Like nearly 8 million people, you’ve probably watched this viral video in recent days. Video Presented as the future of your racing in the famous metaverse, this virtual world has been promoted as the future of the internet by many of the major players in “Tech”, including the largest of them, the Facebook group, which has become the Meta.
What I saw
In this impressive video, it looks like we’re actually walking into a Walmart supermarket, an outdoorsy giant, to buy wine or a bottle of milk, with the help of a virtual employee for every purchase. Moreover, this video “shown” the possibility of purchasing the mentioned products, in fact. The video quickly became very popular on social media. It was popularized notably by personal accounts of the American media, who were impressed by the visual presentation.
Carl Quintanilla, celebrity morning show host and journalist on NBC, fell in love with this adorable video. “Shopping in the Metavers is going to be crazy,” he says with ecstasy. With more than 300,000 followers, it quickly helps in making said video popular with more than 5,000 posts. Many netizens also expressed their astonishment very quickly.
What is really
But now, it is not so. A quick google search reveals that this clip was actually made for Walmart. By a digital agency called Mutual Mobile in 2017 To impress influencers at South by Southwest Festivals, better known as SXSW. An array of interactive music, film, and media festivals that have been held annually since 1987 during the month of March in Austin, Texas.
“As retailers race to keep pace with the convergence of technology, data, and consumer habits, they are looking for ways to reimagine the shopping experience for their customers,” the digital agency explained in 2017. The technology behind the Walmart store,” the callers added at the origin of this clip.
“To attract customers and dispel the misconception that they are not as advanced as their digital counterparts, they are also exploring the frontiers of emerging technology.” Walmart Virtual Reality (VR) is a good example,” the digital agency concluded. This is called a “brand activation” process in marketing but It has nothing to do with the futuristic measuring devices popular in Silicon Valley.
what appears
The proliferation of these images perfectly illustrates the fact that the metaverse itself is not a new idea, since many Internet users have not been “fooled” by this viral video. to The US reference site specializing in new technologies, The VergeIt is “just a paraphrase of decades-old ideas of how we can live, work and socialize in virtual environments.”
This example will show among others how a lot of marketing and money has been spent selling at least an old experience like “Second Life,” the Linden Lab VR project started in 2003.” We think a four-year-old video shows the best that Metaverse can offer. is that Metaverse has yet to offer anything better” than reality or technology of the past, even from the cynical American site. The Verge tackles the madness of a project that is still very mysterious.
Because if the metaverse is on everyone’s lips, his future is still very unclear at this point. The concept refers to the emergence of interconnected parallel universes, which humans can access via virtual reality and augmented reality equipment, such as the Oculus system. Born out of science fiction, it’s been all the rage ever since Facebook announced massive investments in the field and rebranded itself as Meta. But for now, this metaverse is still… more virtual than ever.
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