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Travel Brands and Meeting Planners Are Using Virtual Reality to Drive Conversion

We’re doing a brisk business in the Travel sector as the use case is readily apparent and clients are hungry for this kind of experience for their audience. It’s just a natural fit. No wonder why Skift in this article is saying its moving to the mainstream here in 2017. We’re there. This is VR’s moment.

My key takeaways from the article:

o VR is moving into the mainstream consumer mindset in 2017, and travel brands are leveraging that to engage them in new ways using 3D immersive technology. Brands are also discovering the power of VR to drive higher conversion rates.

o For example, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reports that its Vegas VR app, showing experiential videos ranging from helicopter rides over the Strip to bartenders mixing drinks, has been downloaded over 19,000 times since March 2016, and the videos have been viewed more than 17 million times.

o Tapping into that demand at CES, multiple pop-up VR experiences around Las Vegas showcased the abilities of VR as both a sales conversion engine and community engagement vehicle.

o Virtual reality content developers such as XplorIt are working increasingly with tourism bureaus, which Skift profiled following the launch of Los Angeles Tourism’s new Meet L.A. VR platform for meeting planners. The portal provides a good example of how planners can engage attendees in more immersive ways using VR.

#virtual reality #VR #travel

Some travel groups, including Virtuoso, are banking on agencies using higher-end headsets like the Oculus Rift ($600) and HTC Vive ($799) to differentiate their VR offerings and draw in clients.

I provided my thoughts on VR for Travel to the fine folks at Travel Weekly magazine. Read more at the link.

#virtual reality #VR #travel

Desperately seeking wireless: VR's aiming to cut the cord

It’s no secret that high powered desktop computers combined with high pixel density headset displays are showing us the future of VR, but it’s the future and not the present. The present belongs to mobile and VR will hit mass when the features that are being developed for $1,000 plus devices trickle down to the $200 and below consumer market. This new development of untethered Vive is exactly the kind of development that’s going to pave the way to widescale consumer adoption in the next 5 years. Here are my 3 key takeaways from the CNET article:

TPCast's wireless adapter for the Vive (with a version also coming for the Oculus Rift) is very real, and it really works. It's arriving in the second quarter of this year, and it streams audio and video to the PC-connected Vive headset, removing the last tether between my VR gear and the rest of the physical world.

It's the best example of wireless VR I've ever seen, and it turns the Vive into a true Holodeck experience. But, at $300 for a snap-on thing that sits on your head and also requires a separate battery pack on a tether, it's gear on top of gear. The battery lasts either two or five hours, depending on how big the battery pack you buy.

TPCast's solution is one of several coming this year: another, an Oculus/Vive wireless adapter from KwikVR, is also coming (I didn't get a chance to try KwikVR at CES, though). These gadgets are building onto existing hardware. But, amazingly, it really works well. I didn't feel any lag, and being totally cable-free changed the way VR felt. I was still smothered in a helmet and other gear, but it felt more relaxed, more natural.

#vr #vive #virtual reality

2017 won't be the year that VR takes off, according to an expert.

I’ve been on record for a while saying VR still needs time in the oven. It’s getting there, its almost done, but it needs time to develop before a mass audience adopts it. This is a new platform after all, and like all platforms before it, the adoption curve will be just that ... a curve and not a straight line up and to the right. Any expectations of an explosion are unrealistic. I still remember a time when people thought it was novel to borrow my cell phone and make a call, and when companies asked: “why do I need a website?” while I was working at Razorfish in 1998 -- the same thing is happening now. I get on VR panels and industry calls and investors ask “who is using this and why?” and my guidance is two-fold: one its going to take a few years to work the adoption curve and two - Brands need to get involved now so they have their game ready so when it does explode, they’re ahead of their competition. VR will be a transaction medium and staying on the sidelines will mean leaving BIG money on the table.

My top 3 key take aways from the CNBC piece are:

Consumer virtual reality (VR) might have been a buzz phrase in the tech scene for most of 2016, but it has failed to gain traction from investors heading into the New Year, according to a venture capitalist. "I think 2017 will be what we call the winter of VR … especially from an investment standpoint," said Phil Chen, managing partner at Presence Capital, a venture capital fund that focuses on virtual reality start-ups.

Overexposure could be part of the reason why the VR bubble has burst (for the moment). 2016 saw the retail launches of highly-anticipated VR headsets, including Sony's PlayStation VR headset, Facebook's Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive.

Chen told CNBC's "Squawkbox" that "2016 was the peak of what consumers expected of virtual reality. But (the) figures have come out (and) whether it's the high-end HTC Vive (and) Oculus or the mid-end PlayStation, the sales have been quite lukewarm and the experience has been underwhelming." Another reason?

#venture capital #VR #virtual reality

Facebook's Oculus Virtual Reality Unit Needs A New Leader

Smartphone VR is where mass adoption will take place, not PC’s. That’s been my position from day one. I work for a VR company and the thought of installing a Vive in my apartment gives me pause. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, its amazing, but the usability of Smartphone VR without the wires just feels more natural. My gut says consumers will agree with me. Time and again consumers go for simplicity even at the expense of quality. Think: records vs mp3′s, blue ray vs youtube, even theaters vs pirated camshot videos. It looks like that reality is hitting Facebook and they’re restructuring as a result. Here are my 3 key takeaways from the Fortune article:

Facebook’s Oculus virtual reality business is looking for a new leader. Brendan Iribe, a co-founder of Oculus, said Tuesday that he is stepping down as Oculus’s CEO and will instead lead the unit’s new personal computer division. Additionally, Iribe wrote that Jon Thomason, who recently joined Oculus from Amazon where he was vice president of mobile shopping, would lead Oculus’s new mobile unit.

The decision to split Oculus into two units—one focused on PCs and one on mobile—is noteworthy because currently, Oculus’s only VR headset, the Oculus Rift, requires a powerful PC to operate. Although Oculus has a partnership with Samsung to provide Oculus-related software to run the mobile phone-powered Samsung Gear VR headset, Facebook has made the Oculus Rift the centerpiece of the social network’s foray into VR.

Technology analysts are generally divided as to whether consumers will be attracted to more mobile phone-oriented VR headsets like the Gear VR or Google’s Daydream View headset, or PC-powered VR headsets like the Rift or HTC Vive.

#virtual reality #VR #oculus #facebook #amazon #gear vr

Watching the NBA in Virtual Reality Is Surprisingly Good

Time Magazine has a nice piece on a use case for VR that I think is compelling: Sports. Specifically basketball. I’ve always said that VR as the next platform is disrupting the platforms before it collectively and when asked what the primary use case for VR will be, I say it's a roll-up of the primary use cases for Desktop, Mobile and Television rolled into one. Sports is arguably the “killer app” for television. A ton of televisions are bought right before the Super Bowl. To that end NextVR with their focus on sports are clearly gunning for the “VR Disrupts Television” angle. And they have a point up to a point. Personally, until sports gets filmed from a VR POV as a first priority, it's second fiddle to TV. That’s going to require some significant venue support to put the viewer inside the game and not on the sidelines. But that’s just a matter of time. Here are my key 4 points to take away from the Time article:

The NBA is showing one VR game per week in partnership with NextVR. To access the games, consumers need a Samsung VR headset, a compatible Samsung phone, and the NextVR app. (NextVR says its broadcasts will soon be available on other VR platforms like Daydream and Playstation).

Fans also must subscribe to NBA League Pass, which costs $199 — a pretty penny for one VR game a week, but the package allows you to watch nearly every NBA game on your television, computer or mobile device.

The latest VR headsets are incredible technological feats, but so far there’s precious little content specifically made for the embryonic platform. Some companies are hoping that digitally placing fans in the best seats in the house at a pro sports game will help sell headsets and software, and attract advertisers to boot.

Neither the NBA nor NextVR are saying how many fans are watching the VR games. Either way, VR won’t go mainstream right away. But based on my experience, it has a future on the court.

#VR #virtual reality #nba

How Construction Companies Are Using Virtual Reality To Plan, Build And Manage Complicated Projects

The construction industry is a natural to embrace VR tech. At YouVisit we’ve seen some similar use cases with our work for companies like Rio Tinto one of the world's largest metals and mining corporations. These are my top 3 key points from the article:

Some construction and development companies are using virtual reality to plan, manage, construct and then market projects, and in other cases, new startups are popping up to handle that process.

Some companies are developing their own uses for VR internally. Mortenson Construction is a national developer and general contractor, but it has chosen Seattle to build out its virtual reality capabilities, because of the region’s reputation as a hot spot in that area. Mortenson has used the technology to model 10 projects it is building here since March.

Overall, virtual reality has great potential for the construction industry, both for third party companies building virtual environments, and contractors making programs in-house.

#virtual reality #VR #construction #rio tinto

How VR will make astronauts out of all of us

Getting a taste of exotic experiences without the cost or risk is an incredibly compelling use case for VR. My top 3 points from the article at TechRadar:

VR is set to shake up many different aspects of our lives, but arguably it has the most potential to really capture our collective imagination – to keep us coming back for more and provide the most educational value – when the experience feels like something you couldn’t ever go and try out for yourself in the real world.

Space travel is one such experience, and everyone from Nasa to the BBC, along with assorted developers, media companies, game designers and scientists, is using VR to help us experience the final frontier like never before.

From rigorous training programs designed to get astronauts used to living in deep space through to indie games dreamed up to allow anyone to float around the solar system with an affordable headset, there are already lots of VR projects offering experiences that are truly out of this world.

#VR #nasa

The Game Awards Is Tapping VR And Twitter To Reinvent The Awards Show

When the entire stage setup is being built to accommodate and take advantage of the opportunities provided by VR, you know that VR is quickly becoming the Dog and broadcast television is the Tail... Here are my top 4 take-aways from the article over at Fast Company:

The Game Awards might only be three years old, but it's already gaming's biggest night. The event—created and hosted by video games journalist Geoff Keighley—began after Spike TV's Spike Video Game Awards had its plug pulled in 2013, and it quickly hit the ground running.

But don't call the Game Awards the video game industry's answer to the Oscars. Keighley has other plans for it.

"Our aspiration is to create a show that represents the best of this industry," he says. "Part of our goal is to have a respected ceremony that is credible and authentic—but it's a different show for a different medium…This show is really about a forward-looking preview of what's happening next in the gaming industry…We want to speak to the best games of the year, and expose really interesting games to this audience, and we've found that it's really effective to have not just a look back but a look forward, and that creates a larger base for that."

Virtual reality is a new frontier in gaming, but it's one that's being explored regularly. But as a frontier in awards shows, it's practically uncharted territory. To help chart it, though, the Game Awards tapped NextVR to create a more immersive way to watch the show at home. The entire stage setup is being built to accommodate and take advantage of the opportunities provided by VR. Danny Keens, NextVR's vice president of content, has a lot of ideas about what those opportunities are.

#VR #game awards #fast company

Virtual Reality’s Long Walk Before Running

Great realistic and balanced piece by The Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required.) I’m fairly certain that 2016 holiday sales will not live up to the hype, but I remain long on VR and believe it will dominate the consumer entertainment space in the next 5 years. Here are my top 4 takeaways:

While VR has much in the way of long-term promise, early sales are providing a hard dose of reality. None of the companies involved have disclosed actual numbers, but several indications have emerged suggesting a relatively low sales volume to date.

This doesn’t mean VR isn’t generating significant interest. Retailer Best Buy said in its earnings call this month that more than 700 of its stores now have dedicated virtual reality “departments” that have provided more than 300,000 demos even before the holiday shopping crunch begins.

Offsetting this is the fact that major videogame publishers haven’t really embraced VR yet with their major franchises.

That doesn’t mean VR companies will be giving up. Sony, Facebook and HTC have invested significant effort and resources into the technology and have a long-term view towards making it work. But getting consumers to plug in will take a while.

#VR #virtual reality

YouVisit Launches A Real-World Immersive App For Daydream

While many of the VR apps that are out there and available on Android right now are games, there are quite a few VR experiences that have nothing to do with gaming, and a new application from YouVisit, called YouVisit Showcase, fits into this category. The app has just launched on Android for the Daydream platform, which means it’s available now for those who have a Daydream View headset and a Pixel or Pixel XL.

Inside 5 publishers' efforts to monetize virtual reality

The Content Producer train has left the station and everyone’s running to Daydream as the best bet for a mass market in 2017. Here are my top 3 takeaways from the article:

A flurry of PR announcements over the last week shows publishers are still experimenting in earnest with VR. Some of the new projects, from the BBC and the Guardian, make use of Google’s latest VR platform, DayDream. And more are coming down the pike from the Financial Times and CNN International.

Monetizing VR, though, is still tough. VR audiences are small, and the content is costly to make.

Early publisher activity is reflective of an industry that knows you have to get in early and test new technology to make it work better and do it well later on

#vr #daydream #virtual reality

Oculus mobile exec Max Cohen says mobile VR is ‘the mass market’

I’m glad Oculus is realistic with their outlook in public. It’s clear to me the next 2 years belong to Smartphone based VR, however the development on the top end - including Oculus and Vive, will eventually make its way to portable self-contained headset devices. Here are my top 4 takeaways from the article:

At the Evening with Code Mobile conference, Oculus’ VP of Mobile Max Cohen said “millions of users” have collectively spent more than 20 million hours in the Gear VR to date. And “that number is growing rapidly.”

However, he readily acknowledged the limitations of “orientation only” VR devices, including the Gear VR and Google’s newly launched Daydream View. This category of devices allows users to look around in a virtual scene, but not move through it; more advanced devices are generally tethered to a PC.

But he called lower-end VR devices “the mass market,” meaning they’re more likely to be people’s introduction to the medium.

“Both of these things [mobile and PC] are going to live on,” Cohen said. “That said, either mobile ‘drop-in’ or the ‘stand-alone’ form factor is how you’re going to get this into the hands of hundreds of millions, or billions, of people.”

#vr #virtual reality #oculus #daydream

Sony predicts bolstered virtual reality gaming in 2 years

At the end of the day, Sony themselves admit what I think is Google Daydream’s greatest asset: VR Games are short burst. Do hard core gamers want to spend $400 on 6 minute in duration play? I seriously doubt it. Does VR gaming have legs 2 years from now? Absolutely. But until then, consumers will reach for that $80 headset for those short game or discovery experiences and sequence them together for about a half hour session. Trust me, I’ve tried Daydream and its amazing. I’m also a gamer, I love my FPS, but they just dont work in VR for now. So here are my 5 key takeaways from the article on CNBC:

Sony is unsure what genre will be the biggest hit for VR gaming, a company executive admitted, but said new experiences will be developed over the next two years for the PlayStation VR.

The technology is still at the early stages with products from Facebook's Oculus to HTC Vive all competing to win consumers over.

Shawn Layden, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, said on Wednesday, that VR presents "new opportunities….In 12 to 18 months, we are going to find things in VR that can only be experienced in VR."

Layden did not reveal what games are coming up for the PS VR, but said that experiences around "discovery" could really take off. "The question is, how does VR enhance the experience? … The first time we were able to realize the player's hands … that changed the entire depth of immersion," Layden said.

"I think the VR experience such as it is…it really works best in about a 15-, 20-, 30-minute experience…it's a lot like arcade gaming, it's a lot like I drop my coin into the machine and I have that experience for 6, 8, 9, 10 minutes. It will be a long time until you have a Final Fantasy 7 experience in VR for 75 hours…it does work best in a very tight, intense, gaming environment," Layden said.

#vr #playstation #sony #virtual reality

Google’s Daydream View made Techcrunch a believer again in consumer VR

As you all know I’m a huge fan of Daydream and my company YouVisit is a launch partner. Here are my top 4 takeaways from the article:

Google’s new Daydream View VR headset is available starting today, and the fabric-encased, lightweight plastic Cardboard successor is a big step up, not only from Google’s first modest attempts at creating a VR headset, but also for mobile VR in general.

The library of Daydream content is a little thin in terms of titles available at launch, especially compared to the decent size of Gear VR’s available options. But Google appears to have selected for quality in terms of both first- and third-party software offerings, and the terrific native support for YouTube 360-degree videos means there’s no shortage of casual content to consume.

Early VR hype gave way to realities that indicated its niche status wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon – Rift and Vive are too specialized, too expensive and too power-hungry to work with anything resembling a general audience.

Latecomers have done more to convince me there’s real potential in the consumer VR market; PSVR is a serious piece of kit for anyone who enjoys gaming, and Daydream View has the potential to impress everyday mobile users in a way nothing else out there today can hope to achieve.

#vr #virtual reality #google #daydream

Smartphone VR Headset Ownership Projected To Grow 240%

17M VR Smartphone headsets this year is a fantastic start! Mediapost has a great article based on the latest Juniper Research:

There are a lot of VR headsets coming, which will cause a lot of money to change hands. Next year is now seen as the biggest year for console-based VR revenue, based on a new study. According to the study by Juniper Research, there will be nearly 60M smartphone VR headsets shipped in 2021, an increase of about 240% from about 17M this year.

Millions of consumers already use VR on smartphone-based headsets, such as Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. However, developers must move beyond simple experience-based apps to create compelling content to keep consumers engaged, according to Juniper.

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