Curious about the metaverse and how social VR works in the ‘real world’? You’re in luck. Recently, we had the opportunity to chat with Gabriel Baker, VP at Frame to learn more about their mission and the ways Frame is harnessing the power of 3D spaces, and Cloudinary, for learning experiences of all kinds.
Read on for more and then join for free at learn.framevr.io. See you there!
Hi Gabe, tell us about Frame. What’s your mission, what inspired you to start the company, and who do you help?
Frame is a team of developers and designers from around the world who feel passionate about making the metaverse easy, practical, and playful. We were inspired to start the company because we saw how 3D spaces can make communication and collaboration incredibly powerful, but that getting into these 3D spaces with others was way too challenging than it needs to be. Frame makes it easy by running right from a browser, with simple sharing and loads of no-code customization tools to make your team’s corner of the metaverse really feel like your own.
For those unfamiliar, what is social virtual reality and why is it such a great match for learning and development?
Social virtual reality is interacting with others inside of a 3D environment. This interaction is usually done through avatars – virtual representations of yourself. While this can seem gimmicky at first, we’re convinced that real value can be unlocked from these environments. Doing things like breaking into small groups or walking to the front of the room to give a presentation are often logistical hassles on video-conference calls, but in a 3D space you just move around as you know how to do from physical interactions. This is often ideal for workshops and virtual classrooms, where an instructor can really leverage the sense of space to facilitate the interaction.
You can also incorporate all sorts of content in the metaverse, including some file formats that are hard to view with traditional video conferencing tools – things like 3D models or 360-degree photos. We provide simple but sophisticated no-code creation tools to help people display tons of content inside their 3D worlds, brand them for clients, set up learning galleries, and more.
How are you using Cloudinary to help you manage and deliver these immersive experiences?
Cloudinary powers a lot of the media in Frame: images, videos, pdfs, 360 photos/videos, and more. Because Frame runs on the web, we have to be really cautious about optimizing and compressing everything that loads into it. We use Cloudinary transformations for a lot of this. We also use Cloudinary video streaming to stream video into Frame rather than load all of the raw mp4s in. Cloudinary provides a lot of great tooling that helps us optimize where and when we need.
The pandemic certainly had a hand in pushing next-gen tech forward and accelerating how educators, brands, media publishers, and more are thinking about digital transformation and modern tech like VR.
In your view, what are some of the biggest challenges we face in today’s digital-first world? And where are the greatest opportunities?
I think the greatest opportunities lie in tools that help people come together and feel together in the real world, a rekindling of the social fabric that the pandemic to some degree stifled. That said, if people are going to be spending lots of time online, then there are also great opportunities around helping people come together and feel together online in a way that goes well beyond traditional video conferencing.
Anything else you want to share? Something we didn’t ask but should have?
I would just say that while the metaverse is a trendy topic right now, it’s had a few different hype cycles and it remains to be seen whether this one will stick. My thinking on this though is that it doesn’t matter if the metaverse becomes “mainstream” in order for it to be tremendously valuable and important as one collaboration/communication tool among many out there. People and organizations have been recognizing this for years and as the technology underlying the metaverse evolves, the case for it will continue to get stronger.
We believe we’re making the metaverse approachable and accessible by anyone, and Cloudinary helps us get there. We’ve found that users love customizing their Frames with their own media, and it’s Cloudinary that stores and serves it up for them! If you want to try all of this out yourself, you can grab a frame for free at learn.framevr.io — invite me in if you’d like!
