Marketing Ganga

Category: Media

  • Getting Ready for Metaverse

    Meta means beyond, and universe has been added to it. It is a complex digital environment. It consists of several elements and is evolving.

    The most common characteristic that has led to the possibility of such a world is data explosion. Data traffic too is, therefore, explosive — 1G was about analogue voice calls, 2G about digital voice communication, 3G about web browsing and 4G about mobile broadband. 5G services are soon arriving. It deals with not only explosion of data but the speed of data transmission too.

    IoT represents an interconnected world of billions of devices. Clouds are being adopted. Data is analysed on clouds.

    There is AR/VR and robotics. There is AI and NLP. There is speech-to-text and computer vision. There is ML. There is live streaming. There are cryptos. There are expressways in the sky.

    The world is getting ready for a metaverse.

  • Professional Journals and Research Workers

    These days research workers fall prey to fake or cloned journals available online. They accept research papers and articles against payment from the research workers. Some articles do get published in such fraud journals. It is also called predatory publishing which charges fees from authors without vetting the articles for quality and legitimacy. These journals are of poor quality or fraudulent. At times, even the authors are aware of their true nature. Some-times, they accept money and vanish.

    Cloned journals are counterfeit. They are mirror copies of the authentic journals. They exploit the tittle and ISSN of the authentic journals. Sometimes, these cloned journals chase the authors luring them with an open-access publication fee.

    There are citation databases which identify such journals. Scopus and Web of Science are such databases. UGC too publishes a list (VGC-CARE) of authentic journals. It is updated quarterly.

    Digitisation has accelerated the pace of fraudulent journalism. There is lack of understanding of open-access (paid access) research and predatory publishing. Some open access journals are sponsored by institutes.

    India’s research output is good but its citation is poor, say barely above 3 per cent. A large output is lost in predatory publishing.

    It is necessary to give importance to peer reviews. It is a better approach than the publication in the journals.

  • Metaverse Pioneers and Facebook

    Though metaverse has become the buzz word in 2021 and has attracted investor interest, there have been users of internet who have spent time in the virtual world for years. In fact, what is sought to be built today, the users of virtual world have been building over a period of time. The current claims seem to be usurping what already exists as their own. Many meet-ups have been hosted in different metaverses.

    Facebook’s rebranding seems to be an attempt to insert it into metaverse narrative. Metaverse environment is expected be decentralised, whereas that of Facebook is likely to be centralised.

    Existing metaverse platforms, many of them, are based on blockchain technology ruling out central control. It is distributed ledger architecture.

    All metaverse adopters are. however, not adverse to the entry of Facebook. Its entry could raise interest in the concept of virtual worlds and attract more users. It will support development of multiple virtual worlds.

    Facebook has several reasons to enter this space. It wants to ward off adverse criticism from law makers and regulators over its monopolistic policies, algorithmic decisions and monitoring of its content. Facebook also wants an early name change to secure a new trademark legally.

  • Facebook Rebranded — Meta

    On 28th October, 2021, Facebook has been renamed Meta Platform Inc. laying out their vision for the so-called metaverse, the immersive virtual environment. Already over 10000 people work on AR-VR projects, and it plans to hire another 10000 in Europe soon. In a metaverse, people can play virtual games, attend virtual concerts, shop for virtual products with virtual versions of each other. Facebook stakes its futures on metaverse before it gets fully developed. It will be a successor to the mobile internet.

    As the audience of Facebook is ageing, and the younger audience is diverting to TikTok and Snapchat, Facebook would like the young people to strap on their Oculus headset and hang out in Horizon, the VR app of Facebook.

    Facebook is dependent on the operating systems such as iOS and Android. Facebook is not the sole master of its destiny. A metaverse could set it free from the operating systems of Apple and Google.

    There is increased regulatory pressure on Facebook. There are anti-trust lobbies. However, areas such as VR and AR are less likely to be regulated soon.

    Facebook has lost its reputation on account of wrong moves over a period of time. Metaverse would put it in an advantageous position over its rivals. Facebook will tread on new ground.

    Facebook represents by rechristening a paradigm shift for the company and for social media itself. It ushers in a new era of social media. Internet will be furnished in 3D for the user with the help of VR and AR. You can be inside the environment to play, shop, meet and work. It will make social media experience more immersive.

    Facebook is distancing itself from the profit chasing controversies it has followed, eroding at times democracy. It could be considered a diversionary technique. It is to be seen how the company uses the data profile of its users in future. Whether Meta takes a different route is to be seen.

    The delivery in future will not depend on mobile phones alone. There could be different AR/VR gadgets to deliver the content.

  • Metaverse

    Snow Crash was a science fiction classic authored by Neal Stephenson. It shows the earth as a completely digitised planet. Here the nation state is superseded by corporations. Everybody is a resident of metaverse, which is an amalgm of physical space, augmented reality and virtual reality.

    Zuckerberg has repeatedly used the word metaverse in his recent public utterances. In the middle of 2021, he talks of metaverse as the next big chapter for Facebook.

    Facebook is attempting a gaming development and VR platform, Horizon and a dollar backed digital currency.

    Facebook has invested heavily in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). It has bought companies like Oculus in 2021 to create a product team to work on the metaverse. It will start publishing the financial results of its VR-AR labs as a separate unit. It is investing billions of dollars here to build the metaverse. It is doing so because its main advertising business faces significant uncertainty.

    It is not expected that the investment will pay off in near future. However, in the long run, it is believed that the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet.

  • Instagram

    Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012. It is a photo-sharing application. Facebook wanted to establish it as a platform for teenagers and youngsters. It reached 1billion users in 2018, but rival apps such as TikTok and Snapchat nibble the base of Instagram. Initially Instagram outperformed both TikTok and Snapchat, but a recent survey found that Snapchat is the most favoured app for teenagers, followed by TikTok and Instagram. The patronage is measured in terms of teentime spent. It has dipped for Instagram. The loss of teen foothold in the US is the loss of pipeline. Instagram has increased its marketing budget to target the teenagers. It aims to target early high school audience between 13-15 years of age.

    Slippage in Instagram audience has consequences for Facebook. Facebook has aging user base. Instagram by capturing young users can replenish this Facebook user base.

  • Metaverse

    Metaverse is a universe where the physical and digital worlds converge. In virtual reality, there are simulations. Metaverse exceeds these simulations tenfold. It is the next version of internet. It is constantly online and active, even when there are no logins. This is the virtual world that feels exactly like the real world. It is a parallel universe that has its own economy. Metaverse does not exist right now. It is expected to be an expansive network where people are created and explored. And these people are not in the same physical space as you are.

    Though it has yet to become a reality, many are obsessed with the idea.

  • Virtual Metaverse

    The next stage of internet development is metaverse. At present, interactions on internet happen on websites such as social media or on messenger apps. Metaverse will make these interactions multi-dimensional. Here the users will be able to immerse themselves in digital content, rather than simply viewing it.

    Facebook would like to bring metaverse to life. It plans to hire technical manpower in European Union over the next five years. The catchment areas for the hire are Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portland, the Netherlands, Poland and Ireland.

    Metaverse will not be owned and operated by a single company. There is apprehension that a few big tech companies from Silicon Valley would monopolise the metaverse and would monetise the personal data.

    Metaverse is a broad term. It refers to shared virtual environment access through internet. Essentially, it is digital space that is rendered life-like using VR/AR.

    To some, a metaverse is gaming world. Here the users have a character that interacts with other players.

    A specific type of metaverse will use blockchain technology. Here the users can buy virtual land and other digital assets. The medium to do so will be cryptocurrencies.

    A fictional metaverse can be created by books and movies, which is used as a setting. In other words, it is alternative digital world as distinct from the physical world.

    Mostly, today virtual spaces resemble a video game, rather than a real world setting.

    Metaverse as an idea is attracting investors and companies. Even Microsoft is converging digital and physical worlds.

    Musicians can hold virtual concerts in a metaverse.

    The term was coined originally by sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson to describe a virtual world people escape to from a dystopian, real world.

    Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name to reflect its focus on metaverse, maybe by October 28, 2021. It wants to be more than social media. Facebook is likely to become one of the products under a parent company just as Google is a product under parent company Alphabet.

    Facebook is under scrutiny for the way it operates. A former employee Frances Haugen released a trove of internal documents to the Wall Street Journal, and testified about them before the Congress. Anti-trust-regulators are trying to break the company. A rebrand would focus the attention on its futuristic work. The new name is closely-guarded secret.

  • Music Rights

    There are up to four different agencies which need to be paid for performing rights. These agencies are Phonographic Performance Ltd. (PPL) India, Novex Communications, Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) and the Indian Singers Rights Association (ISRA). PPL and Novex, between them, have the rights to more than a million songs. They file injunctions in various courts against clubs and hotels. PPL, Novex and IPRS get restraining orders from various high courts when music is played without obtaining proper licences.

    PPL has more than 340 labels on board. Novex has licensing rights for the catalogues of Zee Music, YRF, Eros and Tips. IPRS is authorised under Section 33 of the Copyright Act to collect licensing fees for public music performances from organisers. ISRA charges royalty from organisers for singers.

    Multiple players make playing music costly. Their rate cards vary from as low as Rs.5000 for a non-ticketed event to as high as Rs.3 lac. Usually, venues pay for the music rights. In a party, who has the time to check whether the DJ has the rights to play the requested songs?

    Mumbai-based PPL has approached the Bombay High Court to persuade different hotels to seek licenses. The process of getting licenses is made easier — it is online. PPL has entered into reciprocal agreements with its counterparts abroad.

  • OTT Platforms

    Economical data packages have made over-the-top (OTT) or video streaming platforms a magnet for the masses. These have become an attractive mass medium for advertisers. They are also encouraged by internet penetration which has risen from 13 per cent in 2016 to 24 per cent in 2018. Previously, only the traditional soap drew the masses to TV. The other content drivers were movies and sports. OTT era resembles cable TV universe at least in the near future. There are bundled and a-la-carte models.

    People in metros spend around 9.8 hours a week while those in tier 1 and 2 markets spend 7.5 hours and 7.9 hours a week respectively.

    The main reasons for subscriptions are freshness of content and uniqueness.

    87 per cent respondents watch on mobile phones, and 5 per cent on smart TVs.