Younger consumers are more receptive to tools that encourage brand interaction and communication, and the metaverse allows luxury brands to create community through personalized digital connections, said a Tuesday Colliers luxury retail report. Of potential metaverse participants, 72% showed interest in an Alo Yoga wellness space on Roblox and a Louis Vuitton game with non-fungible tokens (NFTs); 70% were interested in Discord channels for brands including Gucci and Adidas; 67% in Nike’s Nikeland and a Wendy’s virtual food fight; 65% in a Vans’ virtual skatepark on Roblox; 60% in shopping at the U.K.’s Selfridges Electric/City; and 27% in buying virtual Gucci and Balenciaga products on Roblox or Fortnite, Colliers said. NFT sales totaled about $25 billion last year, it said. Despite the hype around the metaverse, “most consumers have never heard of it or do not fully understand its capabilities,” the report said: “As a result the metaverse will remain a niche channel for the foreseeable future.”

Qualcomm is sampling to select OEMs its new Smart Viewer reference design, which eliminates the cord between augmented reality glasses and a compatible smartphone, Windows PC or processing puck, it said Friday. The XR2 platform has a 40% thinner design and more balanced weight distribution than the previous version, the company said. Eliminating the cord in a design that enables lighter weight AR glasses will help advance immersive experiences in the metaverse, it said.

Liquid Avatar Technologies launched what it called the first payment card and loyalty program created specifically for the metaverse. The physical Lqid debit/prepaid card is tied to OptimizeFT’s Engage360 payment card and digital banking platform in the U.S., the company said Monday. Cardholders can earn cash back by shopping at Liquidshopz, while earning points when participating in its Aftermath Islands Metaverse activities, it said. Liquid Avatar believes combining familiar functionality with metaverse activity will lead to more widespread participation in metaverse experiences. Customers will be able to buy digital land, products and games in a way “that reflects our real-world behaviors, preferences and protocols,” the company said, saying its approach “lowers barriers to entry and will set Aftermath Islands apart from other metaverse experiences that only accept cryptocurrency.” On whether the company’s plans are to offer a transition path to cryptocurrency, a spokesperson said that's in “consideration mode.” In addition to Aftermath Islands, Liquid Avatar developed other associated themed islands, utilitarian nonfungible tokens, customizable 3D Meta Avatars as part of the Meta Hero Project, verifiable credential-backed digital identity tech, and a partnership with Game Credits for the Multiverse Collective, which allows interoperability between two or more metaverses.

Jeans maker Wrangler is launching a nonfungible token (NFT) drop to commemorate its 75-year anniversary, it said Tuesday. It’s partnering with recording artist Leon Bridges, releasing 75 digitally animated NFTs this month featuring one of Bridges’ dance moves. The NFTs give collectors access to digital communities, Wrangler-branded metaverse wearables and a VIP pass to a private performance by Bridges at New York Fashion Week in September, said the company. After the seven-day auction on the ltd.inc platform ends, the 75 NFTs will be tradable on secondary NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea, it said. Wrangler also plans to host an inclusive metaverse event called Wranglerverse in September, when it will auction a denim jacket NFT that's a replica of one Wrangler created for Bridges.

A quarter of the world’s population by 2026 will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education and entertainment, predicted Gartner Monday. It defines a metaverse as a “collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality,” it said. “Vendors are already building ways for users to replicate their lives in digital worlds,” said Gartner. “Eventually, they will take place in a single environment -- the metaverse -- with multiple destinations across technologies and experiences.” No single vendor will own the metaverse, so Gartner expects it “to have a virtual economy enabled by digital currencies and nonfungible tokens,” it said. “The metaverse will impact every business that consumers interact with every day,” but adoption of metaverse technologies is “nascent and fragmented,” and it’s still too early to know “which investments will be viable in the long term,” it said.

Liquid Avatar Technologies and Game Credits launched the Multiverse Collective, an alliance designed to let independent metaverses share technical, business and marketing resources to create value among members. The companies’ Aftermath Islands Metaverse and Genesis Worlds companies are each building a metaverse in an interoperable environment, they said Monday. The collaboration includes joint development, marketing, authentication of users, verifiable credentials, and community engagement throughout the life cycle of each metaverse, “ensuring that users will be able to engage in a shared safe and secure experience,” the companies said. Working together early in the development process allows both metaverses, and future partners of the Multiverse Collective, to ensure their virtual spaces work together to create a “seamless experience” for users, said Genesis Worlds CEO Jason Cassidy. “Doing this from the beginning makes it much easier than attempting to add interoperability several years down the road when much of the technical plumbing has already been set up,” he said. Principles include fair game play among players, promotion of good actor strategies and creating open standards to support the build and technology stacks of members.

Worldwide cloud infrastructure services spending topped $50 billion in a quarter for the first time in Q4, growing 34% year on year to $53.5 billion, reported Canalys Thursday. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, grew 45% in total, to 64% of customer spend, it said. Continuing COVID-19 pandemic-related consumption drivers -- remote working and learning, e-commerce, gaming and content streaming were contributors -- along with healthcare and public sector infrastructure services, it said. The metaverse will drive future demand and the need for more powerful, distributed, intelligent and scalable services with lower latency, Canalys said. The metaverse will resemble the internet today, “with enhanced capabilities and an amplified compute consumption rate,” said the research firm. Use cases are expected to be gaming, social media, workplace collaboration, education, real estate, e-commerce and digital commerce, including nonfungible tokens, it said.

DJ and songwriter David Guetta will perform as his avatar self on the Roblox platform beginning Friday at 4 p.m. PST, in what creators Wonder Works Studio and Warner Music Group said Tuesday will bring an “intergalactic club venue” to the metaverse. Attendees can navigate the show through a virtual “asteroid-traversing obstacle course" with crystals, neon lights, lasers, holograms and “thumping speakers,” they said. Attendees will be able to participate in dance battles, work puzzles that unlock special abilities, buy virtual merchandise, have a Q&A session with Guetta and experience a 45-minute music set, they said. A show preview is available.

The evolution of the metaverse will be characterized by decentralization of power, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Friday. He noted the internet is led by large technology companies, including social media businesses, “that seek to control their environments and profit off of their user bases (including through ad sales) without compensating those users proportionately.” In the metaverse, users will drive the space with user-generated content (UGC), including non-fungible tokens, he said. Creators can sell UGCs, “with the sale recorded on the blockchain and the user receiving compensation in the form of fiat money,” he said. Powerful creation engines and toolsets are lowering the barriers to entry for development for the masses, Pachter said, which should drive engagement “to levels far beyond those currently seen in gaming and elsewhere.” The metaverse will create new businesses and economies “with success likely proportional to the levels that the user base is incentivized to participate,” including through favorable financial terms, he said: “Greater participation will be a key element of the Metaverse’s ultimate success.”