Author | Maji
Working day lunch break, Wu Shuang habitually opened the Jelly App. In the virtual square on the homepage, some "friends" are walking back and forth, and the latest status is clear at a glance.
Some people are staggering but still "moving bricks" diligently, some people are studying hard and "absorbed in learning", some are doing nothing and leisurely "fishing", and some people simply "lie down"...
Image source: Xiaohongshu@Honey Duke Chief Designer
Relying on these exquisite, cute and trendy virtual images, gel quickly became popular under the pursuit of young users.
Since it was launched on January 19, , the app that focuses on "meta-universe socialization", replaced WeChat in less than a month, topped the App Store for free in mainland China. , becoming the first app to squeeze WeChat off the top spot since 2019.
However, with the popularity, there are also controversies over the app's infringement of user privacy, lag during operation, and plagiarism in clothing and accessories.
On February 13, Jelly, which dominated the list for three consecutive days, took the initiative to remove the shelves and suspended new users from entering. The official said that the lag problem has not been solved in the three weeks since the app was launched, and the reason for the removal is to "focus on improving the existing user experience." In addition, Jelly has also announced that it will take legal action against all kinds of false rumors.
Under the popularity of the meta-universe, major domestic and foreign companies have frequently made frequent layouts in the meta-universe social track in recent years. "Jelly" is so efficiently surpassing WeChat to become the top of the list. Behind the phenomenon of , is the meta-cosmic social era that subverts traditional social interaction really coming?
1, trendy and cute, friends turn into figures
is similar to many "face-pinching" apps, and every gel user has his own 3D virtual image.
in the gel is equipped with 115 detailed facial features and 455 free clothing and accessories. Users can adjust the appearance and dress of their virtual image at any time according to their appearance and preferences.
Virtual clothing full of trends has caused many young people to be "planted grass".
On the social platform Xiaohongshu, there are more than 5,800 notes for searching for "Jelly Wearing". Among them, some users shared their daily outfits on gel under the label "OOTD" (Outfit of the Day, meaning "Today's outfit"), which attracted many netizens to watch. Some netizens said in their messages that the outfit on the gel provides inspiration for their daily outfits, while others posted to ask where to buy similar clothes.
In addition to freely pinching the face and dressing, Jel also designs different actions and scenes for virtual images according to the different moods and states set by the user.
For example, when choosing mood as "sad", the corresponding virtual image in the gel will sit on the sofa, hug the pillow and cry and wipe the tears; when choosing mood as "leisure", the virtual image will sit comfortably on the chair, cross your legs and brush your phone and "like"; and when choosing mood as "emo", the virtual villain squats in a large trash can with "unrecyclable", snatching the edge of the bucket with both hands, and looking out with tears...
Users can interact with these virtual friends active in the square through functions such as "poke" and "what are you doing", and you can also understand the geographical location of the other party through labels.
Interesting and cute personalized dynamic image made Wu Shuang unable to stop. "Each state has corresponding movements, and it's so cute to move around!" The way of displaying friends in
gel is also different from the "name + avatar" mode of other social media platforms, and is replaced by three-dimensional 3D characters on the virtual storage rack. "The process of adding friends is like opening a blind box. Friends stand on the shelf, like villains drawn out from the blind box, which is very interesting," said Wu Shuang.
Image source: Xiaohongshu@What to eat today
In addition, users can also post instant updates on gel and chat with friends.
At present, the Jelly App only allows users to invite 50 close friends to build a more private circle of friends, but the circle of friends of most platform users is still difficult to support such needs.
In order to enrich its gel social square and "collect" more friends as much as possible, many gel users actively "seek friends" through other social platforms.
On Xiaohongshu, some posts from friends who want to add gel have received positive responses from hundreds of netizens. They all posted their IDs, hoping to meet interesting "destined people" on the Jelly App.
2. Big companies are eyeing the popularity of the meta-universe social
, coupled with the rapid development of mobile Internet, deepening people's dependence on mobile social software.
From 2018 to 2020, the number of users of China Mobile's social platform increased from 770 million to 890 million. The social demand for acquaintances accounts for more than 60%, among which WeChat and QQ are the absolute heads.
And under the framework of the meta-universe, can Jelly's brief transcendence be regarded as the comprehensive rise of meta-universe social interaction?
As the concept of the meta-universe has become a trend, socializing has become one of the most attractive scenes. In recent years, social apps like Jelly have emerged one after another, and many major manufacturers have also regarded social interaction as an important incision to layout the metaverse.
Baidu officially launched the Metaverse project in December 2020, and officially released the Metaverse social product " Xirang " at the end of 2021. In the virtual space created by "Xiran", the "world" presents the shape of Mobius ring . The city is composed of multiple virtual buildings. The layout refers to of in the Tang Dynasty and in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and restores architectural attractions such as Shaolin Temple, Sanxingdui, and Hangzhou West Lake.
Image source: Baidu Xirang website introduction page
After users create virtual images in "Xirang" and sign the "Xirang Star People Convention", they can realize social functions such as dating, meetings, and exhibitions.
2021 Baidu AI Developer Conference will be held in "Xiang", becoming the first conference held in the metaverse in China, claiming to be able to accommodate 100,000 people to interact on the same screen at the same time.
Tencent and ByteDance have also joined the competition in the field of metaverse social networking. Currently, Tencent’s “Super QQ Show” and Byte’s “Party Island” are both out of the test stage.
On February 10 this year, Tencent QQ team launched the "Super QQ Show", upgrading user image from 2D to 3D, and supporting AI face-pinching and virtual image interaction functions, which was interpreted by the outside world as "an important step for Tencent to move towards the metaverse."
bytes launched the social product "Party Island" in January this year, which also has the color of "meta-universe". Users can join virtual scenes through virtual avatars and chat and interact with other users.
international social giant Meta, which started the meta-universe social layout earlier, is also accelerating its movements.
Recently, Horizon Worlds, a VR social platform built by Meta based on its VR devices Quest 2 and Oculus PC, was officially opened, and the first batch of adult users in the United States and Canada. In Horizon Worlds, users can create their own worlds and games and explore them together with others.
Another international Internet giant Microsoft announced that it will launch the chat collaboration platform Mesh for Microsoft Teams in the first half of this year. users can join online meetings, discuss or share files through virtual avatars.
Capital is popular, and the Metaverse social track is booming, and many platforms have recently won large amounts of financing.
In December 2021, the metaverse social platform Rec Room announced that it had completed a financing of US$145 million, with a post-investment valuation of US$3.5 billion. In the same month, the metaverse virtual social platform Zepeto received a Series B financing of approximately US$189 million, becoming a unicorn with a valuation of over US$1 billion.
On February 14 this year, the Yuanyun social platform BUD also announced that it had completed a US$15 million A+ round financing.
Bloomberg Industry Research Report predicts that the metaverse market size will reach US$800 billion in 2024. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that by 2030, the metaverse market size will reach US$1.5 trillion.
3. How many innovations are there in the meta-universe social networking?
virtual identity is considered a pass to enter the metaverse. Although the gameplay of various metaverse social platforms on the market is different, virtual identity and virtual image have become one of their common points .
However, products with similar functions have actually become popular in the global market for a long time, but at that time, there was no label of "Metauniverse".
At the end of 2018, the "face-pinching dress-up" App Zepeto triggered a "photo posting" craze in the circle of friends. This app, launched by Snow, a subsidiary of photography application subsidiary of South Korean Internet giant Naver, has occupied the top spot in the App Store for many consecutive days and became one of the absolute "hot" applications that year.
On Zepeto, users first need to "pinch" their own virtual image. Through virtual image, users can take photos with friends, visit schools, haunted houses and other attractions on the App, initiate voice chats, and even participate in camping activities or virtual weddings on the App.
According to the BBC, Zepeto users have now exceeded 250 million, and there are more than 1.6 billion virtual fashion clothing or accessories released on the platform, including Gucci, Burberry, Dior, Balenciaga and other international luxury brands.
Although Zepeto and Tencent launched the Chinese version of "Zaizai" in cooperation, it has not had much of a splash, but Taobao followed the trend and launched a similar product "Taobao Life", which quickly "gained the market" with the help of Taobao platform traffic.
public data shows that in 2020, Taobao Life users reached 400 million, of which more than 80% of the users were born in the 1990s.
is similar to Zepeto. "Taobao Life" not only supports face-pinching and dress-up changes, but also introduces virtual shoes and clothing accessories from major brands, and also includes simple social functions such as visiting friends' homes or forming virtual homes.
It is worth noting that when users change their clothes on "Taobao Life", they can also jump directly to the product sales page of Taobao. For some merchants, the monetization problem is directly solved.
Whether it is Zepeto or imitator "Taobao Life", the face-pinching products such as face-pinching and dress-ups, were all born before the concept of the meta-universe was popular.
even went back more than 10 years ago, 3D virtual images that can pinch faces and adjust their figures appeared in the Wii game console launched by Nintendo , as well as virtual friends squares similar to gels. However, the exquisiteness of the shape is far less than that of now, and the clothing has no fashion level, just a simple color logo. In addition, the networking between the hosts of wii does not support the networking, so friends cannot interact in real time, and can only perform game operations on the spot through the gamepad.
In contrast, most meta-universe social apps currently have more exquisite and delicate creation of virtual images and scenes, and some also splice more functional modules with social attributes. However, these "upgrades" do not seem to fully reflect the essential difference between them and previous social apps.
Since the underlying infrastructure of the metaverse product is far from completed, is a hurdle that technology cannot overcome for some products with more grand and complex scenarios.
Take Baidu Xirang as an example. After this app was officially opened to the public, it not only complained that the image quality was rough, the scene loading speed was slow, and the interaction method was single, but it also encountered negative comments because it crashed from time to time and even the page was stuck.
2021 Baidu AI Developer Conference was held in "Xiran", it claimed to be able to accommodate 100,000 people to interact on the same screen at the same time. Compared with the Meta product Horizon Worlds, which only supports 14 people's live chat, Xirang has great ambitions, but its actual performance is not satisfactory. After the developer conference begins, although users can speak, they cannot establish effective communication with each other due to the stuttering. Although
did not achieve the expected results, the basic computing power required behind this conference is already amazing.
"The demand for computing power in the meta universe is almost endless. The AI native cloud created by Baidu Intelligent Cloud provides PFLOPS-level super-heterogeneous computing power, hundreds of GB of bandwidth resources, and unlimited expansion storage for Hirang World to support this massive data transmission project." Baidu Senior Vice President Hou Zhenyu said when explaining the basic computing power support of the conference.
Baidu Vice President Ma Jie once said that Xigara still has many imperfect places, and there is still huge room for growth to the goal. At present, it can only be called version -6.0. Baidu and even the world's meta-universe exploration is still in a very early stage. Building a mature meta-universe community requires more world, manpower and material resources.
Under the meta-universe boom, Facebook simply changed its name to Meta, showing its determination to enter the meta-universe. But in fact, Meta's meta-universe division Reality Labs has accumulated a cumulative loss of US$21.3 billion in the past three years. Last year alone, the meta-universe business lost more than US$10 billion. Affected by this, Meta's stock price plummeted, and Zuckerberg's wealth shrank by nearly $40 billion this year, falling out of the top ten of the global rich list.
Looking at the domestic situation, the social app Soul was the first in the industry to propose the concept of "young people's social metaverse", but behind its glamorous user data, losses have also been expanding year by year.
As a new thing, the future of metacosmic social interaction is promising, but real social changes need to be supported by breakthroughs in core technologies. Although major manufacturers around the world are competing to layout the metaverse, many interesting products have indeed been born during this period, but at present, there is still a long way to go before the arrival of the real metaverse social era.
