Online Identity Management in Virtual Worlds
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The metaverse is a trending topic among consumers, gamers, content creators, investors, the developer ecosystem, and more. We believe that the establishment of trust and identities are critical components in the development of virtual worlds and the metaverse.
In today’s newsletter, we will share ideas and insights related to changes in consumer behavior, online identity management, the rise of multiple personas, the intersection of pseudonymity and decentralization, and Instagram as a case study.
Changes in Consumer Behavior
The consumer shift towards online activities is a long-term trend and was accelerated by the coronavirus crisis. As more consumers spend more of their lives online via computers, phones, and other connected devices, more content consumption and production will occur online.
In the past 2 decades, the percentage of American adults who say they use the internet has jumped from about half to about 93%. Additional survey statistics on this slide from BLS and App Annie highlight daily American TV consumption and mobile phone usage.
3 Versions of Real Life: Physical, Virtual, and Hybrid Worlds
Obviously, the coronavirus pandemic altered humanity, and changes occurred in the lives of billions of people around the world in the past 27 months. From a work environment, there has been a tremendous increase in hybrid work and remote work environments. During a coronavirus-induced lockdown environment, many people relied on digital technologies to remain connected and manage various aspects of their lives, giving rise to topics such as food delivery apps, e-commerce, video conferencing, gaming, tele-health, cloud software companies, RNA development, and so much more.
Increasingly, it seems like people will live in two separate or interconnected worlds: living in real/physical life and living a digital life. One person may already have a similar or different personas and identities as they traverse between real life and digital life. Augmented reality and the intersection of the physical and virtual worlds represents the hybrid world.
In the professional workplace setting, an example of a hybrid world is being in a Zoom meeting that takes place in a conference room, and as a result, some meeting attendees are attending physically in the conference room while others are attending virtually via video conferencing.
Additionally, it’s likely to see further experimentation and changing cost structures between physical and digital assets. Digital files like JPEGs or digital skins in video games don’t necessarily suffer from wear-and-tear, while physical clothing and houses certainly require maintenance and endure wear-and-tear over time.
Mobile Phones as Personal Remote Controls
This illustration highlights that the iPhone essentially becomes a person’s personal remote control that connects with other devices, such as the Apple Airpods for headphones or the Apple Watch for fitness tracking, or Continuity and Handoff to connect with MacBook computers, all within the Apple ecosystem.
The key takeaway is that our mobile phones are digital extensions of ourselves. Via mobile apps from the iOS App Store, individuals can enable productivity, use digital interfaces to manage things in the physical world, such as ordering an Uber or receiving package deliveries from Amazon, or express themselves virtually through social media apps like Instagram, Pinterest, Tik Tok, and Twitter.
Directional Arrow of Communication
The directional arrow of communication is more online, more immersive, and more volume.
More Online: More online communication can be measured as more time spent communicating online instead of physically in person.
More Immersive: Different communication styles have different levels of immersive experiences. From a device perspective, we have traversed from desktop computers to laptops & tablets to mobile phones and connected devices, such as the Apple Watch. From the least to most immersive online experiences, one can rank things as text messaging, then audio calls, then video meetings, then AR/VR, and now, the metaverse.
More Volume: Greater volume implies more volume in aggregate across all forms of online communication.
Methods of Establishing & Managing Trust
Notably, there will be both similarities and some differences between establishing and managing “Digital Trust” versus “Physical Trust”.
The changing circumstance is that changing human behavior is leading to consumer trust increasingly being made across digital channels; Millions of Americans believe that they can establish trust digitally with a financial institution without the need to visit a physical banking branch (thereby creating a distinguishing feature of “physical trust” vs “digital trust”), and fintech examples include SoFi, Affirm, Square, and Venmo by PayPal.
Many forms of trust in the virtual world will carry over from physical worlds. Simultaneously, there will be new forms of establishing digital trust. For example, 2-factor authentication exists for online accounts.
Additionally, another question emerges, which is how does one establish trust digitally, or should the zero-trust cybersecurity framework be used?
Rise of Multiple Personas & Ambiguities in Online Identities
Recently, there is a rise & differentiation between real-life physical identity, digital identity, pseudo anonymity, and anonymous profiles.
A potential positive societal advancement with pseudonymity is less online discrimination and cancellation, especially with the rising use of avatars.
The intersectionality of these 4 identity topics is important. An early example of the intersection between physical and digital identities is Facebook, which established real identity digitally on the internet via social media platforms, and people could utilize their digital communication to plan physical meetups and events.
Notably, pseudonymity is not anonymity. Anonymity implies no tracing of interactions, conversations, or transactions to a linked profile. Pseudonyms have persistent digital identities, although the name or photo of the profile is different from a person’s real name. With pseudonymity, a person’s real name is different from their name or usernames used on online accounts.
Intersection of Pseudonymity & Decentralization
Pseudonymity helps empower decentralization in multiple ways. For example:
Satoshi Nakamoto’s pseudonymity is an important component to the creation and rise of Bitcoin. If the true real identity was known, they may have had unfortunate interactions with individuals and governments.
A person’s real name is centrally registered with government entities. It is often burdensome to make changes to a person’s real name. On the other hand, in a pseudonymous setting, 1 person can have multiple pseudonymous online profiles via multiple usernames across different social media platforms. For example, a person can have different names across their passport name, Twitter handle name, and Reddit accounts. This decentralized nature of online account creation gives more power to people with permission-based gatekeepers.
Case Study: Instagram
As a sample case study, this slide illustrates 3 different types of Instagram profiles commonly found on Instagram, particularly among the Gen Z generation. Further defining these 3 terms of “Finsta” versus “Rinsta” versus “Insta”:
Finsta profiles masquerade the actual name of the account owner with a different profile name or often is set to a private viewing profile to reveal true self and share personal thoughts
Rinsta stands for a real account to showcase an official or amplified persona, which is often filled with high-gloss photos.
Insta stands for a real account to browse feeds and share general reality, thoughts, and photos
As a result, identity and persona management are increasingly important, particularly as people express themselves online through multiple platforms and personas.
References:
(1) Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/
(2) American Time Use Survey by BLS, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf
(3) State of Mobile 2022 Report by App Annie Intelligence, https://www.appannie.com/en/go/state-of-mobile-2022/
(4) Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-21/china-s-lipstick-brother-livestream-has-record-2-billion-day
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