Text/Zhao Qianhua

Facebook changed its name to Meta and made an all-out effort to enter the metaverse, setting off a climax in the secondary market and adding another fire to the already popular metaverse.

As a core element of the Metaverse, “social networking has the natural advantage of entering the Metaverse, and is also regarded as the best entry point to build the Metaverse in the short term. This is the reason why Facebook’s Metaverse blueprint is believed by the market One of the important reasons is also an important strategic basis for MatchGroup to quickly follow up the layout.

Of course, the trend is not only blowing overseas. Domestic social enterprises are also eager to try: Tencent, Byte, Chizicheng, and Soul are all taking the lead. They have developed their own metaverse roadmap and are actively registering metaverse-related trademarks.

Currently, people’s common definition of the metaverse is:

A universe that is parallel to the real world and yet independent. The virtual space in the real world is an online virtual world that mirrors the real world, and it is also an increasingly real digital virtual world.

The current concept of "metaverse" has obviously exceeded the original definition in "Avalanche". , in a sense, the Metaverse provides a possible model and a better vision for the global digital economic transformation.

So, why is social networking the first priority? Why are social companies represented by Facebook betting heavily on the Metaverse? Who among the many social players who have entered the game has the best chance to escape?

Social, the "prelude to the Metaverse"

Since the craze of the Metaverse started, gaming and social networking have been the two most active areas.

"Put on your headphones and eyepieces, and finding the connection terminal, people can use their virtual avatars to enter the virtual space simulated by the computer and parallel to the real world. It can be seen that in imaginations such as this, people still play a central role.

Even as a virtual world, the evolution of the metaverse follows the basic laws of social development: first create people and things, establish relationships between people, graft production between people and things, and then create The relationship-based transaction of goods and services ultimately circulates, strengthens, evolves and improves itself on the basis of the transaction of goods and services.

Then the users, social relationships and interactive behaviors of the social platform have become the perfect foundation for building the metaverse.

As a result, many people believe that compared to game companies, social platforms with natural attributes of the Metaverse are more likely to seize the best runway in the Metaverse. In other words, social companies with large-scale users and accumulated social relationships are already far ahead of other players on the metaverse track.

Looking at the development path of social networking itself, from PC social networks to mobile social networks, from text social networking to image and text social networking to audio and video social networking, it has been pursuing efficiency and immersion. on the road.

Looking forward along this road, an immersive virtual world that allows users to "immerse themselves in the metaverse" seems to be the answer at the end of the road.

So, social and The Metaverse is a "two-way journey to the same destination."

Of course, a large enough user base is a more solid foundation, which is also Facebook's greatest confidence in betting on the Metaverse.

Look, Zuckerberg’s focus on the metaverse is mainly for the development of the next ten years. However, to move social interaction from the real world to the virtual space, Meta also needs VR.

In September 2019, Meta was released. Facebook Horizon, a VR social platform, was launched in public beta in August 2020. Users can build environments and create games to socialize with friends. At that time, Zuckerberg also said, “This application will be used to build more It plays a large role in the extensive metaverse that spans VR and AR.

In a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg also stated that his Metaverse vision is to cover 1 billion people and enable hundreds of millions of digital commerce. Meta will also work hard to create Your own AR/VR platform, reducing dependence on Apple or Google.

However, the improvement of hardware technology and underlying support is still far away after all. Before that, the construction and improvement of virtual identities, virtual scenes, content creation, economic systems and other aspects of social platforms are more promising in the short term. Achieve breakthroughs. Therefore, not only Meta, but also social enterprises large and small are taking action.

Who is the social player closer to the Metaverse?

So, who are the social players closer to the Metaverse?

Some people believe that "acquaintance socialization does not have too high requirements for avatars. After all, everyone is already familiar with each other's image in real society. On the contrary, in the process of socializing with strangers, avatars becomes particularly important.

As a result, the social platform of strangers is more fertile ground for the creation of the metaverse. Looking around the world, open social companies such as MatchGroup, Pure City, and Soul have all sat on the card table of the Metaverse.

American companies are represented by MatchGroup, which recently officially entered the Metaverse by building SingleTown and a virtual currency system in its social products.

MatchGroup introduced that its subsidiary Hyperconnect, which it acquired in June this year, is testing the dating function SingleTown through one of its voice social products. Users can use avatars to communicate in groups or individually in a variety of virtual environments. . MatchGroup said that SingleTown demonstrates the possible application form of the metaverse concept in social apps and will also push the company's product matrix into the next historical stage.

At the same time, MatchGroup has launched the Explore function on its core product Tinder to increase user interaction experience, and plans to build a trading ecosystem by releasing virtual goods and virtual currency TinderCoins. Tinder is undoubtedly moving in the direction of the metaverse, with future plans to develop a virtual goods and trading ecosystem. The company stated that the convenience and efficiency of in-app virtual currency will greatly increase revenue opportunities, which will also be the main way for Tinder to improve its monetization capabilities in the future. Currently, TinderCoins has been tested in multiple European countries and plans to open it to global users next year.

In South Korea, which has the most enthusiastic response to the Metaverse, Dvision, a company targeting the Metaverse industry, has also developed Meta-City, an open, public, and virtual world. Users can get their own virtual space Meta-Space in this product, where they can not only customize items, including interior design, background music, furniture, etc., but also add various functions.

In Meta-City, users with Meta-Space can gather, chat, etc. to meet users’ social needs in the virtual world. At present, the elements of its virtual world are still being enriched.

In China, Soul was the first to call out "social metaverse. In recent months, Soul's actions have been particularly frequent. It emphasizes building a social metaverse ecosystem with users, and recently officially Announcing the launch of the user innovation system. Che Bin, Soul’s product manager, said that the “personalized mall section” launched at the end of June is part of the innovation system.

Soul invites face-making experts to settle in the mall and put their works on the shelves. It also launched scenes and functions such as group chat parties, pet planets, and Soul werewolves to provide users with more user recommendation opportunities, virtual gifts, and Giftmojis. Wait, enhance immersion.

Another stranger social company worthy of attention is Chizicheng Technology. It is not well-known in China, but it has entered many overseas markets, and its products have entered the top 10 best-selling social applications in more than 100 countries and regions. It can be said that it has been making a fortune silently.

Recently, Newborn City has added the metaverse module MetaTown to the social application Yumy. Users can customize 3D virtual images and use the virtual images for heartbeat matching and video interaction. It is currently in the internal testing stage.

It is understood that this product focuses on "exciting social networking, using video as the main form of interaction, emphasizing efficiency, real-time, and immersion. It has previously entered the top 20 social application download lists in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other places.

Chizicheng has been in the audio and video social field for seven years and has large-scale social relationships in major markets around the world. Social platform users have formed good content creation habits and have a large amount of UGC content. It is understood that this company is engaged in real-time interaction and There is considerable accumulation in the fields of artificial intelligence and other technologies. At the same time, the metaverse has also been one of the key topics studied by the Pure City Research Institute in the past two years.

As you can imagine, in the already mature audio and video social and content platforms. Basically, companies like Anchor City may be able to make full use of AR and VR technologies in the future and enter the metaverse.

Blow the bubble. How far is social from the metaverse?

Surrounded by capital, the Metaverse industry in its early stages is inevitably full of bubbles.

Take the AR and VR industries, the key industrial sectors of the Metaverse, as an example, according to China Investment Network. This field has already experienced a wave of capital boom from 2015 to 2016. At that time, the number of industry-related companies increased eightfold, but most of them transformed or died after the A round. This is also why some people are now skeptical about the industry. The reason why the Metaverse “sneers.

But the "tragic" early stage of an industry does not mean that its direction is wrong. Although the VR and AR tracks have fallen into a depression, there are still excellent companies like Oculus that are continuing to develop. It is the acquisition of Oculus that allows Zuckerberg has increased his technical confidence in developing the Metaverse.

Hong Jiajun, chief analyst of the overseas TMT industry at Industrial Securities, also believes that although the development of the Metaverse is in its early stages, this track is still capable. The most potential and imaginative scenario I have seen.

Looking at the social enterprises that have entered the metaverse, although these players with the concept of "metaverse" do not currently have sufficient technical advantages. However, these companies have leading advantages in social relationships, real-time interaction, user creation, operational capabilities and other aspects. As front-end hardware equipment, back-end technical facilities, underlying support architecture and other aspects mature, they are still expected to be the first to realize the metaverse vision. .

In the view of Li Ping, CEO of Pure City, the Metaverse is an extremely immersive social scene and the super future of social interaction. It will still take a long time before the Metaverse is realized, but the market's widespread attention to the Metaverse and the layout of major companies in the Metaverse field will help accelerate the development of Metaverse technology and industry.

As Zuckerberg said, the Metaverse will never be created by any giant. Like the Internet, the Metaverse will not be an exclusive business. The energy of the integrated industry comes from every user participating in it, not just the company.

At this level, social networking has indeed taken the lead. Besides exploring, all that needs to be done is waiting.