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An Overlooked Solution For 'Virtual Event Fatigue'
There are countless articles, tweets, and LinkedIn posts from marketers and others expounding upon the future of virtual events and conferences; how ...
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “immersive technology”?
Oculus is one of the most recognizable brands when it comes to immersive technologies. However, new players have entered the market in recent years, bringing new and exciting technology to an ever-growing list of use cases. Today, many of the world’s leading brands have begun to leverage these new technologies to create powerful, immersive experiences for prospects and customers.
“Immersive experiences are shifting from en vogue to in demand,” says Ricky Ray Butler, CEO at BEN. Hollywood’s first experiment with 4D featured 3D screens, haptics, and simulated weather. But these flashy gimmicks aren’t enough. I believe audiences are craving immersive experiences across entertainment that actively respond to them.”
If you’ve considered leveraging immersive technology, there’s no better time than the present. In fact, many of the world’s leading videoconferencing and virtual event platforms have found a solid solution in one unique type of immersive technology – spatial audio.
There are hundreds of use cases for immersive technology like spatial audio. In this article, we’ve highlighted some of the ways brands are using next-generation technologies to create jaw-dropping virtual experiences for their customers.
Immersive Technology as a Competitive Advantage
Today, the success of your growing app development company relies heavily on staying ahead of the curve. This means investing in the very best tools to outpace your competitors and build high-quality digital applications.
Use technology as a competitive advantage.
“With technological innovation, your company can form a sustainable competitive advantage that can help cement your place as a segment or industry leader,” says Ilya Lipovich, CEO and Co-founder at Cider Corp.
As a best practice, consider modeling your approach after those that have come before you. How will you use immersive technology to shape your next app?
Here is a list of five amazing brands using immersive technology this year:
1. Niantic’s Pokemon GO
Pokemon GO is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. The augmented reality video game purpose-built for mobile is stronger than ever, bringing in millions of new users from all around the world. Over the years, Pokemon GO has become one of the most dynamic and exciting augmented reality experiences ever created.
If you haven’t played the game, players “search” for Pokemon in real-world locations, using GPS to track and catch ‘em all. And it’s not just the game’s excitable characters that keep players coming back for more. Instead, it’s the powerful and immersive experiences created with every swipe or flick of the wrist. It actually feels like you’re a part of a new and exciting virtual world.
By granting remote access to key points of interest, battle scenarios, and training opportunities, Pokemon GO even survived the COVID-19 pandemic, reeling in an estimated $1.92 billion in 2020.
“Pokemon GO will continue to be a massive force in the mobile industry for the indefinite future, and are easily one of the biggest success stories of gaming in 2020, even as the industry as a whole has surged due to next-generation consoles and increased playtime due to lockdowns,” says Forbes Senior Contributor Paul Tassi.
2. Hubbub’s Virtual Meeting Spaces
Hubbub offers a platform for “natural conversations in beautiful spaces online” that encourage increased engagement among participants and attendees of virtual meetings, presentations, conferences. With just a few clicks, people can easily move through the digital space. Hubbub uses High Fidelity’s Spatial Audio API to help people have natural conversations that feel more like they would if they were in the same physical space.
“We needed to specify our users’ locations without sacrificing the quality of the audio. High Fidelity does that perfectly. I’m so happy,” says Soo Ling Lim, CEO at Hubbub.
To create your own web application using High Fidelity’s Spatial Audio API, create a free developer account and consult our library of guides and code examples.
3. SoundStage’s Interactive Concerts
SoundStage makes it simple and easy to party with your favorite music artists inside a powerful virtual experience platform. This on-demand platform has already attracted the attention of internationally renowned artists, including Bastion and Deerskin.
“Every artist has fans for whom their music reaches deep and has lasting effects at an existential level. We’re excited to provide a means for fans to experience intimate, authentic connections with artists that have influenced them the most,” says Ara Kevonian, CEO at SoundStage.
In the video above, experience a short recap of a virtual concert hosted by SoundStage and Kill Paris. Event attendees can move throughout the digital space, interact with one another, and even communicate with the DJ.
4. Beat Games’ Beat Saber
Move to the music with Beat Games’ virtual reality rhythm game. Gamers wield virtual sabers to slash through music notes. With each rhythmic beat, the music intensifies, challenging gamers to quickly and accurately hit each note.
Last year, Beat Saber generated more than $2 million in sales. Additionally, the game is routinely ranked as one of the top virtual reality games for the Oculus.
5. Skittish Meetup Spaces
Skittish is a new online events platform where you attend events as an animal avatar. Easily explore the digital work using your mouse or WASD keys. As you navigate through the space, spatial audio allows you to hear short snippets of others’ conversations. “Unlike a Zoom call, Skittish is a place — one where its inhabitants can bump into one another, do activities together and wait for serendipity to strike.”
This project is led by Andy Baio, XOXO Festival co-founder. According to Baio, many of the virtual events he attended in recent months were lacking.
“A lot of them didn’t feel like events to me,” said Baio in an interview with The Verge. “They weren’t social in any meaningful way. Some felt like watching a Youtube video with a chat room, while others had elements like breakout rooms that were intended to recreate a social experience that just weren’t the same as an in-person event.”
“Skittish spaces initially accommodated up to 120 mixed voices in a single room, but the audio capacity is even higher now. Though he’s still testing what the new limits might be, Skittish is getting closer to Baio’s goal of hosting 1000-person events,” Taylor Hatmaker writes in TechCrunch. “For its high quality spatial audio chat, Skittish uses an API from High Fidelity, the latest project from Second Life creator Philip Rosedale. Amazingly, Second Life added spatial audio to its online worlds all the way back in 2007 — fourteen years ago.”
“For Baio, audio chat hits a sweet spot. Taking the camera out of the equation makes people feel socially fluid, but audio still evokes a degree of social presence that text can’t compete with.”
Add Spatial Audio to Your Next App Build
How will you use immersive technology to create your next big app? Is spatial audio right for your unique videoconferencing or live virtual events app?
Our Spatial Audio API makes it simple and easy to get started.
Start by creating your free account and then dive into our step-by-step guides and code examples. In seconds, you can create a simple web app using only a few lines of code. From improved audio clarity to immersion, the benefits of spatial audio are limitless!
If you’re interested in hearing the power of spatial audio at work, grab a pair of headphones and check out the video above. As the video switches back and forth between the original audio and spatial audio, do you notice how much easier it is to differentiate one speaker from the next? It’s this “cocktail party effect” that makes spatial audio such an exciting and compelling audio solution for leading app teams.
“Using High Fidelity means much better audio quality, more accurate 3D sound, lower latency, more cross-browser compatibility, many more simultaneous audio streams per room, and a much better experience for everyone,” says Andy Baio, CEO at Skittish.
How does High Fidelity stack up against the competition?
Most solutions on the market provide “conference call” quality experiences and fail to simulate an in-person experience. High Fidelity is the only spatial audio provider to give full developer control over positioning, loudness, room attenuation, and more.
How will you use spatial audio to power your web application?
