Regarding VR social networking, you need to understand these five issues

VR social networking has become quite popular recently due to the hype from High Fidelity.

In fact, I always feel that VR social networking is still a long way off, but why, why, is investment still so favorable to it?

On December 13, High Fidelity raised US$22 million in funding , led by IDG, and has already received US$40 million in total.

How far is VR social networking going? Why can I get the money?

What other areas can it be extended to?

Why is it said that current VR social networking is “technology-driven” rather than “ operation- driven”?

The most fundamental characteristic of human beings is sociality, and social interaction is a basic need to maintain communication between people.

With the development of communication technology and the Internet, people are no longer satisfied with face-to-face social interaction, which is a form of communication that is restricted by space. Therefore, there are more social media and means, which are an extension of offline social interaction.

Looking back, social products have always regarded connecting people for communication as their basic function.

In the PC era, Tencent QQ, Renren, Weibo, etc. have broken through geographical restrictions and allowed users to communicate through text and emoticons. In the era of mobile Internet , users can use fragmented time to find suitable social groups. Meipai, Miaopai , Xiaokaxiu , mobile live streaming , etc. have also become popular.

This is because social interaction has always been the most important part of human social activities.

As virtual reality is the next generation computing platform, social interaction will inevitably become an important development direction.

So what is the difference between VR social interaction and traditional social interaction?

1. What is the difference between VR social interaction and traditional social interaction?

The disruption of VR will not be visual imaging, but interaction.

With the continuous improvement of hardware, VR is being well applied in more and more fields. For example, remote meetings, press conferences, and multi-person online communications.

Of course, it’s not just VR. In the future, the boundaries between AR , VR, and MR will become increasingly blurred.

Simply put, in the future, social interaction will change from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, breaking through traditional limitations, breaking the existing human-computer interaction, and truly realizing zero-distance communication.

Unlike traditional instant messaging software, VR social networking focuses on deep interactions that transcend the barriers of the screen.

If the key point of social interaction in the past was "the diffusion of information", VR social interaction cares about "shared experience".

Although all of this is inseparable from computer simulation, it is more realistic and immersive than traditional communication tools such as voice, text, and video, and can better meet the increasingly demanding user experience needs.

Another point is that compared with traditional social models, all VR social interactions are still technology-driven.

It is more like a technological development rather than a real social product.

Traditional social networking has now reached the operation-driven stage. It relies on strong operations, channels , number of users, IP and resources of internet celebrities to develop. In the past, whether it was WeChat , Weibo, Xiaokaxiu or Miaopai, celebrities and internet celebrities used it first, and then users followed suit.

However, VR social networking will be in such a technology-driven period for about 2-3 years. Only when the product has a real form, is accepted by the public, and verified by the market, will we enter an era where operations are the main driver.

This also explains why most VR social networking is open source today.

Just like High Fidelity, which just received $22 million in financing, it is an open source content development platform that completely opens up the gameplay to users, who can create their own games.

Because only in this way can VR social networking allow more people to participate and accelerate the evolution of the industry.

2. What pain points does VR social networking solve for users in traditional social networking?

In my opinion, VR social networking solves the three major pain points that users faced in traditional social networking: visual enjoyment, interactive entertainment, and user engagement.

Improve visual enjoyment

The original social interaction only saw pictures, texts and information, but VR social interaction can make users feel shocked by the visual effects;

Interactive entertainment to the extreme

Compared with current social tools, VR social networking can take entertainment interaction to the extreme. For example, you can maximize the interactivity of live broadcasts . When you broadcast live in a virtual world, your audience is not watching outside the screen, but interacting with you in the same world.

Enrich and deepen user engagement

Compared with the original social forms, in VR social interaction, users can do things that they cannot do in the real world, and the VR social scenarios in the future will be richer and can provide users with richer experiences.

But it must be said that virtual reality is ultimately a transitional solution for humans in the process of abandoning screen constraints, and its problems will also be brought into VR social networking.

3. What other problems does VR social networking still face?

The problem of user habit formation

For users who are already accustomed to more convenient social tools, VR social interaction is a bit cumbersome and they cannot fully engage in it.

Let me give you a simple example.

When you want to enter a virtual world and travel with friends in another world, first of all, you must adjust the helmet, put it on your head properly, then disconnect from the outside world and immerse yourself in it.

For most people who are accustomed to convenient and mature social tools such as WeChat, Weibo, and live streaming, there still needs to be a process of acceptance.

Of course, the experience that VR social networking can bring is something that traditional social networking cannot provide. Therefore, when the technology matures to a certain level, VR social interaction will definitely subvert previous social experiences.

The challenges of technology development

In addition to user awareness, the most basic interaction problem needs to be solved urgently for VR social practitioners.

The basic problems that need to be solved include deep learning, facial expression recognition, hand recognition, three-dimensional scene restoration, and multi-person online data transmission.

Each problem taken individually is extremely difficult to solve.

For example, data transmission.

In a virtual scene, interaction is no longer about typing a word or sending an expression, but about greeting in real time with different facial expressions. If the data transmission is not strong, people's movements will be stiff and rigid, and there will be no pleasure of face-to-face communication.

Product development issues

In the future, as users' habits are further developed, existing technical difficulties will be further overcome. How to design products to be more fun, how to develop more new ways to play, and how to conduct effective user operations for social products will also be the challenges that VR social networking will face in the future.

4. What should we learn from overseas VR social teams?

As for the VR social networking that is in full swing overseas, it can be divided into two categories: one is tool-based; the other is

More like social games .

Tool Type

Represented by Facebook, Daydream, Holoportation, and High Fidelity.

It mainly breaks the distance between users, allowing users to create a common experience in virtual scenes through technologies such as gesture recognition, expression synchronization, and visual recognition.

For example, High Fidelity is like an editor where users can create their own world.

Social Games

This category is represented by Recroom, whose logic is similar to previous domestic games such as Kaixin and Toucai. It uses VR technology to create a multiplayer online gaming experience and emphasizes social attributes.

This type of VR social product does not emphasize image quality and visual experience, nor does it emphasize the intensity of the game. It is more of a light interaction.

Whether they are application tools or social games, these products can obtain financing overseas because VR social networking has strong scalability, and the technology in it can be applied to education, conferences, media releases and other forms, bringing about a comprehensive upgrade of other applications.

At present, as a number of excellent social teams have emerged overseas, their solutions have also attracted our attention and learning.

1. Connect with various devices. Recently, the overseas team has simultaneously optimized the interactive elements in the scene and achieved the best based on the existing interactive devices. For example, Altsapce supports Oculus Touch controllers, Vive controllers, and leap motion, thereby restoring hand movements.
2. Interactive synchronization. The position and movement data of interactive props in the scene are also accurately synchronized. For example, the basketball or dart objects in the main lobby of Rec Room, as long as you pick it up, other players will see you interacting with it.

5. What can domestic VR social teams do?

For an excellent social product, the entry point and gameplay are the most important, and the same is true for VR social networking.

In this area, I would also like to share some of the explorations we have done so far.

In exploring the gameplay and experience of VR social networking, I think we can start with live streaming, try to interact between real anchors and virtual users, and realize it through mobile terminals.

Of course, it is difficult to say whether this approach will be successful.

However, live streaming has been accepted by the public and has a mature business model . Moreover, there are a large number of mobile VR users, and they are more receptive to "non-tiring" VR that focuses on viewing experience and is supplemented by light interaction.

Therefore, if VR users can send gifts to the anchors across the screen, use props with each other, etc., and let them try more novel interactions, the habit will gradually be formed.