Meta to help Microsoft | Opportunities for banks in the Metaverse | Fashion brands using Metaverse to improve customer experience & more…

Here’s your weekly roundup of what’s happened this week in a simple, easily digestible email every Friday. Let’s get started.

“In simplest terms, the metaverse is the internet, but in 3D.” Ed Greig, Chief Disruptor at Deloitte.

Microsoft is partnering with Meta to bring Virtual Reality into Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox. The two tech giants are combining their strengths to bring the main Microsoft services into the virtual future. 

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With virtual assets already being traded and sold in the metaverse, there is an inevitable demand for financial services, specifically banks. With banks' long history of dealing in financial markets, this is the chance for forward-thinking banks to capitalize on the untapped potential that the metaverse has to offer.

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Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared that an ‘Open, Interoperable’ Metaverse is ‘Better for everyone’. Will Meta open the door for collaboration with Web3 companies or will it keep building its digital world in a silo? 

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Luxury fashion brands like Hermes, Gucci, and Balenciaga are using metaverse gamification to create new digital experiences for their customers. The metaverse allows brands to produce the same collections in digital and reality, with adapted ideas unrestricted in the metaverse. 

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A report from The Information shows Meta, and other companies alike will spend upwards of $70 billion to build new digital worlds, but the next generation is already living in the metaverse.

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Why is the Metaverse happening now? Join Metalinq Co-Founder, Gaurang Torvekar, and Metaverse Liaison, Alexis Nicosia, as they discuss the traction that digital worlds have been gaining.