We haven’t talked about metaverse for a while — here some news

3 innovation and digital news in 1 minute. Every Monday. Episode 311

News 1: TikTok also with an avatar builder and Douyin?

TikTok, an app from Chinese giant ByteDance, has launched its own avatar builder. One builds one’s own avatar or uses a library by creators. The twin app in China Douyin also launched it with designers providing character libraries (see pic — credit: behance). Opinion: We aren’t used to this, TikTok being a late follower! Meta and above all Snap has had an avatar builder for a while. And now comes TikTok. Go on camera, effects and search for “avatars”. A comprehensive avatar builder.

Building an avatar is fun. On TikTok as well.

News 2: Walmart twice on Roblox, under presssure

Walmart, the US retail giant, is on Roblox with two “immersive experiences”. A Walmart Land, interaction with fashion, style, beauty and entertainment products. And Walmart Universe of Play, focussed on toys. Walmart follows and experiments with the 3D world in Roblox. Opinion: Good news for Roblox among unsatisfactory quarter results: growing loss of $140m, loss of daily active users (52,2 millions) but still a revenue increase of 30% vs. 2021.

Less regular users , but spending more on Roblox. And two new “lands” from Walmart.

News 3: From 2D to 3D reality in architecture — Twinmotion

In 2019 Epic Games (Fortnite, unreal Engine) acquired the 3D architecture specialist twinmotion, and now partner with the 2D design and architecture builder Autodesk. This is Epic Games and their mighty Unreal Engine platform entering a new vertical: design and architecture. Opinion: It makes sense to create and plan building in 3D rather than 2D. We often are asked this question “Why 3D, 2D is enough?”. 3D can show, in that case, buildings in real environment, do immersive visit and also prototype with the 3rd dimension.

Epic Games, out of gaming more and more, in automotive, now in architecture.