Reflecting on a Year of Innovation in the Metaverse – Part 2 As we wrap up 2024, we’re closing out an incredible year for Into the Metaverse with the second installment of our "Best Of" series. This year has been filled with groundbreaking conversations, a major milestone of 100 episodes, and a community of listeners who’ve made it all possible. To everyone who has tuned in, shared an episode, or helped spread the word—thank you for being part of this journey! In this final episode of the year, ...
Dec 30, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 107
What a year it has been for Into the Metaverse! As 2024 comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to celebrate what has been an incredible year of conversations, milestones, and, most importantly, growth in understanding the ever-evolving metaverse. This year, we crossed the 100-episode milestone—a huge achievement that wouldn’t have been possible without your support. To everyone who’s tuned in, shared our content, or simply joined the conversation, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We’ve ...
Dec 23, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Unlock the potential of 3D data and discover why it’s the next frontier of innovation with Paul Powers, Founder & CEO of Physna. In this thought-provoking episode of Into the Metaverse, Paul explains how his pioneering work in "Physical DNA" is transforming industries by bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds. From optimizing supply chains to revolutionizing engineering processes, Paul highlights how 3D data holds the key to accelerating AI development, enhancing design, an...
Nov 13, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Welcome to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon sits down with Jacob Loewenstein, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Spatial, to explore how Spatial is reshaping the 3D internet and user-generated content landscape. Jacob takes us through his journey from early investments in AR/VR to leading Spatial’s evolution from an enterprise-focused tool to a user-driven platform for immersive 3D creation. Highlighting Spatial’s mission to bridge generational divides i...
Nov 05, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Welcome to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon sits down with Stephanie Hirschmiller, a consultant, creative strategist, and content specialist in luxury and tech, to explore how the worlds of beauty, fashion, and virtual identity are converging in the metaverse. Stephanie shares insights from her work with major brands and platforms, diving into why beauty and fashion brands are moving into virtual spaces like Roblox and Fortnite and how digital identities are reshaping self-express...
Oct 29, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Welcome to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon sits down with Yemel Jardi, Co-founder of Decentraland and Executive Director of the Decentraland Foundation, for an in-depth conversation about how Decentraland is shaping the future of virtual worlds. Yemel shares his journey from developing open-source Bitcoin tools to building one of the most influential decentralized virtual worlds, highlighting the core principles of self-custody, user-generated content, and open-source collaborati...
Oct 22, 2024•49 min•Season 1Ep. 102
In today’s episode, Yon welcomes Liam Broza, Chief Technology Officer at Infinite Reality, to dive into the impressive work Infinite Reality is doing in pushing the boundaries of the web and creating immersive and social 3D experiences. During their conversation, Liam fills Yon in on how he came to be at Infinite Reality and what the companies main set of goals are, before discussing why web based will win, the current set of obstacles facing Infinite Reality, how to scale the audience, the role...
Oct 15, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Welcome to the 100th episode of Into the Metaverse! In today’s episode, Yon welcomes Matthew Ball back to the podcast to continue their discussion on the future of the metaverse and the convergence of so many new technologies. During their conversation Yon and Matthew dive into four of the major themes and categories that Matthew wanted to update with the second edition of his book which includes crypto currency, head mounted displays, artificial intelligence and the two frames of convergence. T...
Sep 26, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 100
Welcome to Into the Metaverse, in this week’s episode, Yon welcomes back the Godmother of the Metaverse, Cathy Hackl, to continue their conversation of the metaverse, this time with a focus on the race to capture the AI and VR hardware markets, touching on recent events and announcements from Apple, Meta, Snap, and Roblox. Cathy Hackl is a globally recognized tech & gaming executive, futurist, and speaker focused on spatial computing, virtual worlds, augmented reality, AI, strategic foresigh...
Sep 24, 2024•26 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Welcome to Into the Metaverse, in this week’s episode, Yon welcomes the Godmother of the Metaverse, Cathy Hackl, to the podcast to discuss the convergence point of many new technologies and how they are shaping the metaverse in the near term future. Cathy Hackl is a globally recognized tech & gaming executive, futurist, and speaker focused on spatial computing, virtual worlds, augmented reality, AI, strategic foresight, and gaming platforms strategy. She’s one of the top tech voices on Linke...
Aug 30, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 98
Welcome to Into the Metaverse, in this week’s episode, Yon welcomes Marcus Holmström, Founder and CEO of The Gang, for a conversation centered around their experiences building a game studio for Roblox and the wider metaverse. Marcus discusses the inception and growth of The Gang, the success of their branded experiences like Vans and Shrek on Roblox, and the future of integrating real-world commerce into virtual worlds. The two then discuss the importance of being an early adopter and continuou...
Aug 08, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Welcome to Into the Metaverse, in this week’s episode, Yon welcomes Charlie Fink to the podcast. Charlie writes the weekly Forbes column "This Week in XR" and co-hosts its companion podcast. He is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse (2017), and Convergence, How The World Will Be Painted With Data (2019). His career spans impactful stops at Disney, AOL, American Greetings, and more. During their conversation, Charlie gives Yon the overview of his caree...
Jul 23, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 96
Welcome to Into the Metaverse. In today’s episode, Yon welcomes Matthew Ball to the podcast. Ball is eponymous for his writings on the evolution of the media landscape and the metaverse and his book, The Metaverse: Building the Spatial Internet . A second edition of the book will be released later this year. Yon and Matthew had an excellent, wide-ranging conversation about the metaverse's past, present, and future. They discuss where we are in realizing 100% of the metaverse vision, the major wa...
Jul 01, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 95
Welcome back to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon and Matthew dive into four topics from the last week or so that we see as influential to the development of the metaverse. This weeks topics are: Nvidia’s earnings report and how the company is helping fuel the future infrastructure of the metaverse. (More on this in our recent blog post ) The recent leadership changes at Unity. Some thoughts from Yon on Roblox’s earnings. Brand activations on the Roblox platform. If there’s any top...
May 28, 2024•26 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Welcome back to another episode of Into the Metaverse. In this episode, Matthew breaks down four news items from the past week or so that we believe are important to the development of the metaverse including: Roblox’s earnings results and what it means for brands and IP owners - for additional reading on this topic, check out Matthew’s blog post . (01:00) Microsoft’s strategy for Xbox after shutting down studios (06:15) Best practices for building digital communities in the wake of backlash for...
May 17, 2024•19 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Roblox is the closest platform to the true vision of the metaverse; a persistent, immersive, shared, 3D space that re-imagines how users can connect, communicate, play, shop, and express themselves. In a sense, Roblox can be viewed as the public beta of the metaverse. And Roblox is already emerging as the primary social platform for Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z. With 72 million daily active users and approximately 350 million monthly active users, all of whom spend about 2.4 hours per day on the ...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 92
Roblox has a large, vibrant community of Gen Z users that spend on average about 2.5 hours per day on the platform. And to discuss how best to market to this audience, Yon welcomes Krystal Hauserman, a dedicated marketing executive to the podcast. Krystal was previously the CMO of 11:11 media, the company founded by Paris Hilton to transform the celebrity’s consumer products, entertainment and media empire for a youth audience. Notably, they launched a persistent Roblox experience themed around ...
Mar 07, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 91
How are enterprises viewing investing in the metaverse today? Yon was delighted to welcome Edwina Fitzmaurice, the Chief Customer Success Officer at EY to the podcast. Edwina is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council, an adjunct associate professor at Trinity College Dublin and a board member and chair of the governance committee of WIN: Women in Innovation. Edwina and Yon had a wonderful conversation covering a broad range of topics, including which technologies are d...
Feb 28, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Roblox just reported a very strong set of results for 2023 and Yon and Matthew are back to break it down. We also had to dive into Epic and Disney’s new partnership. For those that missed it, Disney is investing $1.5 billion for an undisclosed equity stake in Epic. They will partner to build immersive experiences around Disney’s iconic IPs like Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar. Chapters : Key Highlights from Roblox’s Earnings (01:22) Aging Up of the Roblox Platform (06:18) Roblox Cash Flow & Fina...
Feb 13, 2024•26 min•Season 1Ep. 89
Welcome back to Into the Metaverse. In this week’s episode, Yon and Matthew dive into four of the most important and interesting news stories related to the metaverse. The topics we discuss today include the smash hit new video game Palworld, the latest salvo in the Apple vs. Epic saga, the launch apps for the Apple Vision Pro and Netflix’s gaming strategy. Check out friend of the pod Joost Van Dreunen’s take on the Palworld controversy. Read the interview Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters did with Str...
Jan 30, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 88
To kick off our slate of fantastic guests for 2024, Matthew was delighted to chat with Steven Gay, the CEO of Mode Maison. Mode Maison is the first and only multi-brand retail platform for luxury home goods and the first and only multi-brand retail platform built entirely with digital twins. Steven and Matthew had an excellent conversation about the importance of digital twins in the luxury goods market, what differentiates Mode Maison’s technology from peers and why their company decided to foc...
Jan 25, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Yon and Matthew are back to kick off 2024 discussing the most important and interesting news stories related to the Metaverse in this week’s edition of Yon & Matthew Talk All Things Metaverse . Topics covered include the recent UGC Gaming Report from Naavik, the latest news around Apple Vision Pro, continued layoffs across the industry, and Yon and Matthew’s favorite debuts from CES. Chapters : Introduction (00:00) Reactions to the UGC Gaming Industry Report (01:55) Apple Vision Pro Announce...
Jan 17, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 86
To close out the year, Yon welcomes back to the show former co-host Matthew Kanterman to recap everything that happened in the metaverse in 2023 and to look ahead at what intrigues and excites them the most about 2024 and beyond! Long-time listeners will quickly recognize Matthew as he was here at the inception of the Into the Metaverse podcast back in 2021 as co-host for the first iteration of the show. Matthew is a former Bloomberg analyst who has spent the last few years in high level researc...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 85
This week Yon welcomes Alvaro Velilla into the metaverse to discuss the future of music in the metaverse as well as an exciting new partnership between Supersocial and Universal Music Group in bringing the game, Beat Galaxy, to life! Alvaro’s career spans over twenty years of experience driving business transformation at the intersection of Entertainment, Technology, and Creative Industries. This includes his founding of Pulselocker, the first music streaming service built to be integrated with ...
Dec 14, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Yon is once again joined by Lisa Bernard to discuss the most important and interesting news stories related to the Metaverse in this week’s edition of Yon & Lisa Talk All Things Metaverse . During their conversation they discuss the early success of LEGO on Fortnite, why Yon’s new rallying cry is, “2D is dead, long live the 3D internet,” subcategories of the metaverse that are ripe for expansion, and more! Chapters : LEGO on Fortnite’s Early Success (00:25) 2D is Dead, Long Live the 3D Inter...
Dec 12, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 83
This week Yon welcomes Morgan Tucker into the metaverse to talk about the role of 3D avatars to build online connections and how Rec Room is going about doing this. Morgan is the Head of Creator at Rec Room, where he works to empower creators to make incredible interactive experiences, develop community, and achieve long-term success. Prior to Rec Room, Morgan led Product for Music, Brands and Education at Roblox, developing groundbreaking projects like Spatial Voice Chat, immersive virtual conc...
Dec 06, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Yon is once again joined by Lisa Bernard to discuss the most important and interesting news stories related to the Metaverse in this week’s edition of Yon & Lisa Talk All Things Metaverse . During their conversation they discuss where brand advertising is at in it’s adoption of the metaverse, how generative AI is enabling the next frontier of personal creativity, Lego coming to Fortnite, and more. Chapters : Brands Building Persistent Presence on Roblox (00:25) Generative AI Enabling the Nex...
Dec 04, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Yon is once again joined by Lisa Bernard to discuss the most important and interesting news stories related to the Metaverse in this week’s edition of Yon & Lisa Talk All Things Metaverse . During their conversation they discuss the chaos at OpenAI, the state of the gaming industry heading into a new year, Epic Games’ current lawsuit, Nvidia’s trillion dollar valuation, and more! Chapters : Introduction (00:25) Chaos at OpenAI (01:10) Where Gaming Stands Heading Into New Year (05:45) Bottom ...
Nov 28, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 80
This week Yon welcomes Raffaella Camera into the metaverse to discuss how the power of platforms like UEFN and Roblox can be leveraged by brands to improve and grow their businesses. Raffaella was most recently the Head of Brands at Epic Games’ Unreal Engine where she was responsible for the overall industry setup and strategic growth of the Epic ecosystem - from tools to Fortnite - for the Lifestyle Brands industry. Prior to Epic, Raffaella spent time as a Partner at Accenture, where she co-cre...
Nov 21, 2023•49 min•Season 1Ep. 79
This week Yon welcomes Chris Heatherly into the metaverse to chat about all things brands, creators, and IP in the next generation of gaming. Chris is a veteran executive in the games industry and has been an innovator and leader at the intersection of entertainment and technology for over 20 years. He ran the games business for both Disney and NBCUniversal as a general manager. His experience working with brands and IP such as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Jurassic World, and more make him an ideal...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 78
