For the first time, the metaverse appears in the Microsoft Work Trend Index 2022. What does the data tell us about respondents’ willingness to start working in the metaverse? Plus: metaverse office Horizon Workrooms gets an update and Heineken Silver is just a joke.
Microsoft Work Trend Index 2022: The young generation is turning towards the metaverse
What will work look like in the next few years? Remote work is here to stay, at least if companies want to keep their employees. In the Microsoft Work Trend Index 2022, the hybrid model with a mix of remote and presence work is particularly popular.
For the first time, Microsoft also made the metaverse a topic in the survey. According to the survey, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have great potential for New Work, for instance through telepresence. Digital avatars travel around the world much more sustainably than real people. The Microsoft researchers also state that participants in avatar meetings are more active and present and that conversations feel more natural.
Metaverse technologies such as Virtual Reality are particularly popular with young people.
- 52 percent of respondents want to use immersive spaces in the metaverse for meetings or team gatherings
- 47 percent of respondents are willing to appear in meetings as an avatar
- around 50 percent of respondents see the possibility of doing parts of their work in the metaverse in the next two years
- 16 percent of respondents do not (yet) want to work in the Metaverse, and 13 percent have no idea what it means.
In our Metaverse guide, we explain what the metaverse is and how companies start with Virtual Reality in seven easy steps.
You can find the complete trend study here: Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work
Meta updates its Metaverse office
Meta is working on its own vision of metaverse meetings with “Horizon Workrooms”: users meet as comic avatars in a virtual room in which they can interact with each other like in reality. For example, body movements are displayed. This creates a better feeling of collaboration than in conventional video conferences.
In the VR app, participants work on a virtual whiteboard or share their computer screen. The Meta Quest 2 VR headset can already track some keyboards and thus enables work with the PC in virtual reality.
With the third and latest update, Meta brings new environments for virtual meeting rooms, for example with a seaside view. The stability of the app has also been improved.
By the way, those who don’t have VR headsets can join in traditionally via 2D video stream.
More about the Workrooms update for Quest (2): Metaverse-Büro: Meta lässt euch jetzt am Strand arbeiten
Heineken Silver: Virtual beer in the metaverse
Not every product can be meaningfully recreated in the metaverse. Since burgers and beer taste best in reality, McDonald’s, for example, is securing patents for a Metaverse delivery service that brings food ordered in the virtual restaurant to the real door.
Beer brewer Heineken has now presented its digital Metaverse beer “Heineken Silver” with a lot of tongue-in-cheek.
Bram Westenbrink, Global Head of Heineken Brand, explains the PR stunt: „At Heineken, we believe that connecting with people is vital to human existence, […] and we know that the metaverse brings people together in a light-hearted and immersive way that is really exciting – but it’s just not the best place to taste a new beer. Our new virtual beer, Heineken Silver is an ironic joke. It is a self-aware idea that pokes fun at us and many other brands that are jumping into the metaverse with products that are best enjoyed in the real world. ”
After all, the joke attracted some attention and thus definitely succeeded as entertaining marketing.
In our article “VR for Business: How to successfully embrace the metaverse” you will find a number of useful applications for Virtual Reality.
You can find the press release about Heineken Silver here: The world’s first virtual beer is here, Cheers to Heineken Silver
