Metaverse App Competitive Analysis

To facilitate the author's summary and everyone's reading, we roughly summarize the characteristics of the metaverse as "virtual images, social relationships, UGC and economic systems" in this article. (The devices used for this evaluation are iPhone 13 Pro Max and Redmi Note 9.)

1. Soul: A Metaverse Attempt at a Soul Social App

Soul is the earliest social product in China that provides “soul friendship”. It was officially launched in mainland China on September 14, 2015. It can even be said that it has caused changes in the way of socializing in China to a certain extent. Users on Soul are called Soulers and friends are called Soul friends. On May 10, 2021, Soul defined itself as a social metaverse for the first time in its prospectus.

According to Sensor Tower data, Soul (domestic iOS version) had 800,000 downloads and monthly revenue of US$2 million in December 2021. However, Soul App has not been overseas for long, and it has only officially started its overseas expansion in the past two years. However, given its domestic product and operational experience, it has now gradually begun to penetrate into the North American, Japanese and Southeast Asian markets.

Currently, the overseas version of Soul has 5 first-level menus including Planet, Explore, Release, Chat and Personal Homepage.

Soul's score is 10 points.

1. Avatar

Soul overseas version of Avatar is divided into two parts:

1. Initial avatar. After the user completes the soul test and basic information such as age and gender, Soul will ask the user to choose a cartoon picture as an avatar. By the way, the initial avatars listed by Soul are to some extent very consistent with overseas political correctness, with 3 out of 9 avatars having black skin.
2. Manually pinch the face. Users can adjust their Avatar image in multiple dimensions such as hairstyle, face shape, eyebrows, eyes, double eyelids, nose, mouth, beard, moles, spots, contouring, glasses, earrings, headwear, masks, clothing, and hoods. Although it does not support full manual face pinching, it has to be said that the materials provided by Soul are still very rich, especially in terms of mouth, eyebrows and other parts, providing many creative options. In addition, metaverse concept apps that provide "mask" options are indeed rare. I don’t know why when I wrote this, I suddenly imagined a drama about an ancient Qing Dynasty palace being mistaken for a romantic drama…

Of course, if the user is too lazy to do it, he can also click "Auto" and the system will automatically provide a set of pre-matched models for the user to choose and adjust. However, it is worth noting that the system-matched Avatar sets will use many paid options . This is also a clever feature of Soul. If you want to save trouble and look good, you need an equal exchange.

2. UGC

Currently, the overseas version of Soul does not leave much room for users to create freely. Strictly speaking, the only content that has a direct entrance is the information flow content, which can be created by users. In addition to ordinary pictures, texts and videos, videos and photos created by users in "Soul Cam" can also be uploaded to the exploration information flow.

In addition to beauty and filter support in Soul Cam, Soul also provides AR tools. Users can use AR filters to record interesting videos . After trying it, the author found that the "face-sticking" effect of the filter is very good, and it can basically achieve synchronized blinking and mouth opening and closing. The effect is quite interesting. I put up the author's funny video for your reference.

Although it is a metaverse social app, Soul’s current positioning is still more inclined towards “social”, so the UGC part will be smaller.

3. Social

Soul provides many solutions for building social relationships:

1. Planet. Users can randomly search for users they are interested in on the planet and send greeting messages to them.
2. MeetMe. The system will find "highly matching" users for them based on their "soul test" results.
3. Random voice matching. This is also the core function that made Soul popular in China. During the random voice process, both parties are anonymous, but Soul provides ice-breaking solutions such as sending emoticons, rock-paper-scissors, and shaking dice. Your real information will only be shown to the other party when the conversation ends and both parties agree to add each other as friends.
4. Virtual party. Users can join a public voice room or choose to create their own party room. During the self-building process, users can freely choose the room theme, room name, room background and room music style.
5. People nearby.
6. Information flow. Users can also send greeting messages directly to users in the information flow, allowing content to serve as a bridge of connection.

4. Economic system

At present, gold coins are the circulating currency in Soul (Soul Coins). Users need to use gold coins to purchase paid materials in Avatar, set avatar frames, and send gifts to others.

There are two ways for users to obtain gold coins:

1. You can get gold coins by completing daily tasks such as logging into the App, posting content, sending gifts, and joining virtual parties.
2. top up.

The price of Soul App in the US is $0.99/360 gold coins, $7.99/3070 gold coins, and $25.99/10400 gold coins. If you only use it to modify the Avatar, then the amount of gold coins you need to spend is actually not that high. Without setting a budget, I only spent 890 gold coins to modify an Avatar I liked, which means that $7.99 can be used to complete at least 3 satisfactory combinations.

This is because many of Soul’s materials are open to users for free, and the prices of paid materials are not high.

However, if the user's gold coins are mainly used for giving gifts and setting avatar frames, the speed of gold coin consumption will be greatly increased. The cheapest four-leaf clover on Soul costs 30 gold coins, the most expensive Love Train costs 29,999 gold coins, and most gifts cost more than 499.

The price range of avatar frames is even more obvious, with the cheapest being 1,500 gold coins and the most expensive being 36,800 gold coins.

Considering the user usage scenarios on Soul, Avatar image and gift-giving should be frequently used functions.

From my trial experience, users are currently unable to earn revenue through the overseas version of Soul App.

5. Overall experience

Compared with the domestic version, Soul has cut many functions overseas, but it has also made some more localized attempts. As a social app, Soul does provide many feasible social connection methods, but if we look at the characteristics of the metaverse we noted at the beginning of the article, Soul is indeed not metaverse enough.

2. Healer: A warm healing community

In fact, according to the four characteristics of "Avatar, UGC, economic system, and social relationships" that we proposed at the very beginning, it seems difficult for Healer to be defined as a Metaverse App for the time being. However, given that it calls itself a "social metaverse" in its revenue store, and that many readers and friends recommended it during the collection of new community + circle of friends metaverse products, it was listed.

According to App Annie data, Healer was launched on November 16, 2020.

So far, Healer has entered the App Store's social download list Top 100 in 3 countries and regions, and the social download list Top 500 in 19 countries. The best ranking markets were Nauru and Laos. I guess he didn't go out to sea specifically.

According to Helaer's official statement, Helaer is an anonymous social app that focuses on emotional companionship and psychological healing for Generation Z, and any emotion of every user can be heard. There are currently 5 first-level menus including Home, Community, Release, Message, and My.

Healer's rating is 7.5.

Healer's score is not high, but this does not mean that Healer's product is bad or that it does not provide enough services to users. It's just that it is not metaverse enough.

1. Avatar

Due to the anonymous social positioning, Avatar is particularly important. Healer provides users with two face-shaping methods: template and customization. The ready-to-use templates provided in the template are diverse and cute in style.

But the customization part is apparently “not customizable enough”, as users can only simply choose hairstyles, clothing, necklaces, glasses, hair accessories, headwear and stickers. And more importantly, the Healer's Avatar image only has eyes, no mouth or nose. The author personally thinks that the mouth is a very critical display in emotional expression, probably to reduce the difficulty of development.

But overall, the Avatar I created using Healer is cute. In addition, on the personal homepage, Healer provides users with some very warm and healing moment pictures as backgrounds to increase care.

2. UGC

The main form of content that Healer allows users to create is text and images, and it also has a voice function. Users can choose to publish a wish or a community. Wishes can only be published in text and will be sent to the homepage, while communities can be published in the form of pictures, text or voice.

3. Social

Healer left several social channels:

1. Users can click on "Accompany" under the wishes posted by other users to start a private chat session.
2. Users can click "hug", like or comment on community content posted by other users.
3. You can click Match on the homepage, and Healer will match based on the age and tags selected by the user.
4. Voice room.

Screenshots

5. Script. This is a relatively innovative way to play Healer. When one user initiates a script and the other party agrees, they will enter a 7-day script together. During this period, the two people will complete various interactive tasks, and the right to judge the completion is in the hands of the other party.

4. Economic system

Healer's creator economy is slightly different from other products. Users can open a "healing grocery store" in Healer and use their skills and knowledge to provide services to others. Grocery stores can "sell" multiple products at the same time and can freely set prices in Healer coins. The model is somewhat similar to the companion play app, but the monetization model and product positioning are quite appropriate.

5. Overall experience

During use, I found that the Healer team added a lot of interesting little designs to the product. In addition, I anonymously posted a community content titled "I'm emo", and within 10 minutes, 5 users either "hugged me" or liked my post.

In addition, judging from the content posted by other users, the frequency of use is quite high and the content posted is also very lifelike. Therefore, Healer can indeed be called an interesting niche community app, but it is indeed not metaverse enough.

3. Sweech Sweet Cheese: Focus on brides-to-be, get popular dances with one click

According to App Annie data, Sweech was officially launched on January 11, 2021. It has entered the Top 100 of the App Store Lifestyle Download List in 5 countries or regions around the world. It has currently accumulated a small number of valued users in markets such as Southeast Asia. Sweech seems to have hit the fashion track just like Star Idol, or more precisely, the bride-to-be.

Sweech has three first-level menus: World, Me+ and Works. In Me+, there are four second-level menus: Photography, Creation, Invitations and Dressing.

1. Avatar

Sweech allows users to modify and adjust the Avatar's hairstyle, beard, glasses, top, pants, shoes and background. To be honest, Sweech does not support many dimensions for users to adjust, which also results in most of the user Avatars on Sweech being similar.

However, there are still some details that show that Sweech is trying to polish the product seriously. For example, when you look closely, the Avatar image will start to blink, and the blinking frequency is similar to that of humans, but it will only blink about 10 times. In addition to the close-up, users can also see the Avatar's full body shape, and can also understand the effects behind the Avatar by rotating it left and right. In addition, every time the user clicks on the screen, the Avatar will automatically change an action.

2. UGC

Sweech’s UGC approach is quite interesting and is well-matched with its target user group of brides-to-be. There are three main types of UGC for users on Sweech:

(1) Create videos

Sweech provides users with a collection of dance moves. Users only need to click on the video and click "My turn", and replace the male and female protagonists in the dance with themselves to generate a video with the same template. It is a bit like Jianying's one-click editing of the same style, but the usage threshold and editability are lower. But after trying it, I found it quite interesting, because when changing characters, you can take photos with the users you follow with just one click.

(2) Create a plot

Users can create short stories by adding backgrounds, characters, stickers and dialogues. And an interesting setting is that users can add multiple "characters" and can choose whether the added content is a character's head, half body or full body. My own experience with the app is that it is suitable for activities such as sister gatherings, taking photos and traveling, but since the action and direction cannot be adjusted, it is difficult to create something deeper.

(3) Create wedding invitations

Currently, the system provides some templates for video leave requests. Users only need to change the names, time, and address of the newlyweds and replace the pictures and texts to generate wedding video invitations that are the same as the template.

Sweech does provide users with a relatively diverse range of UGC creation tools, but perhaps considering the difficulty of creation for users, many creations are semi-automatic, leaving users with little room for truly free creation. Currently, the social methods provided by Sweech are relatively limited. Users can follow and initiate conversations in the world by clicking on the author of the video content.

3. Economic system

Currently, there is no currency in circulation in Sweech, and all templates and materials can be used for free, but this also means that users cannot generate income through their creations.

Although it does not have its own currency, Sweech seems to have begun exploring monetization. The platform has introduced an offline high-end wedding hall, where users can click to view the name, address, contact information, pricing and schedule of each banquet hall, user reviews, etc.

As the scenes and UGC within the Sweech platform gradually open up and mature, opening wedding banquet halls online and diverting traffic to offline is also an interesting closed loop.

4. Overall experience

There is no doubt that Sweech has some new things and interesting designs, and the idea of ​​opening offline stores in the virtual world is also very interesting, but it is obvious that it is still in the product polishing stage, the functions are not yet perfect and the fluency needs to be further improved.

4. May: Using motion capture to enhance the realism of Avatar

According to Sensor Tower data, May was launched on October 16, 2021, and was last updated on November 11, 2021. It has stopped updating for two months, but it still seems to be usable.

Rather than saying that May is a metaverse product, it is more like the company's first step into the metaverse world, because you can clearly feel that some new technologies are applied in the May product, but the product performance is indeed a bit rough.

There are currently three first-level menus: Explore, Friends and Personal Homepage. There are four secondary menus in the exploration: Character, Room, World and Message.

May's score is 6.5.

Since May has stopped updating, we will not elaborate on the four dimensions in detail, and it is no longer updated, so we will try to talk about the reference points:

1. The most unique thing is that May can capture the user's dynamic expressions and apply them to the Avatar in real time , and actions such as raising eyebrows, blinking, closing mouth, turning head, etc. can be realized. However, there is still room for improvement in capturing eyebrows, nose, brows and body movements.
2. May's Avatar material selection is presented in a semi-arc sliding manner . From my own experience, this method can help me complete the material selection more quickly, more efficiently and more intuitively.
3. In terms of interactive design, users can enter a world or room and interact with other users by typing or direct voice. While the user is speaking, the Avatar's mouth in May will open and close with the user. In addition to the third-person perspective, users can also switch to the first-person perspective to observe the people and scenes around them, which will make it easier to feel involved. Unfortunately, users can’t move around the room or perform actions other than greeting and clapping…
4. In terms of the economic system, May introduced Opensea. Currently, NFTs can be purchased in the world, and NFTs can be embedded in the scene in the form of decorations.

5. Slow Planet: Although the current rating is not high, the immersion is very strong

According to App Annie data, Huanhuan Planet was launched globally on December 5, 2021, less than 2 months ago. It has entered the App Store Top 100 social download list in 9 countries and regions, and was ranked 56th on the Macau, China social download list on January 24, 2022.

By the way, the parent company of Huanhuan Planet is called "Just Happiness", which is in line with the naming preferences of young entrepreneurs today.

According to its introduction on the App Store, Huanhuan Planet is a slow-living community that uses virtual images and real-time voice functions to create a soothing sense of companionship.

Slow Planet's score is 6 points.

The score of Huanhuan Planet is not high, but it is not because it is bad. On the contrary, compared with some previous products with higher scores than it, the essence of Huanhuan Planet is even more in line with the concept of the metaverse.

Huanhuan Planet does not have a homepage in the traditional sense. What users see after entering is not the world or the community, but just a small space of their own. Moreover, this space is warmly decorated with a bed, windows, bookshelves, sofas, etc.

The entire room is suspended in the air and there is no specific area set, so users can freely imagine. When the user walks onto the carpet mat at the door, a pop-up window to the square will pop up and the user will enter the square.

After entering the square, users have several interactive scenes:

1. chat. When a user approaches other users, the system will automatically open real-time voice and text pop-up windows. When they move away from each other, the voice will disappear, which is very close to the physical rules of the real world. Some social products are currently using this setting, but only a few have been applied to metaverse concept products. In addition to 1V1 chat, Huanhuanxingqiu also supports up to 6 people approaching to automatically form a group voice and chat together.
2. square. Users can "post messages, share happiness, complain, make wishes, and publish product suggestions" in the square. Although there were not many people online when I tried it, the activity level in each area was still quite high. They also help each other solve small problems encountered during use. For example, two friends actively helped me when I couldn’t find my way home.
3. Activities at designated locations. When a user enters a specific area, special functions can be triggered. For example, a user can walk onto the stage of a coffee shop and start using the microphone, and every user in the coffee room can hear it. And when someone is using the public microphone, users can still chat normally.
4. Planetary activities. Huanhuan Planet will regularly invite some interesting people to share on the planet. For example, on January 27, 2022, the talk show host Nianlun was invited to share the writing techniques of stand-up comedy and some observations of talk show hosts at 21:00. Users need to make an appointment in advance and enter the cafe on time. This actually simulates the situation of watching talk show hosts in real life.

Since it has only been online for two months, the product maturity of Huanhuan Planet is not very high, but you can still see many interesting settings and designs. I really recommend everyone to download and experience it. The immersive experience is very strong! ! ! Although crude, it is interesting.

It should be said that although the global metaverse concept apps are still in a very early stage, the metaverse world may not arrive until 20-30 years later. Even from a pessimistic point of view, our generation may not be able to witness the real metaverse world with our own eyes until we die, but this does not affect everyone's active exploration of new ways of interaction.

In addition, I would like to say a few more words based on my own observations. At present, people's exploration of the metaverse is mostly focused on the visual aspect, but in fact, the exploration of the sound aspect is also worthy of attention. In "Gamer", the heroine's Avatar can change from an Australian accent to a London accent through a voice changer.

In addition, in the process of understanding and evaluating Metaverse products, the author found that the inspiration of some overseas products was obviously from social products, dating products, game products, tool products and even movies, and then through interesting combinations with product positioning, many interesting designs were explored. There are also platforms in China that have realized the "Ten Thousand Dogs Dance". The first step to making a good Metaverse product may be to open up your imagination.

Finally, IMVU, ZEPETO, itsme, Snapchat, and Gacha Club are really worth studying.

Author: Xin Tong; Official Account: Baijing App