The Metaverse as a Virtual Form of Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability in Urban Futures

Abstract

Data infrastructures, economic processes, and governance models of digital platforms are increasingly pervading urban sectors and spheres of urban life. This phenomenon is known as platformization, which has in turn given rise to the phenomena of platform society, where platforms have permeated the core of urban societies. A recent manifestation of platformization is the Metaverse, a global platform project launched by Meta (formerly Facebook) as a globally operating platform company. The Metaverse represents an idea of a hypothetical “parallel virtual world” that incarnate ways of living and working in virtual cities as an alternative to smart cities of the future. Indeed, with emerging innovative technologies—such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, the IoT, and Digital Twins—providing rich datasets and advanced computational understandings of human behavior, the Metaverse has the potential to redefine city designing activities and service provisioning towards increasing urban efficiencies, accountabilities, and quality performance. However, there still remain ethical, human, social, and cultural concerns as to the Metaverse’s influence upon the quality of human social interactions and its prospective scope in reconstructing the quality of urban life. This paper undertakes an upper-level literature review of the area of the Metaverse from a broader perspective. Further, it maps the emerging products and services of the Metaverse, and explores their potential contributions to smart cities with respect to their virtual incarnation, with a particular focus on the environmental, economic, and social goals of sustainability. This study may help urban policy makers to better understand the opportunities and implications of the Metaverse upon tech-mediated practices and applied urban agendas, as well as assess the positives and negatives of this techno-urban vision. This paper also offers thoughts regarding the argument that the Metaverse has disruptive and substantive effects on forms of reconstructing reality in an increasingly platformized urban society. This will hopefully stimulate prospective research and further critical perspectives on the topic.

Metaverse and Banking Industry – 2023 The Year of Metaverse Adoption

“…This can help banks better understand their customers' needs and preferences, which can lead to improved services and more personalized offerings (Seth, Gupta, & Singh, 2022). In addition, the Metaverse allows banks to easily integrate with other financial systems and applications, reducing costs while improving efficiency (Allam et al, 2022). Overall, these benefits make the Metaverse a compelling choice for use in the banking industry, from making account transactions to facilitating cross-border payments and digital identity verification.…”

“…Whether it's through brand-sponsored contests and promotions or a dedicated customer support forum, the metaverse can help your business deepen its connections with customers in meaningful ways (Buhalis, Lin & Leung, 2022). One of the major benefits of incorporating the metaverse into customer communication strategies is that it allows businesses to collect valuable data about their target audience (Allam et al, 2022). By analyzing this data, companies are better able to tailor their messaging and marketing tactics to meet the needs and preferences of their customers.…”

“…Furthermore, banks can also leverage analytics tools within Web3.0 and Metaverse to better predict the spending habits of their customers, which in turn can help them provide more targeted marketing offers and promotions (Kiong, 2022). Overall, there are numerous benefits of using Web3.0 and Metaverse for delivering banking statements, including improved efficiency and customer service, as well as enhanced security measures to protect sensitive data (Allam et al, 2022). With every new technology acceptance era, it replaces various devices, for example, smartphones replaced cameras, watch, torch, computers, telephones, and many more devices.…”

“…Metaverse is a platform that has the potential to revolutionize the banking industry. With its ability to facilitate seamless and secure transactions, improve customer communication, and help achieve carbon net zero goals, Metaverse presents a unique opportunity for banks to enhance their operations and stay ahead of the competition (Allam et al, 2022). Whether it be through the use of NFTs to replace traditional payment methods, leveraging blockchain technology for cross-border account opening, or creating new business models using smart contracts and digital identities, banks have much to gain from tapping into the power of Metaverse (Plechatá, Makransky & Böhm, 2022).…”

Analisis Advokasi Merek Terhadap Minat Pembelian

“…IKM (Industri Kecil dan Menengah) yang bermunculan menurut Julianti (2014) meliputi berbagai sektor mulai dari industri makanan dan minuman, kerajinan, farmasi dan alat kesehatan, kosmetik, elektronik, tekstil, dan masih banyak lagi. Berbagai inovasi dan kreasi bermunculan, memang kesempatan dukungan situasi dan kondisi pertumbuhan ekonomi serta peningkatan kebutuhan pasar global harus dimanfaatkan dengan sebaik mungkin untuk memperbaiki mutu dan kualitas produk dalam negeri hingga mampu menjadi daya tawar di pasaran serta dapat bersaing dengan produk luar (Allam et al 2022). Tenaga kerja saat ini menurut Lubis et al (2022) berjumlah 16,57 juta orang dengan 4,59 juta unit IKM yang mampu menyerap 10, 23 juta orang.…”