The way the world is these days, it's easy to understand why people are eager to create an alternate reality, to look for ways to reboot the system, to start over. That is the appeal of virtual realms, as they are places to entertain ourselves and escape the disappointments of everyday life, diversify the power of technological monopolies or leave behind human inequalities for something more exciting, personalized and meaningful.

But the metaverse is a promise of a new future, a new economy, and a new reality. Or it is more than the same, another strategy of the big corporations to control the Internet and our data?

Challenges are often said to be opportunities in disguise. Whether you like it or not, you know that the metaverse is going to be part of your life, your work, your children or your future entertainment. So we must understand what it is about as quickly as possible.

The Metaverse concept appeared in the early 1990s in Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash, with virtual spaces and avatars as digital representations of real life. Thirty years later, the metaverse is understood as the union of multiple platforms (a network of decentralized digital spaces). A convergence of physical reality with virtual space, a fusion that allows you to experience different universes continuously and in real-time. Where all the information is certified and stored in the blockchain and allows users to be the owners of these data and digital assets, interchangeable between platforms.

Etymologically the word metaverse could be define as Meta=inside.

The universe "inside" of the universe

The Metaverse is touted as a highly immersive, holistic experience. And these user experiences are generated by extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) devices, and tools mixed with haptic sensors, which allow the detection of body movement and reactions to these experiences.

Basically, the metaverse would work beyond the current two-dimensional internet, where we only watch and listen, if not we can "feel the internet". And this is very good for the beauty industry since it gives us the opportunity to create immersive experiences, much more real, detecting the reactions of consumers in real-time.

All this will change the way of communicating with users. Currently, we do it by text, voice, or video, but in the future, we will do it through avatars, just as naturally as we do today in real life.

Having no (real) physical limitations, we all have the opportunity to experience identities beyond our bodies, ages, and abilities. And this gives us the ability to adopt multiple identities and move between digital subcultures with greater freedom and fluidity. Traditional targets will no longer exist!

This will increase the demand for products, services, or experiences tailored to the new virtual needs of users. Because we will need to dress up, dress up, work, and entertain ourselves in simulated worlds.

The goal of the metaverse is for you to have a unified digital identity on the blockchain, an identity that is always the same, whether you log into your computer at work or play games at night at home. In the metaverse, you are not a user, you are a member.

It's build time! We live in a unique opportunity in history, where we can adopt new technology and, at the same time, be participants in the construction of this same technology.

The impact of the metaverse is predicted to be significant across all industries, but even more so in beauty. All brands and companies will have to help create the Metaverse and its new ways to connect, monetize and experience the virtual world. And this learning is exponential, because it is collective and there are many ways to develop it, and all of them are interconnected at the same time.

Nobody will be the owner of the metaverse, although Zuckerberg tries very hard. So you have many possibilities for growth! All companies that work on new technologies, even if they don't succeed, will have talent and learning. And this will be very valuable in the future.

For that, it is important to detect and enhance the skills you already have today, to mix them with new digital skills that you will need in the future; cognitive skills to shape the metaverse, technical skills to create content, and conceptual skills to tell stories and humanize digital processes and experiences.

The first opportunities for success for businesses and consumers are already here, as are the gaming and fitness industries. However, the beauty market can create valuable user experiences and products. But for this, it is important that brands think beyond physical products (or digital twins), and generate new business models through the physical experiences of people, creating digital twins of the body, face, skin, or any part of the consumer's body.

That is when digital interactivity can transcend the real world: for example, an avatar could enter a perfumery, talk to an expert and ask for a specific treatment for his body, and have it delivered to our real home. But beware, this experience must be valuable, one more experience within the entire omnichannel. We must think about how to transmit the aspirational value of the product to the virtual, with additional experiences, such as gamification, loyalties, limited versions, etc. User ownership is the real revolution because it creates a new economy.

Tokens will be more important that likes

For consumers, utility is critical to making playing games, buying and interacting with content, and collaborating with other consumers in the metaverse worth their time and money. Since AR/VR tools are currently expensive and difficult to use in all segments, this will (for now) limit the metaverse to the more premium products.

But we must also understand that creating content in the Metaverse is not easy. This is an extremely critical point in the creative process to generate relevant, competitive, and unique content for the metaverse. Since it would have to be driven and guided by an interactive user design experience. The design should emphasize activities with the environment and with external devices that enhance the immersive experience.

Because the Metaverse is social, it's a community. And if we want people to want to pay or belong (the aspirational), we have to create something important, something that really creates value for them. Brands must work hard to find creative ways to be relevant in people's lives. Co-create and partner with digital communities and play a role in their culture, deepening user engagement with brands.

We must think very well about what the purpose is because these projects are technologically and conceptually difficult. They are not made in a week, and they have a high cost.

For me, the metaverse is new, exciting, and full of opportunities. A place where you can build new identities, meet new people, live and feel magical universes, create your own assets and monetize your creations like never before.

It is true that it still does not have a real and necessary utility, but as has happened with Internet 2.0, it has started very little by little, first changing the way we socialize, make friends, have sex, and travel. And a long time later (almost 30 years) was when e-commerce was consolidated.

But beware, the main concern in the metaverse is security. Because people bring their digital identities and values ​​with them into the metaverse, that creates much bigger privacy and data protection issues. Another important issue is the regulation (or non-regulation) of the metaverse because everything bad that the internet has today (xenophobia, violence, abuse, data theft) will continue to exist virtually, multiplying virally through platforms without rules or control. For this and other issues, the concept of "Betterverse" begins to emerge, a metaverse that represents equity, inclusion, accessibility, transformation, and personal and planetary improvement.

The metaverse promises to be a technology-enhanced extension of our lives. A digital world where we can meet, interact, shop, create, watch and play, all in harmony with the world we already have. Because as human beings, we need to live in analog reality to be truly happy. Interact with people of flesh and blood, share, hug. Watch the sun, walk through the woods, along the beach. We are genetically designed for this. And digital can never replace it. So don't stop living life, but take advantage of the benefits of technology.

The metaverse already is here. Enjoy it.