Danny introduced herself to the busy Zebulive Twitter Spaces, topic the Metaverse, with fellow guests Lauren Ingram, Yasir Malik, Stefan Kovach, May Mahboob, Keone Chong, Roxanna Nasoi, Asad Arshad and which was hosted by Theo Anthony and yours truly. As chief of staff with Upland and head of business development, the largest web3 metaverse today, she pointed out that her background was quite different from traditional Web3 careers.
“I started out my career in foreign policy, working with the United Nations and think tanks. I worked a lot on international economic development and public international law with regards to how states are created. I was also focused on the laws on war.”
Danny moved to the States eight years ago and re-evaluated what she wanted to do. While there, she came across a UN proof of concept (POC) project on Ethereum which addressed the issue of aid going to refugees in Northern Jordan which used the blockchain to provide transparency and immutability which really got her interested in blockchain technology.
Danny got a job with a Layer Two company Orbs working with large US enterprises looking at blockchain, and understanding the technology before evaluating how it might be incorporated into their business.
“Then last year I moved to Upland which is a brand-new experience for me, especially as it is the first time I am working B2C, which is a whole new, slightly insane, but very exciting world. What we are building on Upland is not just an immersive experience, that is social or entertainment, but we are building a foundation of economic and social immersion. We are creating an economic market place for both social and community to gather and interact.
“And it’s also for creators and user generated content (UCG) businesses to interact with their users. In some cases, Non-for-profit organizations such as UNICEF and Susan G. Komen are doing fundraisers in a much more immersive way in the metaverse directly – which allows for a much more innovative campaign than platforms like Gofundme.”
While Danny is very excited about the metaverse, she doesn’t really think that she lives in the metaverse.
She explains: “I don’t think that digital life equates to the metaverse. I live on my phone. I live on Twitter. But I don’t think I live in the metaverse.”
Danny also distinguishes between metaverse with a small m and a big M.
“Just like the real world, some of these metaverses will be closed and some will be open. In the real world, you can’t move assets out of North Korea which might be reflected in some metaverses (with a small m) which will be closed. For example, it appears that Zuckerberg’s meta will be closed or permissioned.”
Danny points out her children, used to platforms like Roblox, interact in a different way than millennials or older.
“We’re used to having information blasted at us as we scroll. The current social media for my generation treated its users as an audience – for example with Facebook. But the kids now stroll, they don’t scroll. They put on their avatar and choose where they want to go. They are also co-creators expecting to take part of the building process and they own their assets. Big change.”
Ownership of assets creates a whole new economy in the metaverse.
“People own assets and they can choose to keep them or sell them. Interoperability will also be key. Maybe my avatar can travel across metaverses, maybe my achievements can travel too along with my assets.
“As an industry we are building this kind of interoperability through the OMA3 Alliance – which will help standardize avatar and asset travel across metaverses.”
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