Virtual Reality: Getting Started, Getting Lost
I was in a long term relationship with television for the first half of my life. I loved getting lost in her stories and ability to take me away. Then I met the internet, and I was instantly smitten. I started casually seeing them both at the same time but I found myself switching back and forth so much that I wasn’t really paying attention to either. Had I lost the ability to get lost?
Virtual Reality represents the next opportunity for all of us to get lost in content again. Google's announcements this week should help advance VR, but most of what’s talked about in the media around this technology tend to make it feel like it's not accessible today or perhaps too expensive to try. Well, the other night, for under $20, I set out on a journey to see if I could get lost in Virtual Reality. If you work in an industry that might be impacted by this technology, or you simply enjoy escaping for a while, here’s what I learned and some suggestions to get you started:
You need a headset but it doesn't need to cost a lot
If you haven’t already purchased Google Cardboard, it’s a $16 gateway drug to a VR. It looks like a 7th grade science fair version of binoculars made out of a pizza box, but they transform your smartphone into a good-enough-to-get-started VR viewer. Buy Google Cardboard on Amazon here.
(Don’t) mind your manners
I started my VR journey seated on the sofa, headphones and viewer, using a free app called Jaunt VR to view an ABC News Report about a Mini-Eiffel tower built in China. As the reporter started to walk towards the structure, I got up to follow him! I wanted a closer look and felt compelled to actively listen. By the time I almost bumped into a wall, I realized that this wasn’t real and new rules of etiquette applied: stay seated, watch, listen and be quiet.
Multiple cameras ruin the moment
Live events are great in VR because you can experience the performance from both the point of view of the performer on stage and that of the audience. The first live event I watched was a show called Unicorn Island. I watched the performance as if I were a part of it, then turned my head around to see and feel the energy of the screaming fans.
Next, I visited a performance of Paul McCartney singing “Live and Let Die”, which started with a camera on his piano before switching to another camera further back on stage. This was disappointing as the ‘real life’ experience was broken by this impossible change in POV. Multiple cameras work well in TV and movies but in VR the switch fractured my perception of reality.
Travel via VR is amazing
I’ve wanted to visit Machu Picchu for a long time. With two nods of my head, I was transported there, skipping the many hours it would take fly and hike it. Sans the very-important smells and touch of the area, the VR visit did deliver on the intensity one often feels when you visit a significant historical site, or natural beauty. An added bonus were the graphics that hovered over the topography to show me the history of the area and provide interactive experiences.
Playing games might even be even more amazing
I’m not a gamer but to get taste of the experience I downloaded a top-rated shooter game called End Space VR for $.99. I found myself in a 360-degree world shooting down spaceships that were firing at me. My heart was racing and I was completely immersed in it. I had to force myself to put it down, for fear that I would never fall asleep given the fact that i could feel my brain working overtime to process this.
But who’s picking up the tab?
Advertising in VR is still developing but I found a nice integration within the Discovery Channel VR App (“Feeling the Vibes”) in which reporters travel around in a Toyota Rav 4. Being inside the car allows for amazing 360 views of the interior, a very valuable marketing tool for automotive advertisers. Experiential marketing becomes much more scalable as you can bring the experience TO the consumer, and content marketing becomes much more immersive in the VR world.
It’s a bit lonely out there
The thing about my travels with VR is that the experience felt a bit lonely both in the moment and then the next day as I started to tell my wife about my journey to Peru. It felt more like I was recounting a dream or someone else's story as opposed to my own travels. Can I say I’ve been to Machu Picchu the next time someone brings it up in conversation?
A small price to pay for getting lost again
For under $20 it’s well worth giving getting started with VR now. There’s no doubt this technology will change the way we ‘get lost’ in content in the near term and it could change many more things (healthcare, education, etc.) in our lifetimes.
Both VR and I have some growing up to do before we get into a long term relationship. But, for one hour in the quiet of my apartment, with my laptop and TV left aside, I loved getting lost again...
Google Cardboard Photo courtesy of me/my iphone - feel free to use it; Machu Picchu photo courtesy Pedro Szekely/Flickr some rights reserved