here to discuss Chef ogden, co founder and Ceo of offbeat media group.
Chef good to have you on the show wondering what your take is um in
terms of the interest and investment that we're seeing in the metaverse right now.
Yeah, no thanks so much for the invite.
Um Yeah, no, it's definitely a super exciting space right now, um you know,
we're seeing some of the biggest companies in the world,
not just invest but but fully adopted,
you know,
just recently we're seeing twitter and now I believe it's
either today or in the last couple of days Reddit,
you know, fully adopting ftse's profile pictures and it's really just saying that
you know what you own in this new digital world is basically just
as meaningful as what you own here in the real physical world,
It's really exciting.
Yeah, we see the competition ramping up in this space, especially,
I think when we talk about the video game industry,
we just mentioned Microsoft and Activision,
um but what does the corporation need to be competitive in the metaverse?
Yeah, that's a great question.
You know,
I think one of the best things that people can do or companies can do
to be competitive is really find those influencers
within the community that are like very,
very deep in the space, you know, they're deep in twitter,
they're deep in these communities on discord,
they're actually playing the games themselves,
um Get those people on board, you know, we just saw Adidas do that really,
really well, where they put in multiple influencers for their their most recent N.
F. T. Launch
and I think that is what companies can do to to really stay competitive
is is go to the people that are seeing where this is moving because this
space moves where what happened yesterday is
might not be relevant you know tomorrow so
they really need people that are here in the weeds that can project out,
you know two weeks, four weeks, six weeks at a time,
I'm glad you mentioned influencers but on the opposite side of the coin,
if these companies want to educate themselves in this arena,
what do they need to be doing?
Should they be on these discords? Should they be playing the games themselves?
Definitely whenever I say influencers, I don't mean your typical,
you know social media influencers,
I'm more of mean the people that are the thought leaders in this space,
you know they should be either consuming
their content or having conversations with them.
Um Really the people that are you know hands down
building um working on different projects because so many people now
in this space or open to working on more than
one project that they would love to help brands,
you know bring to life their vision
got it and off beat your company developed its own virtual clubhouse,
it's basically a digital environment for your employees to gather,
play different games um be in the metaverse socializing.
So what are your users flocking to the most and how do
you think demand for certain services will affect development in the metaverse?
Yeah, yeah, we so we did create that, the clubhouse and it's been really great,
you know, for us we saw that the culture building experience and we have,
we're having our virtual happy hours in there instead of here,
hopping on zoom um looking at the screen like we're actually putting on,
putting on a quest two headset and hanging out and having
a conversation while playing pop slide or something along those lines.
Um And what was your your second part of that question?
Yeah. How do you think it's going to change the demand for certain services?
I think especially as you talk about your virtual clubhouse,
we've been covering zoom fatigue during this time,
no one ever wants to jump on a zoom anymore, it's kind of lost its shine.
Um and I think what do you see as the
services that could see the biggest demand moving forward?
Oh, that's a great question.
So it's really around, you know,
as we think about something like the virtual clubhouses, the base, you know what,
what people get really, really excited about,
like whenever they're within their virtual clubhouse or
the avatars that they're in or the clothes that
their avatars are wearing and so as those
brands or people or companies think about this,
it's like how do we how do we give consumers the
tools to have a new avatar or to wear new clothes,
you know, on their avatar
or bring in the new, you know, digital item that they can play with, you know,
instead of having a in my example earlier virtual part, but you know having a,
you know, kind of a custom football club.
Um that's that's really how brands can be thinking about this.
Like how do we add a custom experience to what we're already seeing in this space,
wondering also shep if you can give us a glimpse of kind of your predictions,
obviously you don't have a crystal ball,
but what the metaverse impact will look like on our personal lives,
but also our professional lives.
We talk a lot about
work, flexibility,
work from home and how it's really changed the game for so many industries.
What could we see with the metaverse?
Yeah. You know, to me the medal versus just like digital representation of life.
It's not necessarily this entirely separate thing.
I mean it is starting to blend, you know,
it's where people are starting to hang out with their friends, you know,
kids come home from school,
they're helping on 49 and they're hanging out for six plus hours, you know,
in this fortnite lobby, we're playing the game.
Um And to them it's the same thing as real, you know, it is real life, right?
But we are also starting to see this trend of
people more making a living here in this space,
you know,
either by right now specifically investing into
things like an FPs or cryptocurrencies,
um, but more in the future,
we'll see that becoming more into just digital goods in general
where people can,
you know,
as I think I saw earlier on the show talking
talking about actually infinity people are actually playing that game,
you know, earning axes and they're building a living there.
So I think as we see the future, you know, unfold in the next little bit,
we'll see more widespread adoption by a lot of the
major companies as we're seeing with twitter and reddit,
like my examples earlier, um,
facebook and instagram mentioning it here within mps,
but also just met up in general now.
Um, and other major companies like Snapchat, really,
really well positioned to kind of take full advantage of this.
Um, we'll see this full wide adoption from these major companies to consumers,
kind of building out their own digital lives as well as, you know,
building out their own income through, you know, through this space.
That's that's what I'm predicting over the next few years
to that point, before we let you go last question here,
what do you think are the developments in the
space that people specifically investors should be paying attention
to maybe some of the areas where you see the most growth happening or about to happen.
Yeah,
there's three big areas in my mind and we're seeing pretty heavy investment,
you know, from different companies, investors, etcetera, in this space.
Number one.
And I've kind of touched on a lot of these, but number one is digital goods. Right?
So we're seeing Nike and Adidas and Gucci, you know,
those are three great examples of
massive companies really exploring the space because
what it costs and now to produce close completely goes away.
They can still sell these clothes in the digital world.
Number two is this play to earn gaming.
You know, this idea like actual infinity that you can play a game and you can earn.
But but more than that,
it's not just this dystopian world where people are
gonna be sitting here playing games to make money.
It could also be as simple as, you know,
I'm playing Fortnite for a Fortnight skin and I actually want to own that.
You know, whenever I get tired of that skin,
I want someone else to be able to buy it from me.
I think that's gonna be a really massive
space where it's not necessarily play to earn,
but it's also going to like play to own if I'm buying something,
I actually want to own it.
And then the third one is, you know, this this idea of
like community owned media, decentralized media.
I think this is a massive and rapidly growing space right now.
We're seeing examples of stoner cats was a great
NFC project that you have to own the N.
F. T.
To watch the show,
Jenkins and ballet is a really interesting extension of the Board X brand,
um where it's building out, you know, a more custom media experience,
where everyone that owns an NFC gets access to the writer's room
and there they have the ability to be included in the stories,
but also make decisions on the stories.
So those are those are big three areas that I I expect to see, you know,
2020 to have some really great case studies come out of.
I really appreciate all of that expertise.
There could talk about it all day, like I said,
that Chef, ogden Ceo and co founder of Offbeat Media Group, thanks so much.