In the near future, social media will have to reinvent itself. Declining user numbers, strong competitive pressure and constant innovation pressure – that is the world of social media today. Therefore, the future of social media is being researched feverishly. While Facebook strongly focuses on Social VR and sees virtual reality as a new playground for its users, Magic Leap takes a different path. Their approach is to be able to perform their tasks in the real world at the same time as interacting with their friends. The result: the AR App Avatar Chat.
Introducing Avatar Chat on Magic Leap One (Source: Magic Leap)
At the development conference L.E.A.P. Magic Leap already presented a first look into the new app. But now the application is gradually coming onto the market and finds its first testers. In principle Magic Leaps Social AR follows the classic functionalities of social media. Contents can be shared via the app, conversations can be started – all while you follow your everyday life at the same time. This is made possible by facial expressions and gestures.
“Spatial computing is meant to be shared. Soon, Cast will let people in the same room see what you see, when and where you see it. Plus, since with Avatar Chat you’ll basically be in the same room, they’ll be able to see the same content and applications, too.”
The user creates personalized, individual avatars with the avatar chat and brings them virtually to the user’s home. The free app works with the Magic Leap One hardware and, according to initial media reports, is very easy to set up. Simply download the app, choose a username, add additional information and off you go.
For release in December there are some predefined avatars available. But in the near future, the digital images will be completely customizable and will represent a digital mirror image of the user.
Innovation Profile: Magic Leap Avatar Chat
Magic Leap are not the first to work on a social media platform for augmented reality. Microsoft is also working on similar products with their HoloLens. At first glance, however, there are good hopes for the Avatar Chat from Magic Leap, as it offers the full range of functions.
Due to the still completely unknown use of AR avatars, the novelty is quite high, only the use of social media is known, so the use of Magic Leap does not get the full values. The insecurity on the other hand is rather lower. The handling of chats and social media is now learned and due to the similar functionalities people will quickly be able to handle the Augmented Reality variant of social networks. conflict content contains the still small distribution of AR hardware like the Magic Leap One or the HoloLens, which inevitably means a very small target group at first, but in the long run this will disappear with the increasing distribution of AR in everyday life. As Magic Leap emphasizes, the application is extremely easy to handle, therefore the complexity is very low.
Fazit: Magic Leap focuses on a future market where they will have a lot of potential.
Post picture: Magic Leap
