In the movie "Kingsman", when Colin Firth, an agent, entered the huge meeting room, he put on a pair of plain black-rimmed glasses, and instantly "sit down" on the two rows of chairs that were originally empty. "full" of participants. In addition to the visual avatar, in the second half of the movie, the characters in the play can conduct data analysis on the enemy's situation in front of them as long as they tap the right frame.
This scene in the movie is not completely impossible in real life. In the early 2010s, the launch of Google Glass caused a sensation, and countless people were aroused by the simple wearable device of "smart glasses".
Recently, AR smart glasses developer INMO "Yingmu Technology" announced that it has completed a round A financing of nearly 10 million US dollars. This financing was exclusively invested by Zhiwen Group, with Mu Mian Capital as the exclusive financial advisor. It is reported that this round of financing will be used to build an AR content ecosystem and expand social entertainment scenarios.
Zhiwen Group, with Momo as its core product, started with social networking and live broadcasting, but its revenue and net profit have declined year-on-year for two consecutive years. The reason is that the traffic ceiling of social networking and live broadcasting has arrived, and there are not many targets for the capital market to choose from. For Zhiwen Group, in such an environment, it is obviously becoming the current priority to find a track with more potential. top priority.
AR smart glasses, regarded as the key to the metaverse, may become a new battlefield for social media.
Exploring the Metaverse of Social Media
In October 2021, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of the social media giant Facebook, announced that he will officially change the company's name to "meta", which is taken from the prefix of the word "metaverse" .
Facebook's idea of creating a "metaverse" was not a whim. Zuckerberg has been actively advocating the creation of a "metaverse", creating a new Internet platform based on virtual reality technology that blends virtuality and reality. He said in an interview with the media in July this year that Facebook will change from "a social media company to a 'Metaverse' company" within a few years.
Behind the popularity of the "Metaverse" concept is that the core innovation of Internet products and technologies has stagnated for many years. When smartphones have almost become part of human organs, the industry really needs to inject a fresh blood of technological innovation, and "Metaverse" The emergence of "universe" just caters to this need.
With the development of extended reality, digital twin, 3D rendering, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, high-speed network, blockchain and other technologies and the iteration of terminal equipment, "metaverse" has become a hot word to drive the accelerated development of AR and VR technology, related industries There is huge room for growth in the next few years.
AR social is generally considered by the industry to be the field most likely to realize the "metaverse", because it itself has a free social environment and avatars of players. Some well-known social platforms provide a virtual community environment, which has not only become a place for online face-to-face virtual gatherings of players, but also a social and cultural phenomenon that cuts into the concept of "Metaverse".
In fact, apart from Meta, the capital world is also enthusiastic about Metaverse. At present, many Internet "big names" at home and abroad have all entered the market, including Google, Amazon, Tencent, NetEase, ByteDance, etc., and global first-line investment institutions have also begun to deploy.
According to the enterprise survey data:
· On March 20, 2022, Rokid, a domestic AR smart glasses company, received a total of RMB 700 million in Series C financing;
· On March 30, 2022, AR glasses manufacturer Nreal announced the completion of a US$60 million C+ round of financing, led by Alibaba;
· On November 9, 2021, Liangliang Vision, the leader of the domestic AR+AI platform, announced the completion of a C1 round of strategic investment of 100 million yuan, jointly invested by Yizhuang Science and Technology, UMC Fund, and Anxin Securities, with Scale Partners Shicheng Capital as the exclusive capital consultant.
Industry insiders pointed out that the reason why AR glasses have become the darling of the capital market lies in the huge market potential of the Metaverse behind them. According to Research And Markets research data, by 2025, the global virtual market will reach 190 billion U.S. dollars, which is currently only 50 billion U.S. dollars.
As investor Zhou Wei said: "The Metaverse is the projection of people's crazy imaginations in the real world. For example, humans cannot fly, but it may be possible in the Metaverse." And when mapped to real products, AR products may be It is the stepping stone for social media to enter the door of the "Metaverse".
AR glasses become the "bright card" of the social metaverse
The original definition of "metaverse" was put forward by a science fiction novel "Avalanche" of the last century. In the story, the author Stephen Sen created a network world parallel to the real world.
But today’s metaverse is actually far from the original definition, because if the concept of metaverse is limited to games and other forms, it obviously cannot satisfy Internet companies. Therefore, Internet companies have begun to give more meaning to the metaverse. From games to social communities, according to the development needs of different Internet companies, the metaverse can be said to be endowed with richer and more diverse meanings.
The use of this round of financing for Yingmu Technology can be seen. According to Beijing Business Daily, Zhiwen Group will boost the ecological construction of INMO social entertainment content. Yingmu Technology also said, "In particular, it will focus on the field of social entertainment, as shown in the social game "Pokemon GO", which organically connects people's life and entertainment scenes."
Integrate AR glasses with social communities, and integrate more user-building attributes into community building, so that users can truly participate in the construction and development of the entire world, allowing users to obtain a more realistic experience in the virtual world.
In fact, Zhiwen Group's layout and understanding of the metaverse may be based on its own social attributes, analyzing and promoting the construction of its own metaverse from the perspective of the user community. On social platforms such as Momo and Hertz, we can already see the prototype of the metaverse of Zhiwen Group. For example, "Hertz" is a virtual social community built on the basis of users.
Metaverse should further expand people's existing world, which can bring many opportunities to existing industries. On social media, more elements of virtualization can be introduced, while augmented reality can be used to enhance the physical experience in the real world.
Yingmu Technology invested this time, established in 2020, is one of the few domestic AR smart glasses brands for C-end users. Although it was established only 2 years ago, in terms of software, Yingmu Technology has launched an IMOS system based on the in-depth development of the Android system, enabling its AR glasses to use a large number of Android third-party applications in addition to INMO's self-developed applications.
From the point of view of Zhiwen Group's product system, especially Metaverse has a natural close connection with social media. Zhiwen Group, as a social media, has a certain degree of overlap with Metaverse itself. At the moment when the AR ecology is not perfect, Zhiwen Group can accelerate market penetration with the help of the huge traffic entrance behind the INMO system mobile terminal.
At present, the main bottleneck in the development of the Internet is the involutional platform form. There has been a long-term lack of breakthroughs and new growth points in terms of content carriers, communication methods, interaction methods, participation, and interactivity.
Technology is eager for new products, capital is looking for new outlets, and users are looking forward to new experiences. As an Internet company built with social software as the core, Zhiwen Group relies on the original user group and builds its own virtual community with the help of AR smart glasses, which may promote the upgrading of hardware consumption experience and the improvement of content production efficiency.
epilogue
However, as a brand-new field, the people and markets that the metaverse can cover will be very broad, just like a new continent often has countless opportunities.
However, the shortcomings of any single technology may limit the "real" effect of the metaverse and bring uncertainty to its development.
From another perspective, every sensory simulation of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind can bring miraculous effects beyond the construction of a virtual world. For example, helping people with physical disabilities to regain sight, taste, and smell the fragrance of flowers; another example is lighter and more precise wearable devices, which will bring changes to the smart consumer hardware market.
Metaverse has brought some new directions and inspirations for cross-industry cooperation, but it will take some time to verify whether such inspirations are really what current users need.
Source: New Industry Insights