Is This The Metaverse?

Digiday Media's WorkLife is proud to present season three of The Return, a podcast about the modern workforce, with this season focused on middle management. Last season, we heard what it’s like for Gen Z to enter the workforce for the first time in a post-pandemic world. We highlighted themes like why values are so important to Gen Zers, whether or not they are loyal to their employers, how they...

Where there is play, there is usually work, too. The metaverse is no exception. Meta’s first virtual reality tool under its Horizon metaverse brand was Horizon Workrooms, a tool that allows VR headset users to virtually sit alongside each other inside a metaversal office, taking meetings as if face-to-face. Given the sheer amount of work already taking place inside the metaverse, it’s no surprise...

The metaverse is built to sell ads. It's not a secret. In recent years, executives at companies like Meta and Roblox have thrown millions of dollars into their goal of building an immersive virtual world. Eventually, they must figure out a return on that investment — and, like any new media channel, advertising looks to be the most promising way to do that. It all started with video games. For yea...

NFT’s might be dead, but digital fashion to wear in the metaverse is only becoming more important.  Similarly to the music industry’s halt on live events during the pandemic, the fashion industry also underwent a shift to online worlds as catwalk shows and presentations were cut. Interestingly, fashion has already been dipping its toe into virtual worlds and fashion with gaming collaborations with...

In April 2020, Travis Scott’s virtual “Fortnite” concert was millions of people’s first exposure to the concept of the metaverse. It was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; desperate for any form of live entertainment, users flocked to the popular first-person shooter game in droves to watch a pre-recorded virtual Scott perform alongside far-out, fantasy-inspired visuals. The success of Scott’s v...

The idea of an immersive virtual world might come off as more scary than exciting. It evokes a future not unlike that of the movie “Wall-E” — in which humans transform into sedentary creatures, satisfied more by their virtual entertainments than the physical world around them. But for some users of the metaverse, merging the physical with the virtual is more or less the entire point. In growing nu...

It's an NFT collection. An idea from a sci-fi novel. The next evolution of the internet. A product invented by Mark Zuckerberg. A video game. If you've been conscious at any point between 2021 and today, you've probably heard of the "metaverse," and the many ways in which it will disrupt the very fabric of society. Two years into the hype, though, metaverse experts and laymen alike remain split ab...