The metaverse is coming, and metaverse development is the latest frontier in software engineering. Everyone from Adidas to IKEA to Tinder is talking about new metaverse app opportunities and trying to figure out how to get a piece of the action.

But with Meta’s stock price tumbling and many big tech companies reducing their workforces, is now the best time to invest in a development project?

Regardless of the future of Meta the company, extended reality will dominate future app development projects. As with any field, certain entry points are smarter than others. Here are six metaverse app ideas for developers that will pay dividends in the coming decades.

[What is the Metaverse?] [Brainstorm with an Expert]

1. Virtual Travel

One of the most obvious use cases for metaverse development projects is travel and tourism. Real-world travel is time-consuming, stressful, and extremely expensive. The pandemic exposed how fragile the tourism industry can be, but virtual travel is recession-proof.

Imagine taking a guided tour of Machu Picchu or the South Pole in real-time with someone who’s actually there. Imagine visiting the Louvre in Paris or sitting in on a session in an Irish pub in Galway. The metaverse app opportunities for travel are endless—and that’s just the real world. We haven’t even talked about fantasy destinations yet, from the USS Enterprise, to Middle Earth, to a recreation of the beginning of the Universe.

Extended-reality travel has numerous practical applications. Education will utilize low-cost, high-quality field trips at scale (the whole class can walk the Great Wall of China, dive to the bottom of the ocean, or see inside the human body). People with limited mobility or few financial resources can explore and learn in new ways, and the entertainment industry is already trending toward AR/VR extensions to film franchises and theme parks. Look no further than Disney’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Developing infrastructure for metaverse travel is sure to find a future market

2. Home and Auto Tours

Similar to leisure travel, we can apply the same concept to the realm of practical tours—whether it’s for a new home, renovation, or new cars. 

3D virtual tours are already gaining traction in real estate and the automotive sector. Metaverse development projects will take this utility to the next level by offering a much more immersive and realistic touring experience. For instance, imagine touring a new home while also seeing what it would look like with new paint on the walls or your own furniture in the bedrooms.

Think about completing pre-move-in inspections through XR or joining a car dealer for a 3D test drive. There are many metaverse app opportunities in this space, and many companies will pay top dollar to contract development projects that give them a competitive edge. 

3. Remote Education, Work, and Telemedicine

While there has been some push for back-to-the-office following the pandemic, it is clear that telemedicine and remote work are here to stay. Companies like Zoom thrived during the pandemic with easy, intuitive software. In the future, industry winners will be the ones who make remote collaboration seamless, lifelike, and secure.

There is a strong call for metaverse development of new apps centered on remote learning, remote work, and telemedicine. Whether it’s a 3D classroom, yoga lesson, or virtual exam room, each of these industries has numerous metaverse opportunities with significant potential to sell an app.

4. High-Resolution Online Shopping

Many cosmetics companies already offer virtual try-on for makeup products with augmented reality. While the problem is more complex, it’s conceivable that virtual try-ons of clothing and accessories will be commonplace in the future.

Whether it’s through landmark tracking and 3D rendering or neural networks, metaverse development can go a long way toward enriching the online shopping experience with lifelike virtual product encounters. 

Clothing is just one example. Imagine virtually walking through a grocery store to tap items into a cart or viewing real-time product assembly instead of navigating written instructions. When everyday consumer staples have metaverse applications, the development opportunities are endless.

5. Gaming

Some of the most immediately-realizable metaverse app opportunities reside in the gaming industry. Gaming already has extensive experience with virtual worlds and virtual reality headsets.

Many games, especially massively-multiplayer ones, are early examples of the potential of the metaverse. As technology improves, metaverse development projects in the world of gaming will steadily advance. Imagine going fully inside the game and fighting your own battle royale in Fortnite or running your own obstacle course in Fall Guys.

While video games may not be recession-proof in the same sense as groceries or toiletries, the right tiered-pricing model can attract a wide, loyal customer base. No matter what the economy looks like in the short term, now is a good time for game development in the metaverse.

6. Social Networking

It may be difficult to predict which social media app will dominate pop culture 20 years from now (Meta property Facebook is not even that old yet), but social networking will happen in the future. Whether it’s dating, professional networking, or finding affinity groups, apps that foster virtual connections will have opportunities in the metaverse. 

As metaverse development takes off, secure, social apps will continue to thrive. Peer-to-peer lending, file sharing, and group chat applications will always have demand, and developers face the challenge of making continuous improvements.

Be Smart About Developing Apps for the Metaverse

The major challenge of metaverse development right now is that we’re in a Wild West situation and will be for years to come. Developers lack a proven pathway to profitability and consumer consensus about which VR platform will prevail. (It’s not as clear-cut as developing an app for Android and iOS, for example.) 

Many companies are going to bet on emerging metaverse app opportunities that ultimately don’t pan out. Some experts warn this may be analogous to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. The smartest developers will follow a few key principles to maximize their investment.

How can you protect yourself as a company while still taking advantage of metaverse app opportunities that appear before your business? Here are some tips.

• Don’t over-leverage your business on metaverse development projects. Treat them as high-risk/high-reward and move accordingly.

• Be strategic about anticipating demand and swift to meet emergent demand as it takes form.

• Keep your marketing on point. We don’t have a common vocabulary for the metaverse yet, which gives you an opportunity to help shape it.

• Pay attention to what other companies are doing in the metaverse development space and see how their products are received.

• Design apps that maximize a positive user experience.

When you’re ready to make a user-optimized app, let’s work together.

Explore Metaverse App Opportunities with Soluntech

If you’re thinking about getting into the metaverse development space, let Soluntech be your partner in innovation. Our agency has a proven track record of professional consulting services that will help you through the process of breaking into the metaverse with a desirable app.

• App Development: We will advise you on best practices and help you with project streamlining, bug elimination, feature development, interoperability problems, and more.

• UX/UI Design: Make your app functional, accessible, reliable, and appealing with our guidance. Tap into emerging metaverse development trends to deliver a positive XR experience for the user.

• AI & Machine Learning: The metaverse will demand powerful AI and ML solutions to the huge quantities of data and the vast number of functions that the metaverse will naturally entail. We will help you set up your app to utilize these technologies effectively.

• Low Code Development: Get your app to market quickly and inexpensively by making use of low-code practices so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Schedule a Free Pre-Consultation Today

You bring the creative ideas; we’ll bring the app software development expertise to realize your vision.

Schedule a free pre-consultation now to discuss your metaverse development project, or contact us directly if you have any preliminary questions.

Metaverse FAQ

What is the metaverse?

The metaverse is an extended reality (XR) virtual experience that blends seamlessly with physical reality with a high degree of verisimilitude (realism) that gives you the sense that you’re “really there”—be it at a park, a meeting, a concert, etc.—when in fact you’re not actually physically present.

Is it a Facebook thing?

No, at least not exclusively. Mark Zuckerberg made news when he popularized the term in 2021 and renamed his company Meta, but the idea has been around for a long time, and many other companies are working on their own metaverse development projects.

The metaverse is coming whether or not Meta the company is able to become a dominant force in it.

What’s the point of the metaverse?

Many experts consider the metaverse to be the next evolutionary leap in cyberspace development, similar to Web 3.0.  Metaverse development efforts have so far focused on immersive virtual interaction.

Why should my business be looking at metaverse app opportunities?

Metaverse development is becoming a huge growth industry. The businesses that make smart decisions today will be able to establish themselves as early players with enormous opportunities for growth.

What would a metaverse app even look like?

A metaverse app will look like a present-day app except with additional coding to accommodate the XR architecture and the audiovisual user experience. The actual products and services delivered through these apps could be virtually anything involving audio or visual content.

How will all of that audiovisual information be collected and transmitted?

It’s going to require massive new infrastructure, advances in artificial intelligence, and considerable human labor. On the consumer’s end, it’s going to require a VR headset or AR glasses and a good data connection. But these are not metaverse development problems; they are industry growth opportunities.