The battleground for social products is becoming amazingly crowded. Statistics show that people are spending more time online after the COVID-19 epidemic. In other words, people’s social lives have changed to online environments. As Web 3.0 and the metaverse are near, virtual social life is gaining headlines. The market is continuously and swiftly evolving, and firms must learn to adapt. Soul Zhang Lu, the creator and CEO of Soul App, expressed her vision and advice for building the social metaverse in a recent interview.
Soul Zhang Lu is a key figure in Soul App’s commercialization. This platform, as you may have already heard before, is a social networking app that aims to build a social metaverse for young generations. In the beginning, Soul Zhang Lu had no desire to profit from the metaverse. She was cautious about incorporating ads into Soul App. She exemplified how to diversify ads and create value from the metaverse.
User-Targeted, Soul App Constructed A Warm Social Metaverse Together With Its Users
Soul Zhang Lu came up with the concept for Soul App. She realised that it was becoming increasingly difficult for young people in the modern world today to find a cosy place where they could remove their heavy social masks for a while and express their true selves openly. Catering to young generations, she decided to create a social product to address this issue. She envisioned Soul App as a stress-free social playground for the next generation.
Previous social modes are retained, renewed, and modified in this virtual environment, while new social forms of social relationships emerge. Building social relationships in Soul App is based on a strong AI-powered recommendation engine. The AI would study user engagement automatically and establish a social portrait for every user depending on their unique interests and personality. Later, the AI will bring people sharing the same hobbies or interests together. Like other social products, users form the same true connections in interpersonal relationships.
At present, Soul App is more than just an online social networking app. It is a virtual community that its participants co-create. The ultimate purpose of Soul Zhang Lu is to link individual souls. She believes that preserving the current Soul metaverse’s communities should be a major concern and that a healthy ecology will eventually draw more new blood. Only then can the Soul metaverse mature as a commercial platform.
Consumer-Targeted VS Business-Targeted, Soul Zhang Lu Doesn’t Think It’s A Single Choice
Soul App has created three revenue streams: value-added services, advertising, and e-commerce. Soul Zhang Lu proposed two conditions for introducing advertisements to Soul App on the to-B side. The first is that the Soul App will only allow advertising campaigns that are well-recognized by both businesses and users. The second is that brands that cater to young people will be prioritised.
These measures are carried out to ensure a positive user experience. Advertisements were formally introduced in 2020 on Soul App and have then become a significant source of revenue.
Soul App also derives its revenue via value-added services and e-commerce. Membership fees and paid personalised services were among Soul App’s value-added offerings, accounting for a sizable portion of its earnings. Giftmoji was introduced in its online stores in 2021. It includes virtual items that members can exchange as gifts during chats. By introducing a social and retail experience that merges virtual and reality, this kind of product quickly gained user popularity.
Moving Ahead, Soul App Has A Promising Commercial Prospect
The evolution of the metaverse is aided by technical advancements like blockchain and artificial intelligence. The metaverse is more than just a trading platform. It will be the digital economy’s nursery ground in the Web 3.0 era.
Soul Zhang Lu believes that the digital economy is more than just online marketing and e-commerce. Soul App is also promoting new economic models. Soul App released a set of avatar design tools in 2019 to encourage users to build virtual avatars. Recently, it has launched the self-developed NAWA engine in support of 3D avatar design. Users could also exchange their avatars through Soul App’s online store. A creative economy emerges as more users join the network of avatar creators.
As the interview came to a close, Soul Zhang Lu underlined the importance of developers never losing sight of their initial goals. She believed that if the Soul metaverse was driven by economic maximization, it would eventually be lost, causing catastrophic harm to the user ecosystem. User-targeted is her dedication, and it explains why Soul metaverse is still a triumph in metaverse exploration. Finding a balance between user-targeted and business-targeted development, Soul App has a promising future.