R2U, a startup of augmented reality solutions for retail, is developing its metaverse platform for the national sector. The idea is to launch collections and promotions based on the phygital concept, that is, mixing the physical sensation with the advantages of digital. According to the company, the final concept will be shown in January.
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For consumers, one of the possibilities studied is that the purchase of physical products also distributes NFTs (non-fungible tokens, unique versions of a digital product) of the same goods purchased to be used in the metaverse.
According to Caio Jahara, co-founder and CEO of R2U, this role will drive sales and drive focus on creating content for the metaverse. “People already make decisions based on how they want to be represented, and once that representation becomes digital, there will be no limits to what humanity can achieve. With the metaverse, 100% of our ‘real self’ will be seen and the impact on business will be immense”, he says.
Other project ideas consist of a mintadora (“lying” is the terminology associated with the process of creating or generating an NFT), with which any artist can transform their works into a digital token; and an NFT marketplace, with digital products by category.
“In our metaverse, consumers will also be able to acquire land, create their avatars, build their houses, furnish them, collect pieces of art and whatever else their imagination allows”, adds Jahara.
What is metaverse?
Quite famous in games like Second Life, Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox and sci-fi movies like The Matrix and Player #1, the word metaverse first appeared in the book Snow Crash, written by Neal Stephenson, in 1992. Since then, the concept advanced a lot and became part of the technological reality.
Facebook, which created Meta this year to be the controller of the social network, is betting on the creation of a metaverse for communication in shared virtual spaces. The social networking giant has announced that it plans to hire 10,000 people over the next five years to create a unique virtual world.
“The metaverse is a shared 3D virtual world, or worlds that are interactive, immersive and collaborative. Just as the physical universe is a collection of worlds connected in space, the metaverse can also be considered a cluster of worlds”, says Marcelo Pontieri, marketing manager for NVIDIA’s Enterprise division for Latin America. “Soon, the concept will become a platform that is not tied to any single application or place, digital or real. It’s as if we created another reality and another world that can be as rich as the real world.”