What is the Metaverse?
The Metaverse has been talked about for a long time, with origins of the term from the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash.
The foundation of the Metaverse is being built all around us. What was once considered science fiction has finally arrived and we are seeing the first building blocks.
Immersive technologies have achieved exponential growth in adoption and last year, Facebook’s rebrand to Meta was a milestone event in 2021. It introduced the concepts of the “Metaverse” to mainstream consciousness and it became the buzzword of the year.
But before all of this, social games like Habbo Hotel and Second Life were the first editions of the Metaverse. These games began as iterations on traditional online chat by providing users with agency and embodiment of their avatar.
Users had the ability to customize the look and feel of their avatar, interact with others and explore different worlds. Like the Metaverse, social games differ from traditional MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) because they don’t have any set goals or outcomes.
The current generation of these games include:
- Roblox
- Fortnite
- Rec Room
- Alt Space
- VR Chat
These foundational Metaverse platforms provide users with the embodiment of their avatars and the ability to build worlds.
The next steps to fully realize the Metaverse should include these concepts:
Interoperability: Metaverse experiences should be connected to each other so that users can bring their avatars with them and travel freely across different experiences.
There should be a discovery model that connects different Metaverse experiences and allows users to find them. The full opportunity of the Metaverse will be realized when users can take their embodiment with them.
For example, users should be able to create an avatar on Rec Room and move from experience to experience. The fluid avatar still hasn’t been defined yet but we believe it will be a part of the multi-platform Metaverse.
Standards and protocols: Users should be able to put a headset on any platform and participate in any Metaverse. Metaverses should facilitate the transit between multiple platforms.
We look to organizations like Khronos and IEEE for guidelines on how things should be created. The true nature and opportunities of the Metaverse can be realized when connections happen between the applications.
Measuring and understanding the Metaverse
On web platforms, it’s important to understand how long users spent on a page and what they clicked on.
Mobile platforms provided new sensors like gyroscopes, geolocation, compass orientation. Which gave us new ways to understand user behavior.
Immersive platforms have once again introduced a whole new set of sensors and metrics. Eye tracking, movement through 3D spaces, hand positioning, and biometrics provide an exponentially richer sensor environment.
Immersive technologies are exponentially more personal and behavioral. Spatial analytics give you the ability to leverage the paradigm switch from user content consumption in web and mobile towards content participation in immersive experiences. Providing much deeper insights into their behavior.
Immersive platforms also allow for creative chaos: users have the ability to create any reality, and the outcomes are not predictable.
In contrast, web and mobile were very predictable because the steps and user funnels were clearly laid out.
Users have much greater agency in immersive experiences: The question is how do we optimize and understand user behavior and engagement in 3D spaces?
3 Steps For Collecting and Analyzing Data in the Metaverse
On an immersive platform, it’s important to focus on tracking users within 3D space and where things happen. Develop a hypothesis and plan how you are going to collect the data. Use the data to prove or disprove your hypothesis and come to a conclusion.
Where something happens is a very valuable action and it’s important to understand the geospatial context.
Separate the signal from the noise by creating a structured process for measuring success.
Then look for behavioral patterns that lead to or detract from desired outcomes.
Responsible Data Collection
- Collect what you need to provide to your customer – nothing more. The idea is to build a better application.
- User data is not for sale
- Only collect data after getting consent
- We are looking at releasing an open-sourced consent framework. We’ll build a “do not track” signal and implement it into our SDK.
- If you need eye tracking or biometrics, treat it like health data. Eye-tracking is important for situational awareness. For example: in training law enforcement, it is necessary to qualify that officers have full situational awareness of the environment. Lower qualities like inferred gaze aren’t enough. For pilots, cognitive load metrics are required to assess performance during emergencies.
- Respect and facilitate privacy laws. End users can request for data to be deleted.
At Cognitive3D we offer ways to analyze spatial analytics and leverage data collected responsibly through VR/AR/XR devices. We are now opening beta access to our spatial analytics platform for consumer-facing VR games or applications that are launched on Oculus Store, Viveport, Steam. To qualify you must fulfil the following requirements:
- Must be a 3D-based experience with six degrees of freedom built in Unity or Unreal
- Must provide access to source code, with ability to implement a 2MB SDK.
- We are not supporting eye tracking or biometrics for this closed beta.
What we need from you:
- Implement the SDK within your application. We are willing to support you with this process over Zoom to keep this as short as possible.
- Work with Cognitive3D to ensure your Privacy Policy is in-line with our requirements.
- Once tested and working, ship the analytics capability in your next build.
- Use the product, make suggestions on how it could be improved for your needs. Report any bugs, issues or concerns.
What features do you get?
- Full access to Cognitive3D with an unlimited amount of minutes, sessions and participants for a period of one year. Which includes:
- SceneExplorer: exact replay of exactly how a user interacted in their session. Rendered in WebGL with spatial data and timeline.
- ObjectExplorer: aggregate metrics of how users interacted with all 3D objects represented in sessions.
- Scene Viewer: aggregate spatial data such as gaze, fixation, position and events. Supports real-time filtering.
- Analysis Tool: powerful event query system that considers spatial data and context
- Objectives: measurement of sequential and non-sequential multi-step behaviors present within sessions
- Dedicated and named customer support engineer, with access to Slack or Intercom
- A committed partner looking to help solve problems and optimize experiences in immersive applications.
How do I get started?
Drop us an email to [email protected] or contact us through our website to apply.
Read more on how to measure success in the VR space? Albert from Cognitive3D explores the 3-steps to measuring effective VR training.
