By Joe Beeton is the Editor at CoStar Group.
LoopNet has narrowed down several broad uses for the metaverse that may be relevant to the commercial real estate industry, at least for now. These are the three main ways the metaverse currently supplements — and in some cases, ever-so-slightly hints at one day competing with — traditional commercial real estate:
- Commerce — Retail, Marketing and Entertainment;
- Productivity — Workplaces and Conferences; and
- Architectural Visualization — Digital Twins and Virtual Tours.
Here are a few excerpts/highlights:
Having presence in a virtual reality metaverse will one day be as essential as having a website, explained Dan Reitzek, CEO of TerraZero Technologies and purveyor of Miller Lite’s Meta Lite Bar. “In the ’80s, there was one way for Nike to sell us a pair of shoes, and it was a store in a mall. Then with the internet, there became a second way for Nike to sell us a pair of shoes,” Reitzek told LoopNet. “The metaverse presents a third way, [which combines elements of both], and we call it ‘v-commerce.’”
Stores have the look and feel of games played by Generation Z (born 1997 and on) and the younger Generation Alpha because those generations are the future of the economy. And those generations are spending their money — or at least their parents’ money — in virtual reality.
The metaverse is important for advertisers and retailers because it’s a natural evolution of media, explains Kristi Waterworth, who reports on virtual real estate investing for The Motley Fool. “Television and newspapers worked for advertising for a long time, until they didn’t anymore. Then the internet and social media pulled a lot of that weight, until the younger generations start rejecting that in favor of something else that speaks to them more — which they are already doing.”
The Metaverse is already becoming real life. Panera has trademarked “Paneraverse,” to offer “virtual restaurants and cafes … wherein users can earn reward points and virtual currency which may be used to purchase food and beverages.” Similarly, Conagra Brands’ Slim Jim brand has staked claim to “The Meataverse.”
Virtual real estate developers like TerraZero and firms like eXp, MootUp, Unreal Engine and Virbela are using hyper-realistic graphical representations to facilitate the brokerage and leasing of real and virtual real estate; and this is part of a 3-part series, which LoopNet hopes will help commercial real estate professionals understand why (paraphrasing) "the lexicon of their livelihood is being used in the context of something that might be confused with a game a 13-year-old plays on her iPad."
Interested in reading the whole series? Here's part one.
To read more, here's the entire article by Joe Beeton.
All posts are the opinion of the contributing author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CAIA Association or the author’s employer.
About the Author
Joe Beeton has been reporting business news for nearly a decade, having traveled extensively to cover international oil markets before pursuing his interests in architecture and urban planning — first at a publication focused on construction megaprojects and now at CoStar, as the Digital Content Editor of LoopNet, since May 2020.