Every new technology goes through a phase where its users and promoters try to figure out what it is, what it does, and what it’s possibilities could be. We’re there with the metaverse. It’s a technology with a lot of potential, but most companies involved don’t have the faintest idea of what to do with it.

Take Color Star Technology (CSCW.Q) for example. They’re an entertainment tech company working on applications for artificial intelligence in entertainment. They have devised their own functional metaverse called Color World, and now they’re cooperating with Jilin Great World Aviation Service to introduce other enterprises to the Color World APP, to set up a virtual ticketing hall and globalization-oriented virtual cooperation in business hotels to attract tourism.

If details seem a little thin it’s because they are.

Jilin World specializes in domestic and international air travel booking, as well as setting up the rest of your accommodations. They’re a one stop e-commerce travel agent, and it’s predominant in China. Now they’re hoping to branch out with a collaboration with Color Star by establishing virtual ticket halls in Color World, and thereby becoming the first ticket agency of Color World.

What nobody seems to have an answer too is … why is this a thing? Why do I need to put on AR goggles and physically go to a ticket vendor in an online setting when I can just point and click my way over to Expedia where I can do the same thing? Expedia’s presumably faster, and definitely more streamlined as Expedia’s been around for years and Color World’s definitely going to be top loaded with bugs when it gets shunted out to an unassuming public.

The problem with a lot of new technology, and seemingly especially blockchain-oriented technology, is that unless users are themselves programmers or spend a lot of time reading up on it, it’s going to go right over their heads. Mass adoption requires simplicity of user-experience, but it also requires the technology to be able to not only compete with existing models (Expedia) but defeat them. It needs to offer something novel that improves the user experience.

Not flashy second life shit.

Try again.

—Joseph Morton