Immersive worldbuilder MeetKai has accepted Charlamagne Tha God as its investor and strategic advisor, it announced on Thursday.

In the first-ever appointment, the media magnate and Radio Hall of Fame inductee will collaborate with MeetKai to expand the metaverse platform’s solutions and entertainment, gaming, and eCommerce strategies.

https://twitter.com/deantak/status/1824123077216923955

Additionally, he will consult MeetKai on strategically building value and return on investment (ROI) for those in the creative space. Content creators, brands, and influencers, among others, are some of the primary beneficiaries of the partnership, who can leverage the immersive platform to deliver bespoke experiences and content to the masses.

Charlamagne will inaugurate the partnership by taking his programmes to the virtual stage later in the year, showcasing the platform to his massive fan base and testing the strengths of MeetKai’s metaverse tools.

The news comes as the radio personality joins many other big names in the media business hoping to develop the next iteration of the internet.

Charlamagne is credited with creating the Black Effect Podcast Network and co-hosting iHeartRadio’s The Breakfast Club programme.

After launching multiple businesses across food and drink, health and wellness, and others, he now aims to bring his business-savvy mindset to monetise MeetKai’s creative and world-building enterprise efforts.

‘Blurring the Lines’ between Digital and Creative Worlds

In a statement, Charlamagne Tha God said that MeetKai was “redefining the future of entertainment.”

He continued,

“I see it as the future of social, shopping, gaming and content creation, all while being excitingly immersive,” said Charlamagne Tha God. “It’s where the boundaries of reality and digital innovation blur, creating endless possibilities for connection and creativity.”

Additionally, James Kaplan, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, MeetKai, said that he was grateful for Charlamange’s backing, stating he was “one of the most recognizable voices in the entertainment industry today.”

Kaplan continued,

“He understands the new types of experiences consumers are interested in and how virtual formats, such as the metaverse, will transform the future of content creation and brand experiences for all.”

Furthermore, John Alexander, Chief Business Officer, MeetKai noted that his company was “ecstatic” to launch the partnership.

Speaking further, Alexander said that Charlamagne had “always been on the forefront of creativity and innovation.”

Concluding, he said:

“[He’s] a valuable addition to the company as we move into our next growth phase – better serving and creating opportunities for the creator economy through technological innovation and development.”

The Star and Spatial Computing: More D×M Ramblings

Hey there again… I’m really enjoying this mashup between media personalities and spatial computing. While we’ve noticed an adoption of the industrial metaverse between major firms like Siemens, NVIDIA, Sony, Autodesk, Vuzix, Lenovo, and many others, we can’t neglect the consumer-facing side of the Metaverse’s appeal.

After all, name brands are the first impressions of a technology as many people get their initial overview of a product from its global reputation. Nike’s venture into the Metaverse has sustained itself from its deep-rooted tradition in making quality sportswear, no matter if they’re globally-acclaimed athletes or little leaguers.

In the entertainment and media industries, more and more names begin to appear. We have the Dogfather, Snoop Dogg, leading the charge for Web3 and Metaverse endeavors in several fronts, firstly at the MTV Music Awards with his duet with rap superstar Eminem, and also by partnering with Deadmau5 for Outlier Ventures and opening the Snoopverse on The Sandbox, where he hosts the expansive virtual world.

Avenged Sevenfold have also entered the fold with their Epic Games-based video “We Love You” from their latest album, Life is But a Dream. Additionally, speaking with legendary frontman M Shadows, I learned that his strategy to connect with fans across age groups was building Web3 communities to issue collectibles, wearables, exclusive updates, and many other perks for the group’s Bat Club collective.

Companies and their collaborators can achieve this in several ways, which I’ve scribbled somewhere in the Post-It notes in my mind,

1. It is scalable to accommodate growing (or shrinking) fan bases. Fan bases are ephemeral in nature and must ebb and flow with the technologies hosting them online. It is always easier to deal with shrinking fan bases from a technological point of view, but not from a business perspective. Conversely, it is difficult to scale up technological infrastructure as fans grow on metaverse platforms, increasing research and development (R&D) capital expense (CAPEX) costs
2. It is ubiquitous and interoperable to leverage the mediums of spatial communications: smartphones, laptops, virtual and mixed reality (VR/ MR) headsets, tablets, and (soon), smart glasses.
3. It is continual, meaning that, much like the Fortnite metaverse, limited-time promotions create a fear of missing out (FOMO) or urge to participate, leading to greater engagement rates and loyal fan bases.
4. It is inspirational to embody brands, as was in the case of MeetKai’s use case with the Charlotte Hornets and Jack Daniel’s partnership with Spatial to create the The Verse dedicated to Black History Month. This is critical as the Metaverse encapsulates the world of possibility, based on the inspiration of reality, to communicate brand value.
5. It is seamless, meaning that actions performed on one device register in the metaverse space in real-time, across all platforms. No matter the medium, all users must experience the virtual content as it happens across devices. This is a critical layer of the technology stack which requires cloud streaming and compute power capable of delivering unmitigated content to end users, with minimal lag and few errors. Companies like Improbable are tackling this compute challenge.

Notwithstanding these details, I’m proud to see Charlamagne throw his hat into the ring to deliver these experiences to users, as adoption rates will only grow where they find use amongst the masses.

As the industrial metaverse leverages its pragmatic, return on investment (ROI) and domain driven design (DDD) approaches to spatial computing, with use cases revealing empirical utility for metaverse tools, its consumer-facing version will need flair, personality, and functionality to serve an increasingly larger share of the attention economy.

One day, there won’t be talk of “is the Metaverse dead.” It will just be here, ubiquitous and cleverly everpresent as the Internet before it, and people will simply log on like nothing ever happened.

Like this article? Be sure to like, share, and subscribe for all the latest updates from D×M!