Into the Metaverse

Welcome to Into the Metaverse, in this week’s episode, Yon welcomes Marcus Holmström, Founder and CEO of The Gang, for a conversation centered around their experiences building a game studio for Roblox and the wider metaverse.

Marcus discusses the inception and growth of The Gang, the success of their branded experiences like Vans and Shrek on Roblox, and the future of integrating real-world commerce into virtual worlds. The two then discuss the importance of being an early adopter and continuously learning from the community, before touching upon the challenges of adapting to Roblox's unique audience and social components, the strategic growth of the company, and the role of new technologies and brand partnerships in shaping the future of the platform.

Learn more about The Gang and all their current and upcoming games

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Chapters:

Most Excited About in Year Ahead (39:58)

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Welcome to Into the Metaverse, in this week’s episode, Yon welcomes Charlie Fink to the podcast. Charlie writes the weekly Forbes column "This Week in XR" and co-hosts its companion podcast. He is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse (2017), and Convergence, How The World Will Be Painted With Data (2019). His career spans impactful stops at Disney, AOL, American Greetings, and more.

During their conversation, Charlie gives Yon the overview of his career and how it led to his interest and writing on the metaverse, before the two dive into how to define the metaverse today, the different generations of tech each generation of humans have had to work with and its implications on them, the future of devices and hardware, and much more.

Yon will be appearing on Charlie’s podcast in the near future, so be on the lookout for that to get more of this riveting conversation!

Chapters

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Welcome to Into the Metaverse. In today’s episode, Yon welcomes Matthew Ball to the podcast. Ball is eponymous for his writings on the evolution of the media landscape and the metaverse and his book, The Metaverse: Building the Spatial Internet. A second edition of the book will be released later this year.

Yon and Matthew had an excellent, wide-ranging conversation about the metaverse's past, present, and future. They discuss where we are in realizing 100% of the metaverse vision, the major ways AI will impact the metaverse’s evolution, how and why the youngest generations have always driven adoption, and much more.

With a lot of ground still to cover, Yon and Matthew will be doing a follow up part two to this conversation in the near future, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss when that releases!

Preorder the updated and revised version of Matthew’s award-winning best-seller, The Metaverse: Building the Spatial Internet, on Amazon, or visit here for more info and purchase options.

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:24 Welcoming Matthew

02:04 The Four Bounces of the Metaverse Theme

07:19 Where Are We in Realizing 100% of the Metaverse

13:07 The Youngest Generation Has Always Driven Adoption

17:35 Roblox and the Current Size of MAU in Metaverse Applications

22:25 Four Major Ways AI Impacts the Evolution of the Metaverse

32:05 Enabling Interoperability Across the Metaverse

39:24 Shifting Anchors within Entertainment Industry

43:37 Wrap Up

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Welcome back to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon and Matthew dive into four topics from the last week or so that we see as influential to the development of the metaverse. This weeks topics are: 

If there’s any topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, please get in touch with us. And if you haven’t already, please complete our short survey to help us understand how we can best fine-tune our content.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:29 Nvidia Earnings 

08:15 Unity Leadership Changes

12:33 Roblox Earnings

19:16 Brand Activations on Roblox

25:16 Wrap Up

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Welcome back to another episode of Into the Metaverse. In this episode, Matthew breaks down four news items from the past week or so that we believe are important to the development of the metaverse including:

We hope you enjoyed Matthew’s takes on these topics. If there’s any topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, please get in touch with us. And if you haven’t already, please complete our short survey to help us understand how we can best fine-tune our content.

Roblox is the closest platform to the true vision of the metaverse; a persistent, immersive, shared, 3D space that re-imagines how users can connect, communicate, play, shop, and express themselves. In a sense, Roblox can be viewed as the public beta of the metaverse. And Roblox is already emerging as the primary social platform for Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z.

With 72 million daily active users and approximately 350 million monthly active users, all of whom spend about 2.4 hours per day on the platform, Roblox is truly the most engaging platform on the Internet. And with a user base that is increasingly getting older, with 40% of DAU now over the age of 16, Roblox is no longer just a platform for young kids.

But how did the Roblox of today come to be? From its founding as Dynablox 20 years ago, to launching the first experience, to opening up the avatar economy and more, Yon and Matthew dive deep into the company and platform’s history, its founders and its future in our latest episode of Into the Metaverse.

And as always, if you liked this podcast, make sure to rate, review and subscribe to our substack.

Topics:

Where Roblox Started (02:07)

Building the Developer Community (10:10)

Four Core Values Drive Employee Ownership and Accountability (19:01)

The Numbers Behind Roblox’s Present (23:10)

Brands and IP Have Begun Leveraging Roblox (29:17)

How Roblox Gets to 1 Billion Users (38:18)

AI and New Technologies Impact on Roblox Growth (40:41)

The Economics of Building on Roblox vs Other Platforms (46:40)

The Future of Real World Commerce on Roblox (53:09)

The Challenge of IP Use in a World of Digital Self Expression (58:41)

Could Roblox Ever Be Acquired (01:04:22)

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Roblox has a large, vibrant community of Gen Z users that spend on average about 2.5 hours per day on the platform. And to discuss how best to market to this audience, Yon welcomes Krystal Hauserman, a dedicated marketing executive to the podcast.

Krystal was previously the CMO of 11:11 media, the company founded by Paris Hilton to transform the celebrity’s consumer products, entertainment and media empire for a youth audience. Notably, they launched a persistent Roblox experience themed around Paris.

Krystal and Yon had a great conversation covering a broad range of topics, including bringing celebrity experiences to the Roblox platform, learnings from interacting with Gen Z and Gen Alpha users on Roblox and more broadly in marketing and much more.

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How are enterprises viewing investing in the metaverse today? Yon was delighted to welcome Edwina Fitzmaurice, the Chief Customer Success Officer at EY to the podcast. Edwina is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council, an adjunct associate professor at Trinity College Dublin and a board member and chair of the governance committee of WIN: Women in Innovation.

Edwina and Yon had a wonderful conversation covering a broad range of topics, including which technologies are driving the conversation in the boardroom today, why companies are expanding into immersive metaverse platforms and why inclusivity is a core tenet of building disruptive technologies.

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The views reflected in this video/podcast are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.

Roblox just reported a very strong set of results for 2023 and Yon and Matthew are back to break it down. We also had to dive into Epic and Disney’s new partnership.

For those that missed it, Disney is investing $1.5 billion for an undisclosed equity stake in Epic. They will partner to build immersive experiences around Disney’s iconic IPs like Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar.

Chapters:

Key Highlights from Roblox’s Earnings (01:22)

Aging Up of the Roblox Platform (06:18)

Roblox Cash Flow & Financial Numbers (07:10)

Upcoming Initiatives for Roblox (08:38)

AI Deployment on the Roblox Platform (11:05)

Roblox Wrap Up (13:45)

Epic x Disney First Reactions (14:20)

Disney’s Gaming Strategy (20:37)

Epic’s 3rd Party Partner Strategy (22:05)

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Welcome back to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon and Matthew dive into four of the most important and interesting news stories related to the metaverse.

The topics we discuss today include the smash hit new video game Palworld, the latest salvo in the Apple vs. Epic saga, the launch apps for the Apple Vision Pro and Netflix’s gaming strategy.

Check out friend of the pod Joost Van Dreunen’s take on the Palworld controversy.

Read the interview Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters did with Stratechery.

Chapters:

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