce even more intuitive and convenient for customers. Now, you can scan your body or enter your measurements and try on all sorts of clothes and accessories on your virtual avatar. With the level of precise detail made possible in the metaverse, this will be as close to the real experience as possible and will take a fraction of the time. And if you think, well, this is an activity that I’d like to do with friends, then the social component – that gets missed from a lot of e-commerce experiences at the moment – will also be there for you. Your friends will have the opportunity to create their own avatars and accompany you on virtual shopping trips from the convenience of their own homes.
Indeed, XR-powered platforms power the collaborative and social aspect of retail via omnichannel messaging and real-time avatar interaction. You and your friends will be able to stroll in a fully immersive experience through the shops in your local neighbourhood – or even thousands of miles away. And shop owners will have a chance to showcase their goods effectively while maintaining their customers’ level of trust. There is also a rise in AR apps you can use to project makeup and accessories onto your face. Snapchat, for example, is debuting a version of Shopping Lens that will enable users to swipe through different kinds of makeup and cosmetics and virtually try them on their faces. Attached to the AR overlay will be detailed on prices, colours, and sizes. Major brands have already signed on to this new way of shopping and there are predictions of more and more brands jumping on the bandwagon soon.
Last year, Gucci made a big splash selling NFTs of digital clothes and accessories for millions of dollars. As we transition to a predominantly digital presence, we can expect to see a big uptick in our Direct-to-Avatar (D2A) purchases. For an appearance-conscious generation, digital avatars will need to exhibit personal flourishes via clothes and accessories. We know what makes us unique in real-life, but what will that be in the metaverse?
Like we’ve seen with H&M’s new virtual store, it will be possible to have cross-platform flexibility and access to major brands in a virtual setting. Users will be able to access retail stores on their tablets, smartphones, laptops, or by using VR-enabled headsets or glasses. Having stores at a ‘virtual’ address will offer brands a chance to be hyper-local in a truly global setting, and to gain access to a wider audience and secure cutting-edge brand equity.
For brands that don’t want to go all out on digital products, there is an opportunity to have hybrid showcases – where real-world creations are matched with virtual accessories to be sold as NFT collectibles. NFT collectibles are custom digitized tokens that, by definition, are truly exclusive. They cannot be exchanged with each other. And it’s low-cost, without raw materials, fittings, export duties, and comparable workers’ fees. Users can have their NFTs digitally rendered into Instagram or Snapchat filters, Zoom filters, QR codes, and seamlessly project an extension of their personality into the digital realm. In fact, the highly scalable and highly custom nature of virtual retail will make it so that retailers will create less waste and be able to recruit new customer bases with relative ease.
A case in point for retail’s future in the metaverse is the participation of FMCG companies. You could think that FMCG doesn’t really fit in the metaverse, but we have innovative branding strategies being implemented by the likes of Hellmann’s mayo – who created a campaign on Animal Crossing regarding food waste – and Proctor and Gamble – who created lifelike skin for avatars to advertise their Venus razors. A unique, multi-faceted campaign can result in a hundred-fold increase in social media mentions and make creaky brands seem slick and savvy.
And lastly, home shopping will become easier. We now have interior designers and decorators visualising furniture and all manner of home accessories in a rendering of your flat. And using AR shopping apps – like Amazon’s Room Decorator – you can see how that new bed you’re thinking of buying will look in your room, or how that painting or that rug, or that vase will look in your home. The tools powering the metaverse will provide an unprecedented ability to visualise 3D objects accurately, so you can be confident of your purchase.
So, in summary, retail and e-commerce have a bright future in the metaverse on a number of different fronts. Some of them are already here and some will continue to evolve and mutate far into the future. It will be interesting to see where we land.
This article is contributed by multiple Startup founders from different fields.
Indian startup ecosystem proved to be massive in the year 2021. With a fine number of unicorns, startups from different industries, be it tech, healthcare, food, fintech or others are making everyone’s head turn. Every industry is paving its way and is turning into something unimaginable. The year 2022, seems to be getting even more interesting and jaw-dropping.
In this article, entrepreneurs from various fields shared their views about the industries that they feel are going to be the hot topics in the startup ecosystem, this year. So, let’s take a look.
Rohit Sahni | CEO & Founder, WK Life
Rohit Sahni | CEO & Founder, WK Life
Looking at the current scenario of a possible third wave of Covid-19, I think the hottest topic of 2022 would be how to survive another slowdown in the industry. It could also be the change in the consumer behavior due to lockdown, as we did see a change in the consumer behavior after the previous lockdown. Other than this digital prominence would also be one of the hot topics, owing to the Covid-19 scenario.
Abhinav Mital | Founder, The WorldGrad
Abhinav Mital | Founder, The WorldGrad
2022 is likely to see a continuation of the trends from last year and the massive adoption of technology in all aspects of our lives. Startups will continue to compete with each other to better service levels and go one up on each other whether it is grocery delivery or financial services. With plenty of capital flowing freely in the market, customers will continue to be spoilt for choices. It is expected to see startups in the hi-tech space emerge, leveraging the use of AR or VR to enhance quality provision and introduce a new dimension for customers. Some of the sectors to watch out for will be fintech, ed-tech, health tech, and cleantech in both the direct-to-customer and business-to-business formats.
Ankur Singh | CEO & Founder, Witzeal Technologies Pvt. Ltd
Ankur Singh | CEO & Founder, Witzeal Technologies Pvt. Ltd
India is becoming the world’s fastest-growing start-up ecosystem. As we move into the new year, technological innovations in any and every vertical will continue to drive the startup ecosystem. Partnerships between start-ups and large international entities are essential for the advancement of technological advancements, as well as the long-term growth of enterprises of all kinds.
I believe the future of online gaming in India lies in the innovations and creativity leading to providing a personalized experience to gamers. Moreover, we foresee the employment and hiring landscape witnessing a sharp rise along with the players choosing their profession as gaming.
Apu Pavithran | CEO & Founder, Mitsogo
Apu Pavithran | CEO & Founder, Mitsogo
At the forefront, most startups would look to increase viable partnership opportunities with other organizations. India is one of the fastest-growing hotspots for unicorn start-ups, so there will definitely be a stronger collective of unicorn start-ups with better investment opportunities. The post-pandemic world opened up a lot of opportunities for the start-up community. Most of them are looking at effective remote work/hybrid work opportunities to help improve employee well-being. Remote/hybrid work is beneficial to start-ups because it is cost-effective, and it largely helps employees in terms of commute, work-life balance, and improved productivity. Many start-ups will look into implementing cost-effective methods for workplace optimisation. Emerging technologies like 5G, AI, ML, edge computing, metaverse, will definitely create more opportunities.
Himanshu Arya | CEO & Founder, Grapes
Himanshu Arya | CEO & Founder, Grapes
The last few years have been exceptional for the start-up ecosystem. There is a surfeit of talent in the Indian marketplace and the start-up sector will continue to thrive in 2022 as well. In this rapidly changing world, Innovation is the key to survival for start-ups. In my belief, the continued development around crypto-currency, Fintech, E-commerce, Metaverse, and Pharma will be in the consumer’s mind. We can see a lot of developments in these sectors in the near future.
Nishant Behl | CEO & Founder, Expand My Business
Nishant Behl | CEO & Founder, Expand My Business
It has been a phenomenal ride for the start-ups in India, especially the emerging tech companies who are witnessing before themselves a new era of possibilities unfold. By the end of 2021, India has already become a home to around 81 unicorn companies of the world, of which 44 emerged to the status in a single year. The startup landscape seems to open up bigger and better possibilities in 2022. Buzzwords like crypto and blockchain are already resonating with the masses. An interesting scenario would be crypto transactions kicking off in the country.
Another interesting thing to look out for is the several IPOs set to happen all through the year. While there is still much to understand how the Metaverse can be related to startups, this virtual reality is set to transform the way a lot of the MSMEs and the business sector work from hereon. Among all the buzz, yet another concern is to create sustainable and more resilient operation systems in companies. All this sets the positive tone for the startup companies and ecosystem which are destined to become the next leaders of the changing world.
Vatsal Agarwal | Founder, The Baklava Box
Vatsal Agarwal – Founder, The Baklava-Box
The pandemic has been a sour spot not just for existing start-ups but also for upcoming ones. The WHO has predicted that 2022 will be a withering of the pandemic and it should be a great time for start-ups to pop up. Radical innovations in startups should be encouraged and the government has been giving impetus for entrepreneurship. Even in our business, brands are changing their outlook towards delivery. Since covid, the focus has been more on a delivery-based model than a traditional sit and eat or take away. That will continue in 2022 as well.
Varun Vashisthaa | Founder, HairVeda
Varun Vashistha | Founder, HairVeda
I feel that Indian Startups will try to create their mark in the global marketplace. Non-region-specific startups will definitely expand to the international audience once they have already captured the Indian market. Brands like ours can be hugely benefited from the international market since there is a massive demand and acceptance for ayurvedic products in countries like the USA, Mexico, etc. We all will see huge investments by the investor community in startups that have arrived with a purpose. Sustainable financing is the trend that will dominate the investment ecosystem for a long time. Crypto and Blockchains by startups will be seen from this year onwards and it will create a deep impact on the ecosystem.
Shriyans Bhandari | CEO & Co-Founder, Greensole
Shriyans Bhandari | CEO & Co-Founder, Greensole
2022 is the year for start-ups. While the pandemic keeps disturbing us time and again, panic has reduced. I think we will get used to the pandemic. It was a challenge earlier but it will not be anymore. Startups will get more room to grow. A lot of startups will fail during this time but the start-ups that will manage to pull through will flourish. New startups exploring new niches will also come about.
Kunal Patil | CEO & Co-Founder, WorkIndia
Kunal Patil | CEO & Co-Founder, WorkIndia
Services being offered by purely tech and tech-enabled companies played an important role during the crucial period of Covid-19. We expect 2022 to be another great year for the Indian Startup Ecosystem. Expect to see more companies catering to the smaller businesses and middle-income households
Entrepreneurship, collaboration, and innovation will be the hot topics in this new year since these are the three key pillars making the entire Indian startup ecosystem the dynamic and vibrant space that it is today. The lessons that all businesses learned over the past two years will be a crucial factor as startups navigate through the new normal. However, we believe that 2022 shows a great promise of being an exciting year for all startups.
Akshay Puljal | CEO, Quikish
Akshay Puljal | CEO, Quikish
Well, the first and foremost thing every startup needs to be prepared for is the continuation of the pandemic. We need to consider this in everything we do. In the F&B industry, you see the demand for clean food rising every day, and more people are leaning towards cooking in their kitchens than ordering from outside. We are glad that Quikish has got it covered already. We believe that Clean food and bringing. Convenience to home cook meals is the aspect which Quikish delivers without compromising on quality and flavours.
Shilpa Rathi | Founder, I Am Love
Shilpa Rathi | Founder, I AM Love
Start-ups are about solving our everyday problems. Start-ups usually succeed when they are able to solve problems that have existed for a long time but people have learned to overlook them. You have been living with the problems and one day you just get up and decide not to live with them anymore. These problems should have solutions to make our lives easier. I think that should always be a hot topic in any startup ecosystem. Apart from that, trying to get adequate funding is always going to be a hot topic. The launch and having a strong customer base and always be a hot topic. Establishing your brand and being able to track the brand engagement and following will always be a hot topic.
Farooq Adam | Co-Founder, Fynd
Farooq Adam | Co-Founder, Fynd
The lessons learned in the post-pandemic world will be crucial to growing your startup in 2022.
SaaS Products will continue to grow
SaaS will retain its throne & the market will welcome more cloud solutions with open arms. The surge in cloud software will continue to rise in 2022. More and more companies are making use of cloud software to manage data, productivity, and much more.
Mass acceptance of Deep-Tech
In the past 2 years, we have observed a radical emergence of deep tech. There will be a keen focus on implementing virtual technologies at the grassroots level. Indian startups raised $36 billion in 2021 to cope with the growing demand for digitization. As the pandemic stretches on, the technology efforts will start to gain more widespread acceptance. 2022 will see more innovation and increased tech adoption as extended reality makes its presence felt.
Hybrid Workforce
The reality is that the pandemic has been around for more than 2 years now, going to the office full time seems less and less likely. Organizations have to be open to the idea of hybrid work, where employees visit the office for a few days in the week/month/quarter and continue to work from home on day to day basis. People have also started to expect this flexibility from employers and it is important to listen to the pulse of the organization rather than imposing regulation.
Rasesh Seth | Founder, Nextyn
Rasesh Seth | Founder, Nextyn
We’re seeing a variety of industries that are disrupting traditional ecosystems across the globe. The fintech industry has particularly been of keen interest not only to us, but also to several clients that have been using our services. I believe 2022 is going to continue to fuel its growth, with higher adoption rates and exceedingly high digital payment transactions.
Another term that has been of keen startup interest is Automation. It’s not an independent industry, but the rapid rate at which literally everything is being automated, is frightfully exciting. I don’t think people are considering its long-term impact on the existing workforce, but it is surely making life easier for the vast majority. Right from daily tasks, to cars, to delivery or food. I think 2022 is going to be a year where we see a lot of our daily personal and professional tasks get automated. It’s an interesting space to watch, as its evolving at a monstrously rapid pace.
Conclusion
This is the age of Startups, they are making their presence known in every field and this is just the beginning. From new industries to more viable options regarding businesses. The Startup ecosystem is going to experience something even bigger and better in 2022.
The article is Contributed by Mr. Alok Pandey, Vice President – Sales & Marketing, Xapads Media.
Adtech has seen unprecedented growth in Year 2021 so we have all the reason to be excited about what the future holds for us. Advertising technologies are bridging the gap between Reality and Desire and also adding new and innovative ways to bring Advertiser and User under the same screen.
As the world of Ad-tech is set to get bigger and better in the coming times, let’s see how.
Year 2021 will go down in history as a significant one that changed the world of Digital Marketing for Good as Apple introduced and finally implemented its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework in iOS14.5. Now any App or Medium requires user Consent to track any sensitive data and gives User Privacy the importance it always deserved. With Google, Huawei and others to follow suit, this Year is expected to see more revolutions and steps around User Privacy.
CTV and OTT
Undoubtedly Year 2022 belongs to CTV and OTTas major players started to unleash the power in Year 2021 and with more and more content creators choosing the medium over traditional ones, this will remain a trend setter in coming months too. India will remain the top market as the penetration and growth continue to see an uptick.
Data Sets : The global CTV ad spend is projected to rise 23% in 2022, hitting approx. $20.3 billion whereas, the global OTT revenue will be approx. $205,565 million in 2022 and is projected to reach a staggering $210 billion by the year 2026. Coming to the Indian market, the revenue from the OTT segment will be $2,673 million in 2022 and will reach $3,928 million at a CAGR of 10.10% by 2026.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Another trend that picked the hype in late 2021 is Augmented Reality (AR). AR is reaching audiences in a way no other Ad-tech ever reached. It builds the personal connection with the user to drive brand awareness and showcase the product’s pointers as in the real world. Even though this tech is not widely used(yet), the prospect and offerings just can’t be denied for long. I personally say watch it as this will make the biggest difference this year.
Mobile First
Mobile First is another thing that will stay in trend, even though many believe that industry has seen the peak of In-App Marketing but I personally beg to differ. Countries like India and SEA are expected to see highest growth in terms of Mobile penetration and with fast adaptation of 5G and high internet, Mobile + In-App Marketing will continue to be Advertisers top choice. Another factor of this tide will remain highly adaptive MMPs like Appsflyer, Branch, Adjust and Kochava, providing advertisers with valuable user insights and control over Adspent.
With something Big making news everyday, 2022 would be an “Year for Adtech” as the market and industry prepare for the welcome of Metaverse and Web3.0 but there are still some trends that are here to make Big. India is also expected to ride on these trends and with high penetration and adaptation of new technology, this year might be crucial in making the history of India’s Adtech market. Against all odds India has shown high growth prospects post covid second wave with new Unicorn every week so a positive impact will propel India’s Ad Tech Industry.
