The metaverse—like many innovations—is shrouded in mysticism and scepticism. Proponents believe that the metaverse will be revolutionary and fully transform the way we work, shop, socialize, and play. Others are more sceptical and see a hype-fueled fad that appeals to gamers and celebrities.A majority of consumers know and engage with some form of the metaverse, and many expect it to become a significant part of their lives. We debunk six myths about the metaverse and now see that consumers across age cohorts will shape its purpose and prosperity.

The Mystery Of The Metaverse

<ul><li>Forty-seven percent described the metaverse with vibrant clarity, using terms such as “immersive,” “interactive,” or a “scaled network.” </li><li>Nearly one-third of early adopters had a basic understanding of the metaverse as “a digital world beyond anything a person can imagine” but lacked a clear view of how it works.</li><li>The remaining early adopters of the metaverse couldn’t actually describe it clearly in their own words, despite being a user or player in one of the digital worlds. About 19 percent had simply no clear understanding.</li></ul>

Survey Results: Defining The Metaverse

<ul><li>Well-known experts refer to the Metaverse as "the internet of the future" or point to immersive devices to demonstrate various platforms and user experiences.</li><li>Most people are unfamiliar with the term, but know of at least one existing metaverse platform (e.g. Roblox, Fortnite, or Decentraland).</li><li>Nearly one-third of early adopters had a basic understanding but lacked a clear view of how it works.</li></ul>

Myth #1: No One Knows What the Metaverse Is

<ul><li>20% of the population expects to spend more time online exercising, working, reading, and shopping in the future.</li><li>People's interest in immersive digital activities and experiences is growing.</li><li>10% have tried augmented reality or metaverse dating.</li><li>Generation Z and millennials expect to spend close to five hours a day in the metaverse.</li><li>This expected shift is driven by a desire for greater convenience and connectivity.</li></ul>

Myth #2: The Metaverse Is a Fad

<ul><li>People who are familiar with the metaverse spend 1.5 more hours per week playing video games compared to those who are unfamiliar.</li><li>Entertainment and shopping in the virtual world are popular.</li><li>One in five metaverse users has attended virtual live events.</li><li>Approximately one in four will be metaverse "superusers"</li></ul>

Myth #3: The Metaverse Is for Gamers

<ul><li>Gen Z is enthusiastic about the metaverse</li><li>Two-thirds of Roblox's 50 million daily users are under the age of 16</li><li>Luxury and mainstream brands like Gucci and Vans are ramping up their metaverse strategy with a focus on attracting younger consumers</li><li>Both brands are experimenting on multiple platforms to determine where and how to recruit lifetime customers</li></ul>

Myth #4: The Metaverse Is Geared to Gen Z

<ul><li>Commercial value is already scattered across different digital products and services for companies to capture</li><li>Consumers expect their spending on metaverse-related digital assets to increase in the next five years, with 11 percent looking to spend more on in-game purchases</li><li>Currently, millennials are the highest spenders, followed by Gen Z</li><li>Gen Z spending shows a split: overall, they spend $47 annually, but older, employed consumers spend $107 on average</li></ul>

Myth #5: You Can't Make Money in The Metaverse

<ul><li>There remains low penetration of immersive devices among consumers, and there are infrastructure barriers in the way of a truly scaled, immersive metaverse future</li><li>Close to one-third of metaverse users see technology as severely limiting their dream experience</li><li>A high correlation between users expecting a realistic experience and frequency of use will push companies to build more immersive experiences</li><li>Consumer expectations regarding data will challenge companies to develop creative solutions</li></ul>

The Speed And Adoption Of The Metaverse

<ul><li>Brands will need to define their metaverse strategy-and the decision on which path to take will depend on what they believe about adoption, opportunity, and investment required.</li><li>One thing is certain: whatever shape the metaverse will take, consumers will be the driving force behind the evolution.</li></ul>

Implications For Metaverse Brands

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Probing reality and myth in the metaverse

Twitter Jail is a slang phrase used to describe Twitter's limits on tweets, direct messages and followers per day. Twitter uses this method to reduce spammers and reduce error pages. Start by understanding Twitter’s limits and working around them to avoid Twitter Jail.If you have found yourself on the undesirable list, there are a few main things you can do to help get yourself out of jail.

The Twitter Jail

<ol><li>Start by following the restriction of 100 tweets per hour. This includes retweets and links.</li><li>Don’t tweet more than 1,000 times per day. If you exceed this limit, you will be in Twitter Jail until the following day.</li><li>Reduce your Direct Messages, if you send 250 per day. If you exceed the 250 DM limit, you will be in Twitter Jail until the next day.</li><li>Don’t tweet duplicate content. If the Twitter system finds you retweeting the same links or phrases over and over, you can be sent to Twitter Jail.</li><li>Limit how many people you follow in a day.</li></ol>

Understanding Twitter Limits

Wait patiently. If you receive an error message when you are trying to tweet, message or retweet after being very active, you are most likely in Twitter Jail.<ul><li>Read the step above to see how long you are likely to have an inactive account.</li><li>Your error message may read "Your Account Has Been Suspended."</li><li>Make sure you aren’t in serious violation of other Twitter rules. </li><li>After several hours or a day, you can try to tweet again, and it should go through.</li></ul>

Getting Out of Twitter Jail

Twitter also has API limits. In other words, they limit the interactions between applications and software more than direct interaction with the Twitter website.Many people find it easier to end up in Twitter Jail if they are using a third-party Twitter client, a blog, a phone app and a computer.

Avoid Tweeting on Multiple Devices

<ul><li>If your account has not returned to normal, you may have been identified as a spam account.</li><li>Email twitter.com/support with your account name and problem.</li><li>If Twitter believes they have associated you with spam incorrectly they will reinstate your account and apologize.</li><li>It may take several hours for the account to return to normal</li></ul>

Email Twitter Support

<ul><li>Twitter has set what they believe are reasonable limits for personal tweeting.</li><li>Dial back your tweeting for a week, to see if your results actually improve as you are more discerning.</li></ul>

Reduce the Amount You Tweet and Retweet

<ul>
<li>If you do not want to limit your tweets or follows, then make a second or third free Twitter account.</li>
<li>Try to associate the accounts with each other, so that it will be easy to gain followers who are familiar with your first account.</li>
</ul>

Create another Twitter Account

<ul><li>Choose whether you want to use your computer, phone or blog and stick to that client.</li><li>Reducing your Twitter clients will help you to remain within API limits and keep you out of Twitter Jail.</li></ul>

Be Selective with Your Twitter Clients

<ul>
<li>If you want to post links to your blog yourself, unlink your website from your Twitter account.</li>
<li>Every time you post new content, your website may push it to Twitter.</li>
<li>If you do not want to tweet new content yourself, then linking your accounts may be the best option.</li>
<li>Make sure other website or blog editors are not updating the site more than 100 times per hour or 1,000 times per day, or your blog can put you in Twitter Jail.</li>
</ul>

Beware That Blog Tweeting May Result In Duplicate Content

Direct messaging limits may be easy to reach if you are using them for work or important conversations.Reach out via email or phone to save time with work conversations or networking.

Propose that You Text or Email with Twitter Users

This should be obvious, but worth noting anyway. Be meticulous about following the rules on Twitter. Make sure you’re not spamming, harassing, or posting content that may be deemed too “offensive.”

Don't Be A Spammer And Follow The Basic Online Etiquettes

Twitter takes how you interact with other accounts into consideration. Constantly commenting on or tagging accounts that you don’t follow or who don’t follow you can be considered a red flag. If you are getting sucked into troll drama, consider blocking rather than engaging. Retweet posts from a variety of sources, including verified accounts.

Don't Tag Your Favourite Celebrity Every Time

This might not feel helpful if you’re trying to hit the ground running with a fresh Twitter account, but Twitter does take the age of an account into consideration. This is because trolls often create new accounts to avoid bans and blocking. In a month or two, if you have tried everything else and made no progress in getting unbanned, simply waiting may do the trick.

If Your Account Is New, Wait

One of the biggest problems with Twitter is that it is a massive, centralized, proprietary system. This means that users have no control over what happens to them, and are prevented from gaining important knowledge about their own accounts.While many people rely on Twitter for social reach and an audience, if you are experiencing banning consider switching to decentralized social media instead — or, at least diversifying your reach by not relying on a single source.

Use Decentralized Social Media

Twitter Jail is a slang phrase used to describe Twitters limits on tweets, direct messages and followers per day. Twitter uses this method to reduce spammers and reduce error pages. Start by understanding Twitter's limits and working...

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How to Get Out of Twitter Jail

Elon Musk already has huge commitments to the companies he founded, in industries (electric vehicles, space exploration) that don’t clearly relate to Twitter’s business, and wouldn’t necessarily be the best fit for its business model and strategies.Firms should stop picking from a tiny pool of people who already have massive work commitments, and instead choose members with the time and energy to help steer their businesses thoughtfully. Doing so would also help combat a second, intransigent problem: Most people on boards are still white men.

The Elon Musk-Twitter Stand-Off

Musk may have decided he didn’t want his ownership of Twitter limited to the 14.9% stipulated by the board-seat arrangement. He may have preferred to keep lobbying advice from the sidelines.He may also have realized he was too busy!

Elon Musk May Already Be Overstretched

One of the issues with the top ranks of corporate governance is that it draws so much from the same pool of already-overstretched people. This is a problem for several reasons:<ul><li>Work for those individuals becomes almost impossibly demanding.</li><li>There is already a pipeline and culture problem that predominantly assists white men.</li><li>Giving board seats to CEOs and their equivalent exposes a narrow idea of what skills a person needs to help run a company.</li></ul>

The Bigger Issue

Interesting developments in the Elon Musk universe.

Elon Musk might be too busy to join Twitter's board.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

business

Business

Boards should stop hiring people who already have huge commitments

<ul>
<li>Reducing yourself to any single characteristic, whether it be your title or your job performance, is a deeply damaging act.</li>
<li>Too many people who work hard and strive for success self-objectify as excellent work machines and tools of performance.</li>
<li>Strivers seek professional success to deliver satisfaction and happiness. But self-objectification makes both impossible, setting us up for a life of joyless accomplishment and unreachable goals followed by the tragedy of inevitable decline.</li>
</ul>
To be happy, we need to throw off these chains we put on ourselves.

You Are More Than Your Work

Objectification lowers well-being. Research shows, for example, that when people are reduced by others to physical attributes through objectifying stares or harassment, it can lower self-confidence and competence in tasks. The philosopher Immanuel Kant referred to this as becoming “an Object of appetite for another,” at which point “all motives of moral relationship cease to function.”
Physical objectification is just one type. Objectification at work is another, and an especially injurious one.

Objectification At Work

The case against objectifying others is fairly straightforward. Less obvious but equally damaging is when the objectifier and the person being objectified are one and the same. 
Humans are capable of objectifying themselves in many ways—by assessing their self-worth in terms of their physical appearance, economic position, or political views, for example—but all of them boil down to one damaging core act: reducing one’s own humanity to a single characteristic, and thus encouraging others to do so as well.

Accessing Your Self Worth

Ask yourself a few questions, and answer them honestly.<ul><li>Is your job the biggest part of your identity? Is it the way you introduce yourself, or even understand yourself?</li><li>Do you find yourself sacrificing love relationships for work? Have you forgone romance, friendship, or starting a family because of your career?</li><li>Do you have trouble imagining being happy if you were to lose your job or career? Does the idea of losing it feels a little like death to you?</li></ul>If you answered affirmatively to any or all of these, recognize that you will never be satisfied as long as you objectify yourself.

Being A Self-Objectifier

Use this principle in your professional life. To begin with, it should be the main goal of your vacation—to get a break from work and spend time with people you love. As obvious as this may sound, that means taking your vacation, and not working during it at all. 
Your employer should thank you for doing so: I have been a chief executive and can assure you that I wanted only employees who worked with their whole heart and free will. If they needed to leave, I wanted them to leave.

Get Some Space

Having friends outside your professional circles is important. Striking up friendships with people who don’t have any connection to your professional life encourages you to develop nonwork interests and virtues, and thus be a fuller person. 
The way to do this goes hand in hand with recommendation No. 1: Don’t just spend time away from work; spend it with people who have no connection to your work.

Have Friends Other Than Work

We all want to stand out in some way, and working harder than others and being better at our jobs seems a straightforward way to do so. This is a normal human drive, but it can nonetheless lead to destructive ends. The great irony is that by trying to be special, we end up reducing ourselves to a single quality, and turning ourselves into cogs in a machine of our own making.Don’t make this mistake. You are not your job, and I am not mine. Take your eyes off the distorted reflection, and have the courage to experience your full life and true self.

The Bottomline

Reducing yourself to any single characteristic, whether it be your title or your job performance, is a deeply damaging act.

career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

A Profession Is Not a Personality

Pierre Dubuc started OpenClassrooms with Mathieu Nebra.The idea came to them back in 1999, when Mathieu was 13 and Pierre just 11. An educational platform for vocational training, the company provides online learning for several million users including courses in IT, technology, entrepreneurship, and digital skills — all done through a mix of video resources, online reading, real-life projects and individual mentoring sessions.

The Future of Education Is Emerging Before Our Eyes

At OpenClassrooms, working remotely is part of everyday life for our students, mentors and much of our staff. We have been honing the skills associated with remote working and learning for years. What’s more, these practices are core to our ability to fulfil our mission of making education accessible to everyone, everywhere.I quickly check company emails for any emergencies, and then most days I do 30 minutes of physical activity. Then I have a simple tea, before starting work.

What does a “typical” day look like for you now?

To support all teachers and students whose learning has been disrupted amid the pandemic, OpenClassrooms is making its distance learning product available for free. To allow educators and professional trainers to digitally monitor student progress and mastery of key educational objectives.

How has Coronavirus impacted your life/work?

If you don’t already have a home office space, start by locating an area in your home where you can get your work done. Maybe it’s the dining room table or the couch. Be mindful to choose a place to sit that is good for your back. And wherever you choose, be sure the Wi-Fi connection is strong, that there is good lighting for your eyes, that your computer can be plugged in and that you have a place to keep a drink nearby.

Designate Your Workspace

The number of online collaborative apps is staggering. There is no shortage of choice. Here are some of our favourites: <ul><li>For video conferencing opt for Google hangouts , Zoom or good old-fashioned Skype.</li><li>Google Drive and Microsoft one drive allow documents to be shared and worked on simultaneously.</li><li>For managing contracts, consider DocuSign or Concord . Additionally, be mindful of sharing sensitive information by email. </li><li>App for keeping everyone on task and clear about progress. Some we’ve used here at Openclassrooms include Basecamp.</li></ul>

Use tools for collaborating

<ul><li>The Attack by Yasmina Khadra </li><li>Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City by Julie Wertz </li><li>The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk and Going Beyond Limits to Climb the Dawn Wale , Tommy Caldwell </li><li>Neal Cassady Collected Letters, 1944–1967 by Neal Cassady </li><li>The Fall by Albert Camus </li></ul>

What five books would you recommend during this time at home?

The current crisis is a turning point not just for Digital education but for the entire education system. It is not to say that everything will switch Online overnight, it is false and not necessarily desirable. It is the future of education that is emerging before our eyes.

When this is all over, what will the opportunities look like?

Be sure to plan ahead. Each afternoon, look at tomorrow’s schedule to plan your day. First, designate how many hours you intend to spend working on your own and when you will be working collaboratively on calls.Divide up working blocks throughout the day using the <a href="https://openclassrooms.com/en/courses/5164326-work-effectively-in-a-team/5483716-manage-your-time-and-your-motivation#/id/r-5491450">Pomodoro Method</a> for time management. That is, designate blocks of time to work — say from 30 minutes up to 1.5 hours maximum. And schedule breaks in between. Breaks can be as short as 10-minutes or as long as a full lunch break.

A Daily Game Plan

Interview with online learning platform OpenClassrooms co-founder Pierre Dubuc. We discuss his background - starting the business aged 11 and how education will change as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

education

Learning & Education

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

startup

Startups

The reality of on-demand self-driving cars poses a looming existential risk to the auto industry. With billions of vehicles on the planet and over 94 million new cars rolling off the production lines each year, cars consume vast resources to sell, which we then park idle for 95% of the time.&nbsp; But, if on-demand driverless vehicles come to fruition and it becomes cheaper than your Uber ride, the appeal of owning a car will diminish, creating a massive oversupply of unwanted human-driven vehicles.&nbsp;

Crisis of Car Manufacturing

Driverless cars redefine all of our assumptions. Driverless vehicles are simply rooms on top of an all-electric drivetrain. This opens endless possibilities to re-imagine vehicles as moving rooms able to cater to a <a href="https://automobility.ideo.com/moving-together/personal-storage" target="_self">vast array </a>of human experiences and activities:&nbsp;<ul><li>the driverless office&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless boardroom&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless gym&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless bedroom&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless bathroom&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless cafe&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless cinema&nbsp;</li><li>the driverless shop&nbsp;</li></ul>These rooms can be dynamic, modular and interconnected.&nbsp;

Modular Driverless Rooms

If driverless modular rooms become a reality, we'll need to stack vertically in skyscrapers within cities.&nbsp;On-demand driverless rooms could offer the option of going to sleep in one city and waking up in another. The driverless rooms and "parking" towers could leverage blockchain technology and remove the human landlord. The driverless rooms could own and manage themselves, and the rental fees could be enough to cover operating costs but at zero profit.

Lego Skyscrapers + Decentralized City

You look up at a lego-like modular skyscraper reaching high above the moonlit clouds. Your room docks with an electric skate and is elevated thirty stories up before slotting into a window-facing…

Driverless Hotel Rooms: The End of Uber, Airbnb and Human Landlords

Nothing that you can do can save the planet. It's out of your hands.Scientists believe the only way to keep the planet's temperature from increasing 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit is to phase out all fossil fuel infrastructure and devices immediately. Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen.As a society, we are in denial and don't live long enough to plan centuries ahead. So, tell your children what's going on with the climate. Tell them bad people made it too hard to do anything. Then, tell them to study science and engineering so that someday they might help with a solution.

Quit Obsessing About Climate Change

Quit worrying about going vegan, or recycling, or riding a bicycle to work, or buying a Tesla instead of that Ford F-650 pickup you’ve always wanted in order to save the planet. You’re off the hook…

Probing reality and myth in the metaverse

How to Get Out of Twitter Jail

Boards should stop hiring people who already have huge commitments

A Profession Is Not a Personality

The Future of Education Is Emerging Before Our Eyes

Sheila Bullock