If you have never come across the concept of “metaverse” over the past year, it implies you spend very little time on the Internet. The second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022 have become significant in terms of the development and popularization of this new trend.
What is the situation of things today?
Today, the situation is beginning to change rapidly, which is not in favor of the metaverses. Let’s try to understand this issue. We will explain why Match Corporation, which was one of the first to announce the development of its own metaverse, refuses this vector of development.
How it all began and why the metaverses “didn’t shoot”
Active conversations about the metaverse began in October 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg announced the renaming of Facebook to Meta. He also announced that the company would redirect a significant part of its resources to the creation of the metaverse.
At that time, it was something very new. The idea was quickly picked up by others, in particular, the Match Group Corporation, which owns the largest dating services — Match.com, Hinge, Meetic, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Tinder, and others. To be precise, it was the dating service, Tinder that began to focus on the development of the metaverse which is known as Tinderverse. News of this began to spread in early December 2021. This was two months after Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation. The news was greeted with interest, albeit without much enthusiasm. However, news about Tinderverse became less. In August 2022, Match announced that they were indefinitely suspending work on the metaverse.
What happened?
In early August 2022, Match CEO, Bernard Kim gave the information that he had instructed employees not to invest heavily in the metaverse anytime soon.
Although there were no exhaustive comments on this from representatives of the Match Group, we understand why this happened. There are at least three reasons:
- After a rapid surge, interest in WEB3 technologies and in the metaverses has subsided significantly. Ordinary users did not see something worthwhile in the big words of the developers and did not fully understand the principles of the metaverse.
- Recently, Mark Zuckerberg said that the company will suffer significant losses in the next few years due to work on the metaverse. Some of the related products will only be ready in 15 years. The same is expected of other companies that are working in this direction.
- Match Group, after a surge in audience activity amid the Covid-19 pandemic, is experiencing an outflow of users currently. For example, for Tinder, the second financial quarter turned out to be unproductive. The company’s revenues are rapidly declining because funds are being directed to the metaverses with their extremely vague prospects. This is not the best solution.
Perhaps in the foreseeable future, the Match Group will return to the idea of ??launching its metaverse. However, it is not a priority at the moment.
Do users need metaverses in principle?
It is very difficult to answer. On the one hand, the vast majority do not understand the principles of the work of the metaverses and their capabilities. Nonetheless, users are already tired of classic dating apps because of their monotony.
How to solve this issue right now
If you download and install several popular dating apps, you will discover that they are too similar. The functionality is almost identical, the design is more or less the same. The users on these sites are often the same. After all, many people use several applications at once.
If you are also tired of such monotony, we can recommend applications with non-standard functionality instead of using only the most popular ones.
Here are a few examples:
- Coffee Meets Bagel allows you to use an 8-second welcome video instead of your regular profile photo.
- The League allows you to “skip” the waiting list and appear in the feed of other users before the rest.
- Happn offers you communication by text and voice messages.
- Hinge also allows you to use a short video greeting in your profile.
- Badoo gives an interesting opportunity to search for celebrity look-alikes.
There are quite a few examples. We advise you to look for unusual features when choosing a dating app. Believe us, this will add a lot of variety to your online dating.
Looking for an alternative to classic dating apps
Sometimes, the format of dating apps is not suitable for a person. This is normal. Not everyone is ready to spend a lot of time on registration and filling out a profile, selecting and uploading photos, endless swipes, and empty texting.
For such users, we strongly recommend trying an alternative format such as webcam chat. Here, acquaintances take place quickly, and communication takes place via video. Accordingly, you will quickly get to know the interlocutor and can make a more informed decision about whether it is worth developing your relationship or not.
Here are some popular cam chats:
- CooMeet — online dating by webcam with a unique gender filter. The cam chat knows how to connect men to ladies and never make mistakes.
- Faceflow — is a cam-to-cam chat with the ability to conduct video conferences with multiple participants. This is a combination of classic Chatroulette and Zoom.
- Shagle — is a simple and minimalistic camchat with a gender filter and the ability to search for interlocutors based on geolocation. This is a good choice for connoisseurs of minimalism.
There are a lot of cam-to-cam chats in general. Therefore, we recommend trying at least a few to find the best option for yourself. Look at the functionality, the presence of gender and geographic filters, the quality of moderation, and paid and free features. Definitely, you will choose live cam chat according to your requirements.
When are we going to see the real metaverse?
Unfortunately, we cannot give an exact answer to this question. Apparently, the suspension of work in this direction from the Match Group corporation is only the first “bell.” We assume that in the near future, the same news will come from other companies that have announced the development of their metaverses earlier.
It seems that the “pioneer” in this direction will still be Meta because it has the resources to implement such ambitious projects. On the other hand, Facebook and other Meta platforms are also losing popularity and bringing in less money currently. Therefore, it is likely that after some time, Mark Zuckerberg might also announce the suspension of work.
All things considered, we can only give you one important recommendation: don’t expect the first functional metaverses to appear any time soon. Additionally, don’t expect anything from them that borders on science fiction. So far, they are in their infancy. When they will come out of this state is still a question without an answer. We are watching!
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