• From VentureBeat, a story about a a new Gartner study saying that "by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education, social, or entertainment."
The story also says that "by 2026, Gartner expects 30% of the organizations in the world to have products and services ready for metaverse, so all organizations should begin developing digital business strategies that leverage the built-in infrastructure and participants of the metaverse. At the same time, the adoption of metaverse technologies is nascent and fragmented, and Gartner cautions organizations about investing heavily in a specific metaverse."
There's also some welcome context from VentureBeat:
"Gartner defines a metaverse as “a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. A metaverse is persistent, providing enhanced immersive experiences.” Gartner expects that a complete metaverse will be device-independent and will not be owned by a single vendor: it will have its own virtual economy enabled by digital currencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
"The metaverse will allow people to replicate or enhance their physical activities, and as an extension impact businesses that consumers interact with every day as well as how work gets done. Enterprises will provide better engagement, collaboration, and connection to their employees through immersive workspaces in virtual offices."
• From the Wall Street Journal:
"DoorDash Inc. will raise its fees on McDonald’s Corp. restaurants that are slow to prepare orders, documents show, in an effort by the delivery company to improve efficiency and cut losses.
"The delivery service, which earns money by charging restaurants a commission on every order and separately charging consumers a service fee, agreed to lower its base commission rate for McDonald’s U.S. restaurants … DoorDash will charge higher commissions to McDonald’s restaurants starting next year for orders that keep a delivery driver waiting, the documents show.
"DoorDash also negotiated for each McDonald’s store to cover the cost of refunds caused by restaurant mistakes, one of the documents shows, such as when the kitchen packs the wrong burger or forgets the French fries—after guest complaints reach a certain threshold. Some McDonald’s franchisees have raised concerns about the penalties tied to performance as they struggle with staffing shortages that can slow things down."
