Neeraj Jain, a lawyer practicing in the lower courts of Delhi, began blogging six years ago when ‘bloggers’ were just beginning to be taken seriously. Burnt out with the never-ending demands of work, he shared food and travel reviews on a free webpage as a way to relax.
Once he started receiving appreciation for his writing skills, he decided to invest in a self-owned website, activated Google ads and continued to consistently upload content on it. Four years on, Jain earns Rs 50,000-70,000 every month from this ‘side hustle’.
His website’s high ranking on Google attracts brands keen to drive traffic through his to their own websites. Jain has now started his podcast to reach a wider audience, and is exploring the various offerings of Web 3.0, to grow his repertoire furtherPriyanka Balwa, a talented young artist from Mumbai who works under the pen name Cyber Shakti, was introduced to NFTs through a digital artist community she is actively part of. She was one of the first female artists to explore the technology that ties cryptocurrency with culture and feels extremely fortunate to have got a head start. With the rising popularity of the metaverse, she was well-placed to meet the increasing demand for 3D and digital native artists.
She tasted financial success early on and wanted to pay it forward. This led her to co-found DAZE (Decentralised Art Zone), India’s first dedicated NFT (non-fungible token) Art Exhibition which took place in December 2021. It showcased NFT talent and connected the real world with NFT creators, opening doors for the latter to engage with Web 3.0 startups for fruitful collaboration
Shavir Bansal from Bengaluru saw a tremendous opportunity in content creation and the popularity of influencer culture. As an investment banker, he possessed in-depth knowledge of finance but knew that content needed to be engaging in order to stand out. Bansal hired a personable young female actor, Manu, to be the face of his channel @bekifaayati, where he dispenses information and tips to make people ‘financially literate
The content simplifies potentially complex concepts through the use of funny filters, the adoption of various personalities and colloquial Hindi. A recent video shares ‘four side hustles to make people millionaires by 2030’—perhaps a long stretch for a discerning audience—but the video is raking in views and the accompanying moolah usually paid by YouTube to creators. Bansal creates content full time and in his words, “I earn well enough to sustain the salaries of Bekifaayati’s employees and reinvest money in the company on a monthly basis
Jain, Balwa and Bansal represent a new digi-savvy generation earning money in hitherto unimagined ways. According to the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2022 by Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer industry is set to grow to approximately $16.4 billion; the value of social commerce sales is estimated at $958 billion; and the creator economy market size is predicted to reach $104 billion this year. With platforms like Instagram also going the NFT route, it is clear that times are a-changing with money in tow.
Meta versus Reality
A term coined in the year 1992 in the science fiction novel Snow Crash, ‘Metaverse’ has since become synonymous with the integration of virtual and physical spaces. In 2022, it is used to describe a virtual-reality space where users interact with other users from anywhere in the world, in a computer-generated environment. Its global reach and massive scale have opened numerous avenues to earn a living from it.
A recent survey carried out by telecom equipment company Ericsson coined the term ‘Merged Reality’ referring to a state of being where it would no longer be possible to differentiate between a physical item and a digital one. Subjects of the survey predicted that the first merged reality experience would be found in gaming when more than seven in 10 respondents believed VR game worlds would look indistinguishable from physical reality by 2030.
By creating immersive environments that simulate reality to such a high degree, the possibilities are endless. Popular games like Fortnite and Roblox have already displayed that concerts and other ‘real’ economic transactions can take place virtually. And this is only set to grow further, as evident from a Statista survey where the market for in-game items in video games like clothing and merchandise was valued at close to $54 billion in 2020.
People have the opportunity to live their best possible lives through their digital twins, believes Gurugram-based Ishan Jindal, the founder of Wobb Influencer Hiring Platform. He says, “The metaverse will allow creators to interact and communicate with their fans and fellow influencers in unique ways. Food influencers can cook together; travel influencers can share experiences together; sports influencers can speak to their fan base in the crowd, and much more.”
He goes on to highlight that the widespread adoption of the metaverse will lead to more sophisticated targeted marketing, highly precise data collection, and the rise of entirely new communication trends. The father of social media, Mark Zuckerberg, too has accorded high status to the metaverse—calling it an embodied form of the internet where consumers will be in the middle of the content. With the future being virtual, everyone from influencers to brands must adopt this medium in order to survive.
“We are currently in a space where if you are just brick and mortar, you are obsolete. You have to adapt to the modern world, and businesses must ensure their presence on the metaverse. Technology is not as intimidating as it looks from the outside.
You can see five-six-year-olds playing housie on Zoom. If they can do it, then businesses must also create channels for themselves where they are present both online and offline,” explains Rajiv Talreja, a consultant business coach based in Bengaluru.
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