Interoperability in the metaverse is a fake problem.

Metaverse interoperability is one of the most talked about issues these days.

Recently the Metaverse Standards Forum was born and its founding members include Meta, Microsoft, Huawei, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, Unity, and Adobe. One company conspicuously missing from the list is Apple. Several reports have emerged in recent years that Apple is releasing its own technology for virtual or augmented reality and should soon become a major player in the metaverse when the technology becomes available. Another big name missing from the list is Google, which is working her on an AR visor codenamed Project Iris. Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Vaie and Roblox are also not on the membership list. That said, membership is free and open to any organization, so many companies could join later.

Beyond the intent it seems clear that to date no one has any particular interest in facilitating the transition from one metaverse to another by trivially allowing people to use the same avatar and take purchased digital assets, starting with skins, with them.

If you think about it, decentralization is bringing back the concept of a closed economy. Lots of little worlds where everyone mints their own currency that can only be spent there. One of the main reasons is related to the need to grow the number of inhabitants, Roblox aside all the others still have few. Few but good, since they have spending capacity and are almost all early adopters, and no one has any interest in making them move by changing digital residence.

A bit like broadcasters and streaming platforms, what wins is exclusive content. In this case, the exclusivity is the experiences that users can have. Roblox in fact wins over all because it started a few years ago as a platform where users could play games and the more advanced could and still can develop their own of game. A training ground for developers. Again not surprisingly, the two most interesting houses from a brand perspective are represented by Nike and Vans.

As we know the most relevant KPI for everyone is the time people spend or spend on a channel, whatever it is. If you can spend time why not also spend currency. And here we come to crypto and the theme of the closed economy.

The utopian concept of decentralization is actually the largest closed economy model ever generated, which combined with the difficulty for companies to receive cryptocurrency payments is holding back many brands from landing on the metaverse.

Choosing one today is difficult for so many reasons, it is not clear who populates them, it is not clear whether the cryptocurrency will not experience troubling fluctuations, and for those who must invest in it alone these two variables represent two almost unescapable unknowns.

The best way forward for companies today is to develop their own metaverse, which by definition is a three-dimensional digital space in which people move and interact in the form of avatars. The benefits are many starting with the absence of distractions. Users can focus on brand experiences that solidify the relationship with the brand, spending quality time in the company of the brand. Another relevant aspect is related to data, with a proprietary metaverse in fact it is possible to generate Leads, do data enrichment and modify experiences based on the components, improving them thanks to the use of artificial intelligence making them more and more satisfying.

This is also one of the keys to getting to the longed-for single customer view, a path to the onlychannel that can bring together the digital experience with that of physical stores.

If you then want to go further, you can even go as far as minting currency, useful not only for sales but for rewarding people with engagement activities as well.

It's time for a paradigm shift; being where people are is much more expensive than taking people where you are. It is a simple concept also applied in soccer, you are not the one who has to run but it is the ball.