#H2HChat How Virtual Will Change our Reality with Ryan Bell

Hey everybody, how are you doing? This is Brian Kramer. So excited to be back for another H2H chat. Why am I excited? Because today we are talking about virtual reality and we're going to talk about virtual reality in a way that I don't think you've ever heard it before. And I can honestly say that because I just spent the last almost half an hour talking to Ryan and he already blew my mind. So if you even get 1% of what I just got, you're going to love this H2H chat. It is So much fun what Ryan has to say. So let without further ado, let me let me introduce Ryan. Ryan, first of all, is in Ryan remind me you're in Amsterdam?

Where am I? I'm in Copenhagen right now. Copenhagen.

Yeah, where am I? So so he is he's not only in the middle of Copenhagen, he's he's actually right there at the the carousel in the airport, I believe, waiting for his guitar. And he's kind enough because he's got kind of thrown off from. travel with hotel and bags and all that kind of stuff. As you all know, it's hard to travel, especially in the real world. Can you imagine if he was traveling virtually? We would be just fine.

Yeah, it'd be so much easier. It'd be— I'd be in alt space. It'd be great. There is already a platform called Alt Space where you can interact. And Al Roker was on it last week. And you're able to go up to Al Roker's avatar and talk to him.

No way.

Stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

Now, does, does he respond in a good— in, in the Al Roker style? Does he give— well, you know what, before we get into that, let me give you the proper introduction. See, you can see exactly why the last half an hour was awesome, because we just started talking. But, but first and foremost, um, I gotta, I gotta introduce this guy. So Ryan, Ryan Bell is the head of studios at VR Scout and founder of Summit Live. He is— he keynotes, which is what he's there to do right now, and teaches large companies how to introduce disruptive technology like virtual— excuse me, virtual reality and live video strategy to traditional media by focusing on creative. So, and that's going to be important when we have this conversation. So his projects range from 360-degree film and building virtual reality companies to creating television shows. Building communities and live streaming. It's a mentality of bringing the world together to innovate, create, connect, and educate, which has gotten Ryan recognition from CBS and the presidential office— the good president— for his volunteer work with Erase Child Trafficking, Special Olympics, and youth mentoring programs. So you can rest, Madison. So, Ryan, You have all these different projects going on. They all have to do with virtual reality, correct?

For the most part, yes. And a lot of these things, people don't see that they're going to be connected. Like, uh, when people say, oh, you're big into live streaming and you're big into social media, all these things are going to converge, you know, like technology, when it wins, technology connects.

Yeah. So Correct. So I, I know that— I know connection is huge. We were just talking about Al Roker. I want to get back on that and finish that real quickly because we were talking about actually being in another space and having a conversation with somebody else. And last week, ironically, we were talking about chatbots, which is totally tied into exactly what we're talking about here. And so the title of this, of today's show, is How Virtual Will Change Our Reality. Do you believe— and let's, let's start off with that question based upon everything we just talked about— do you believe that virtual will change our own real reality?

Very much so. I really— I have 2 little girls, so I'm always looking at what the future of education is. I mean, think about it. You and I and most of our listeners probably grew up with Dewey Decimal System. I can still remember, you know, the boogery little papers and the, you know, the smell of that big box. But can you imagine, like, how different it's going to be to access information in the future? How much— how different it is now already. But my wife is an occupational therapist and she works in a hospital and she talks— she was talking about getting these charts to see where people's stents and tubes and all that stuff were. I just posted something on Facebook where you're able to see in augmented reality, like, basically look into someone's body, look into someone's heart. And what's to say, you know, really soon we're going to be able to have doctors put a heart up on a screen and make it, make it expand and get inside of that heart and see these valves. It's, it's going to change things so much down to the core of the way that we interact. So I'm wearing a camp hat and I'm thinking about, like, If I want to sit around a virtual campfire with my fellow summer camp counselors that I worked with when I was in my teens or something like that and be able to feel actual presence, or my family that's in Florida while I'm in California getting to see my child and feel like they're there, feel like they're there for these maybe first steps or the, you know, some taking the try— the training wheels off. Yeah, I think that I think that people think that virtual is going to separate us, but it's not. It's going to be a big thing.

So you do think it'll bring us together and, and have a good connection between humans? And by the way, I do want to let you know that if you say the word human, we are on, we are on HTH chat, which is called human-to-human chat based upon The book that I wrote. So, so the— this is what happens when you say the word human. Sometimes I scare people, our guests. And so this time I'm going to tell you ahead of time so you have fair warning. And so what— one thing I wanted to talk about first is, is how entertainment will change. Describe for us how, how our entertainment value will go up.

Well, you know, this is something we haven't talked about before, but I think there's a lot of responsibility on entertainment industry to do something good because this is going to be the only time that you're 100% focused on anything because you have a headset on or because you have augmented reality glasses on. But the entertainment industry is going to be changing, and what I'm looking for when I'm trying to find projects or funding projects or whatever 'Cause I'm looking for something that's indefinable. So a few weeks ago, I was at Weaver Studios, which happens to be in Dennis Hopper's old house. Weaver Studios is We VR. And I think it's cool that it's in Dennis Hopper's old house, because I feel like the cocained-out ghost of Dennis Hopper is, like, happy that a VR studio is there. But I was there with Jon Favreau of Swingers, of— of, uh, The Jungle Book. He did all the Iron Man movies, and he, he came out with this, uh, this thing called Gnomes and Goblins. I actually have the sticker on my bag right here. So here's the sticker, Gnomes and Goblins. Do you see that little gnome? I can't tell if you—

Yeah, almost, almost.

Yeah, uh, and, and, and so it's, it's this experience where no matter how tall you are or short you are, you have the same experience. You go into this world And it's a world of scale, and you, you pick up a stick and you knock an apple off and you give it to a gnome, and then you shrink down because it's going to scale, and then the trees are bigger. And so I was talking to Jon about this, and I was like, I was like, what's the most interesting thing to you as a director? And he— we started talking about scale, because Iron Man can only get so big on a screen, but in 360, when you're immersed in this huge world, you're able to do much more. So the entertainment industry now has a bigger canvas. And, you know, we're creators. Right. We're consultative people that want to collaborate and figure out how to do this. Even from the beginnings, the first canvases were cave drawings, and not much has changed since that. And now we have not only this right now where we're in this orb, but soon we'll be able to interact with more and more things inside of this orb. And then after that, it's gonna go into a future where we're gonna be able to walk around in a physical space and interact with, with things that aren't real. So think Pokémon Go mixed with movies mixed with an interactive game. All these things converge. Yeah. So technology just makes more things connect, and I'm seeing the connecting points happen quicker than I've ever seen them happen before. It's really astounding and inspiring, and that's That's why I'm like so exciting after a 14-hour flight, you know? I mean, it's like, it's badass. But what I want to tell people now is that we're in this time because right after I talked to John at Weaver Studios, there's a guy named Brian Rose who heads up Google VR. And Google VR is doing amazing things. And he said, I want you to come see the update for the Google Tilt Brush. And so the Tilt Brush is life, you know. It's for the HTC Vive, which is, of course, Vive is life. But the interesting thing is, is he had this community of people asking for these updates. And so he showed us all these updates. And so it's this time that's early, and if you ask for something, you're going to get it. You know, it's really this cool collaborative environment.

So let's talk about the maybe one or two challenges that we're gonna face when it comes to the entertainment value that we'll stay on the same train of thought here, but the entertainment value, where do you think the downsides are? Is there any?

Oh yeah, there are a lot. Onboarding is hard. The high-end headsets are very expensive. You know, you're talking about an HTC Vive, that's an $800 setup, and then you've got to have a pretty strong, powerful computer to get that going. But you also have to worry about the mentality of people. People don't want to be trapped in this experience. You know, if— Yeah. My wife, you know, my wife wants to be listening out for our children or something like that. She doesn't want to be in a fully immersed situation. So right now we're very early days. I call it, I call it the junkyard phase where we're just putting stuff together. Everything's duct tape, everything just, everything works. So, right. Google VR has the right idea. They, they do the Google Cardboard, the little like $12 cardboard things that you put your, your cell phone in. So I think mobile VR is going to be the first real way that people are onboarded into it. And if you haven't had an experience with any type of 360 content, I'd say just drop the $12 and put your phone in there and figure it out and see what it is, because that's enough to really get you, your brain kind of churning about that. And

yeah, that's, it's gonna, it's like anything else. It is, you know, the barrier, the physical barrier of actually just trying it. Like, like anything else. I know social media was the same way. But, but, but how— okay, let's, let's, let's, let's move over into the work environment, the everyday, you know, physical space versus virtual space that might become, you know, an easier interactable place. How far are we away from— Putting on some glasses and working your email and talking to Ryan Bell and doing things like that?

So VR is basically the first step into AR. Virtual reality is when you're in a complete box. Augmented reality is when you're wearing glasses and you're able to overlay stuff. So there's already basically windows for AR. So imagine that you've got your headset on or your glasses on, you're able to type and you're able to see So that's, that's actually— there's already, I think there's like 4 companies that I know of that have already solved that, that problem where you've got your inbox up and all that stuff. I really do think it's kind of like Bill Gates, what, what he would have imagined if he had the technology back in the late '80s, you know, like seriously. Mm-hmm. I, I think that's, that's it. And I think that's a much faster way to do things because in the future we'll be able to grab these things, we'll be able to interact in a much quicker way. You know, everything's going to be a little bit, you know, like eye tracking is going to be huge, huge. All this stuff's going to be time-saving, and, and then we're going to be able to collaborate very quickly. So with that in mind, Microsoft made the HoloLens, which is completely see-through transparent glasses, not opaque, not completely filled in. But NASA is doing this project with the rover. And so if you go to the Jet Propulsion Labs, they've got the rover and you're able to see this big rover. And if people want to work on it, on the real rover, they can practice and figure out where they're going to be before they hoist up this millions of dollars of NASA equipment up into the air and start jerking around with it. I mean, it's—

Mm-hmm.

The work is going to be extremely important. in AR and VR, especially because of the way that we're going to be able to teach people. I like to think about chefs, you know, chefs teaching chefs coming on. I think that's a cool thought in that.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. There is really no easy way to work with— and we worked with a tier 1 culinary center in New York, And there was no easy way to teach food except for in person. Right. They tried it on, on e-courses, on YouTube, and food is just one of those things where, you know, you do have to have that kind of touch and the smell and the sensibility of the way it ends up looking for it to be desirable. And that was always the hardest part, was how do you carry this into that That land. So are you saying that the senses are going to be brought to life and enable food to be more interactive— interactability? I just made that up.

I think, you know, this is speculative, and, you know, like, some of this is overstepping my bounds maybe, but I do want to think of a way that, you know, if you're next to Chef Gordon Ramsay and he's teaching you and you actually have the physical assets, out there and he's talking you through it. And then that's attached to a little bit of AI or something like that where— Yeah. Where you're able to do that. Maybe a better example or an even different example is the tech trade or working on an engine. So if you're working on a car and you're able to put the engine up there and have it expand out and all the pieces come apart so you can see where those pieces go, And that's how you can teach a class without taking apart an engine all the time. I mean, I think that's an interesting way because we have to see what we can learn from these things. And I think that's a really good way.

Yeah. Oh, man. Courtney Smith, my business partner and wife, just tweeted, can you imagine if Tony Robbins is your VR, virtual reality therapist? and you could step into the office and see a VR stadium of people jumping around or interacting with someone without ever having to travel somewhere.

Courtney, you're right on because you're seeing where the value is. And so Deepak Chopra did an event where his son Gotham, who is big into comic books, did all the backgrounds. And the main asset in these were Deepak's voice because you're completely immersed and you're surrounded by this big beautiful tree and all the elements and everything like that. But they recognized what the most valuable thing was. So for Tony Robbins or Deepak, it would be the content. And this is a new way to take that in. So if you're thinking about meditation or self-analysis or self-awareness, this is a time where you get to be alone. And in the world where We don't get the time to get away from all the chimes and all the pings and all the bongs and stuff like that. So I think that this is one of those ways where we can connect with ourselves a little bit better and then learn a little bit quicker. So Courtney, that was an awesome one. You have really good taste in everything besides men.

I love it.

I'm joking.

No, she would agree with you and I agree with you too. So it's a unanimous vote right there. So let's, let's talk about, let's talk about the ways that this is going to help because you work with some nonprofits. And so there's some, there's, I mean, there's teaching and there's entertainment, but there's also helping that's going to happen. There's a, there's a certain level of, of that where people are going to be able to get You know, something that they otherwise couldn't because we can reach things around the world in Africa or, you know, wherever and be able to help people in ways that they've never received it before through technology like this. What do you think about that?

So there's been a term that's been thrown around a lot lately, and I like it a lot. It's called the empathy machine, because if you're able to take someone else's point of view and understand someone else's point of view, Then you're able to empathize a little bit better. And so I'm working on a project. I'm, uh, one of the board members for Erase Child Trafficking. If you find them on Twitter, they're @HelpErase. And it is exactly what it sounds like. We're trying to eradicate child trafficking. And so by doing these 2 pillars, education and awareness, on 360, on a documentary, we're able to show The world through the eyes of someone that's trafficked and then the hero character, because we want to leave everyone each time as feeling like a hero, like they have done something. Because just by sharing this, just by, just by following something like this, it's so easy to follow or share cat pictures or DJ Khaled or Kim Kardashian or whatever. But I think This is one of those things that in social media, it helps us to grow up a little bit because what's the damn point of sharing those stupid things when you could be sharing something that is actually for good? I wanna see more of my friends and my family sharing things from Special Olympics. I wanna see my friends and my families getting behind projects instead of sharing cat memes. Okay, maybe cat memes was 4 years ago, but you know, like, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

In this project, we're looking at doing filming from a height of 4 feet tall because that's the average age of a 4-year-old. And it's not that we're trying to give the 4-year-old as the character, but we're trying to go with when we as humans start to collect and organize our memories. And that happens at the age of 4. And that happens at— and the average height is 40 inches. So— You got me. Human?

Oh, said it twice.

So, so that's, that's what we're, we're doing, and we're trying to do it in a way that— so you know how Breaking Bad is filmed with a lot of, a lot of shots that are long and a lot of, a lot of time-lapse type of stuff? So

yeah,

we're shooting it in, in these areas where everything's constricted so that you feel this feeling of being trapped. And we're also filming it in big spaces so you feel maybe either lost or you feel a feeling of freedom. So we're doing all of those things. We shot and we sent out cameras to Trinidad, to Thailand, to Miami. We're shooting everywhere that I go speak. And then in the background, you'll appreciate this, we're doing like kind of a documentary in live video. We're saying what we're doing and why we're doing it. Because my thing is I like to inspire people to do, to create, to do awesome stuff. And right now I think that this, this barrier of entry to get a camera and to actually try this stuff out, it's not only fun because it's so, so new for everybody, but it's, it's available, you know, and I'm excited about that.

Let's talk about that a little bit. You're— how does somebody become a creator? What's involved in— everyone who's watching right now, if they wanted to pick up a camera or a set of products that would help them start creating today, how would they go about doing that? What would be involved?

So really, all you really, really, really need, like what I'm traveling with today, for instance, is a good example. So I've got a Samsung Gear 360. And that is a 360 camera. It's monoscopic, so it's just got 2 cameras butt to butt and they're facing outwards. And it's, it's 2 4K cameras with fisheye lenses, so it's able to capture everything around it. And then you have to find some kind of monopod. I've got a $26 monopod from Smatree, S-M-A-T-R-E-E. And the camera itself costs $350. So you're talking about starting out with— and the one problem that I will say about— well, one of the problems about the Samsung is you have to have it connected to a Samsung phone. So it's kind of a no-brainer for Samsung people. I'd look at is the Kodak SP360 and the Theta, the Ricoh Theta S. But we're looking at these barriers of entry where the cameras themselves are less than $500. I mean, the camera that my wife got when my first child was born was $800, you know what I mean? Like, like, that's a price point of $500 or less, you're looking at GoPro territory. That's, that's a barrier of entry that I can appreciate. And when I first started in, in, in 360 and I first had an interest, the lowest price point, we're talking like $16,000. So it's gone down a lot. And yeah, I, I think we're gonna see— like, Nikon just announced a really cool new camera that will be out in October that I call the KeyMission that looks really, really legit. Uh, but the interesting thing that I like to tell creators is there's the— they already have the Nintendo, they already have the Sega Genesis, they just don't have Mario and they just don't have Sonic right now. Somebody's gonna make that, and that's gonna be one of the tipping points. And, and like, the PlayStation VR is coming out, PSVR is coming out in October, and the PlayStation already has 40 million units on the ground. So if you buy a $399 headset that is the first thing that's like really legit and plug-and-play, that's a tipping point. So I'm always looking for those 2 things. I'm looking for the barrier of entry, and I'm looking for the tipping points. And there's gonna be a buttload of them. I mean, it's— I'm excited because like this Christmas, this Christmas is gonna be Christmas for my industry too, because it is, it is, man. It's gonna be—

I'm gonna give you one of these just 'cause that was awesome.

It's gonna be so legit, man. I mean, I'm excited to see what Sony does because Sony has been around the block long enough to know, to have been burned before. I look at it, I look at the history of things in technology to see what's going to happen in the future. Like, I just read this awesome book called Television by Seth Shapiro, and it's about disruptive media when television came out. And like, it's happening again. I mean, uh, it's just, it's all amazing.

Okay, let's talk about, um, okay, you've captured it. We, we spend $500 plus or minus on a good camera that we could just we could just do some very fun things with. Now what? What's involved for anyone who's watching if they wanted to take that and do something that was, um, entertaining, entertaining, educational, um, and so on, and, and, and really make it work? Would they have to come to you for that, or can they do this themselves?

No, I, I'm very much— I'm very much a person that wants a lot of people to be indie Creators. This is something that more and more— so I'm gonna tell you the dirtiest word in my industry: stitching. Stitching is hell. Stitching means that you're taking all these pictures and putting them together like Frankenstein. So if you have a camera that has 16 different lenses, then you're looking at stitching these, these pieces together in a way that makes sense. But these, these cameras that I'm talking about, like the Samsung or the Ricoh or or whatever. They're just 2 things and they're stitching together. So pretty simple software that comes with it, not even to the depths of like an iMovie or anything like that. So you're basically going to be able to put the video together with music, not much more than that right now. Um, but some of these already share pretty well to Facebook and YouTube. Those are going to be the 2 strongest platforms that I see Then there are other platforms that are coming out, you know, like Oculus has its own Samsung VR. Then like Zeality is one, Jaunt is one. Jaunt is one that's a good one to if you want to look at some cool stuff because the Jaunt camera is, in my opinion, second to none. The Jaunt camera produces some of the prettiest products because the difference between this monoscopic And stereoscopic is the amount of cameras. So you look at it versus— like, all these cameras are set up to look at like you have human eyes. So there's depth and there's 3 dimensions to these things. You are so quick with that, man.

I

feel like I'm on Pee-wee's Playhouse. But yeah, so even the 3D stereoscopic type of stuff, those cameras are gonna come down in price point. I mean, there's even one of those cameras— actually, 2 of them that I know of. One is at a price point of $800, and the other one is a price point of like $400. But I don't know, I don't know the exact quality of those. I won't, I won't get too far down the nerd rabbit hole, but these, these things are there. I'd say going back, reel me in a little bit. Get them, get a nice monoscopic thing and start to understand what what it means, and not just that you can, but what the mentality behind it is, how you should be thinking about when you're doing this type of talk.

But take me through this. If I were to get like a Ricoh 360 for $500, which I'm eyeing right now, so I'm asking you actually for everybody out there and for myself, but I actually take the video, I do something interesting with it, Maybe an educational 15 minutes on something that I want to teach, then what cost and what process would I use to then just take that and build it into a functional VR video?

Most of these have an app that comes with them, like Samsung Gear 360. They all have an app that comes with it that's pretty easy. You're only getting worried about having to get somebody to stitch for you once you get into the higher-end cameras. And that's, I think, industry standard for a day's worth of stitching is like $500. But you're not going to spend that because you're not going to be doing something that deep and that intense unless you want to. But even that barrier of entry is pretty doable in my opinion. You know, you rent a really high-quality camera for a day, you make sure you have that day planned out like crazy, and then you get it done professionally and you have a higher quality than you could ever even think about producing.

Great. Okay, so let's move over to some of the questions that we've got here. By the way, congrats not only to you, Ryan, but everybody else out there for all your tweets. Everything on #H2HChat. I didn't mention this about 10 or 15 minutes ago. We trended on Twitter. And so that's awesome. I

love it.

Once again, congrats. Way to go, Ryan. And all of you out there, keep your questions coming on #H2HChat on Twitter and we will start those questions now. The questions have already been rolling in, so I didn't even need to ask for them, which means this is a hot topic. So let's start out with Jason Martin. He said, is there a demographic of consumer that you think might be a surprising user of VR that we may not be thinking of?

Dang, Jason, that's a really good question. I really want to see a lot more in the fashion industry. I don't think a lot of people think that that's going to be a thing, but some of the first people that were thinking about that and asking me where the fashion industry— because if you're thinking about being able to track how much eye movement is going towards a dress or a top, and you're able to use a software like Unity and maybe do heat mapping to where you can see how many times you've looked at that, I think the fashion industry is going to be huge in VR because it does give you the chance to be at New York Fashion Week and see all these things Amazing. That's a really good one. That's very interesting to me because it has so many creative components to where you can potentially buy things directly from a video.

Awesome, man. Awesome. Des Walsh said, I'm curious about how VR/AR will change coaching. Now, I know we originally talked about Tony Robbins and we talked about Chopra, but What do you think— how do you think this will change from just one video to another? Because right now you can do video coaching across the world. But do you really want to touch your coach? OK, let's talk about this.

So I actually did some consulting with some NFL teams about what they wanted to do with coaching the NFL. Because you're keeping these players safer from doing scrimmage. Yeah. Because they're able to replay these things again. We're looking into the future by saying, what's going to happen when there are cameras on the helmets or something like that to where they can actually replay and relive these moments? But if you're looking at it right now, and you're able to run this play with— and I'm thinking more AR than VR, more augmented than virtual— of going back and throwing the same pass over and over again in an actual field and not having a full team out there. I mean, that's practice that you can do while you're on vacation. There's a lot of applications there, and, um, I, I, I do like the aspect that it's going to keep people a little bit safer, uh, from, from getting, uh, hurt. So I— that's a great question, man. You've got a great audience, man.

Oh man, I can't even tell you how awesome they are. I love these people. I, I wish we all could like live in the same City and congregate. Okay, so Nancy Rubin, great friend and HTH community friend, awesome person in—I think she's in New York. She says we are filming—we are filming tour of a lab in virtual reality right now. We built a camera rig that has four digital cameras on it. Most of most of the work is in stitching content together. It sounds like that falls in line with what you're talking about there. But I wanted to give a shout out to Nancy because she obviously has this in practice right now. I know she creates educational content for— that's her role, is to create educational content. And I think that's awesome that that's happening. I wonder how many schools, though, are going to start like really creating educational content so that you can do this from your dorm room, your home, travel home, not go to school, do it from your— I mean, is there a benefit or a— I mean, because kind of part of it is you want to interact with humans, right?

Right, right. Yeah, that's, that's definitely the conversation because socialization. But if you're collaborating over a similar project in the same timeline, then maybe there's value in that. I don't want a world to where my daughter is not going to class or anything. I want, I want a world where my daughter is going to class, but I think Nancy has it right by, you know, kind of learning about these processes and doing these things. Because right now, my friends that are in tech, I'm telling them, you know, learn how to do the stitching, learn Unity, uh, learn all these processes and get your minds around it. Because you guys remember when, uh, being a Rubyist, the knowledge of Ruby on Rails, you basically got paid— what, what did you get paid, like $5,000 a day or something? Yeah. stupid like that. I think that we're going to get to that point where people that are able to do more with Unity and more in VR and create these worlds, they're going to be highly valuable because people are going to want that pretty quickly once this next tipping point hits. I mean, think about the tipping point of Pokémon Go. That was the tipping point in VR and AR. Whether you know it or not, that was a tipping point in VR and AR. But yeah,

I— They're awesome. And I'm going to keep going. I am listening, but I want to make sure we hit them all. And so that's why I'm going to keep hitting the questions here. They just keep coming in, man. So I'm going to eventually, if we don't get to them today, then we will get you answers. So don't worry about it. Keep the questions coming. But next one is Connie, my friend, dear friend Connie from Dell. She runs social and influence marketing for Dell. She said, what incentive will event visitors have to attend in person versus if they can experience the event in virtual reality?

It's really hard to get a card when you're in virtual reality. It's really hard.

Right? Yeah, yeah,

yeah. You know, that's a good point. It's much like TV, you know, when people said, said, oh, why would I want to go to this if I'm gonna— if I could just see it via livestream or live? No, it's not the same as real life. It'll never be that. You're not gonna be able to— in every conference you go to, like every conference I go to, I meet somebody that changes the game for me. I meet somebody that I'm gonna be able to collaborate on a project with me. I never want VR to go so crazy because there's a movie— there's a book called Ready Player One. It's going to be turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg, and it's about this dystopia where people get kind of disconnected. And I truly don't think that's going to be possible for most of us.

Good point. That's a good point. You can't shake hands in person or on VR. And so I'll, I'll keep going here with, um, with the next one from Randy. Randy Theo. Um, this is the fun part because we are operating in real life right now and Ryan is at an airport, and so we're gonna embrace, uh, embrace background noise. Thank you all for hanging in there. Um, if we were in virtual reality, we would eliminate the crying, but that's real world, that's real life. So, um, that's all right. We love, we love real life. So let's go with Randy. Randy said, with tonight being the debate night, this is a great question. I can't help but wonder how— well, it's kind of a comment question. I can't help but wonder how virtual reality will impact the political landscape in the future. Can you imagine if the debate tonight was virtual reality and we could all actually attend?

And there's some kind of forum to talk in. Yeah, Randy, I mean, yes, because it does. We're getting so connected. And we also have to remember that, that, that social media is very young still, and we're growing up in social media, and all these technologies are connecting us a little bit quicker than we're used to. So we're coming up with these rules and these ways, these social norms, and some people don't follow them. We're going to see a lot of different things that happen because people are going to get really, really really emotional about some of these things. It's gonna be interesting.

Man, and emotional is the keyword there. Okay, so Molly said, what's the best way to incorporate virtual reality into a marketing plan? This is a new marketing channel. It's a new way of— and actually, we're gonna get to that as a second follow-up, as how do you do— how does this become a marketing channel? But how do you incorporate it into a marketing plan?

I love it, Molly. So the way I've seen it being done successfully is it's almost like an Easter egg. You know, you're talking about something and you see something that's very cool. So one of the rules that I try to abide by is I don't go for long content in VR. I try to stay around the 6-minute mark. Oh, okay. And even smaller for, like, if I'm doing commercials. But say if you have— it's It's always these creative things. Like, it depends upon, say you're talking about a restaurant, you've got a new terrace that you want to show, then where are you going to show it? But you have to have that mentality of what— why are you showing 360 degrees of something? The new terrace example is a wonderful one because you get to share that out. But then you have to do the usual social media marketing stuff and realize where it's going to get the most power and how you're going to drive traffic from it and all that stuff. So it's a long-ass question, Molly.

Hey, can I throw out an idea and tell me what you think about this? Because a while back when iPads were first a thing, or let's go even farther back when DVD players were first a thing, remember the little mobile ones that we used to take on planes and we used to watch our little DVDs? But now those things are eliminated. There's hardly At this point, there's a deliverability that we want to have, and I think that video could come in the form of a delivered— as part of your marketing plan, a delivered video, a 6-minute video that you get in a box with Google Glasses and whatever else you need to be able to play that video and get introduced to a product, a service, a promotion, you know, a walkthrough of a store before you ever have to go there. I mean, the possibilities are endless. And I saw Ian Gertler throw this out. It all depends on what your goals and objectives are, because after that, it's like sky's the limit. You could send out a package to anybody and dazzle the heck out of them, just like we did back when We used to send DVD players and iPods and all those other things. This is just that next evolution. What do you think about that?

Oh my God, man, you're getting all jazzed, aren't you, bro? No, I think you're completely right. But it does go back to this very personal thing about the brand. This has to be more personal than anything that you've done before. I love your example. I worked with Pizza Hut. I talked to them about doing a branded cardboard because the cardboard already looks like the cardboard box of a pizza box. So if you're able to do an ordering thing through pizza where you're grabbing stuff. So have these amazing thoughts of what you already have because Pizza Hut already has this wonderful app and this other wonderful website that people are already accustomed to. So like when I'm talking to a brand, I'm usually trying to figure out like, What's going to be the most exciting thing? Why VR? Why VR is always my favorite question. And then we sit around for a second and we, uh, duh, uh, duh, uh, duh, and then, bam! We're like, oh, this is how we're gonna be able to tell our story in this new medium. Because there's nothing more exciting than having that huzzah moment, that eureka, I found it moment. Yeah. About, we're gonna tell our story in a new medium, and then we're gonna get to brag about it in other mediums. You know, like, that's badass. Multiplatform win. And we've got another platform that helps to define and helps make the other platforms smaller in a way. That's awesome, man.

It really is.

Yeah, it's so cool.

It's phenomenal. OK, I'm going to keep going on the questions because obviously we could keep going on this. All right, so Kira said, what resources would you recommend to those of us who are new to VR but want to learn more, where should they go?

So, okay, so I work at VR Scout. I actually work at VR Scout because of what their mentality is. They want people to— they want to reach the masses. So VR Scout is the best for that. Get a Google Cardboard for whatever it is, like $12. Since that book Ready Player One, is going to be turned into a movie sometime next year. Read that. It's really, really, really, really good. And if you ever have the opportunity, look for the HTC Vive Tilt Brush. That was the experience that I had that basically made me be like, look, I'm— it's now. It's happening now. I was around in the '90s when the first wave of VR hit, and it just— the technology wasn't ready. But if you look at what the HTC did with the Vive and the Tilt Brush, being able to draw in a 3D physical space and being able to walk around that drawing, it set fire to my creative, like, like, oomph. So, so those things, but, but read a little bit, follow folks like me, follow like Roblum VR. There's a lot of really good people that are out there. that are doing cool things that really just want to teach people. Because, because my job— I'm head of studios, you know, like, like my job is to, is to get people to make more content. So my win is when somebody else wins, you know, like I— yeah, I, I, you know, everybody knows me. I'm a community guy. I want to see people do awesome stuff and then I want to talk about how awesome it is.

Okay, so Jeff Reno said QR never took off because there was no standard. What will it take for there to be a VR standard, or is there one already?

There's not one already. There's just not. It's too early and there's too many things. Yeah, good question, but I don't have an— it's such a good question, I don't have an answer to it. Yeah, no, that's fine. It's just, it's just, there's, it's, it's, I think, I think somebody will answer it with content within the next probably 8 months.

Yeah.

And, and I think Unity is a standard format right now going on Steam, but where the power is lying, basically.

Yeah. And, and so it's interesting, um, because the next question actually, um, drives a little bit more toward this. Glenda McDonald said, will there be a YouTube-style virtual reality sharing platform?

Oh, Glenda McDonald, I love you. This is my favorite conversation. Somebody's gonna end up making it, but right now, I got into a heated conversation where I got a little pissy because I think everybody's doing it wrong. Everybody's on board, like when you go into a VR scenario, it's just like you're going into Netflix. There's the little tiles up on there and everything like that. It's not welcoming. Mm-hmm. So I think there's, I think there's a potential for somebody to win really big, even though there are these big engines out there like Google and Facebook and everything like that. But nobody's done this thing where there's this vestibule, where there's this welcoming coming in, where there's this ethereal voice of Siri on peyote that says, welcome, Bryan Kramer, come in. And then, you know, there's, there's no onboarding. It's just this hard on and hard off. way of doing these things. And it's not good for the industry because the normal person's not gonna be excited about coming on because it's just too hard for your brain to come in. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. No, I understand. Okay, so I wanna shift a direction here real quick and then we'll get back to the questions again. I'm curious what you think the actor, The person, the focus, the hero of each thing, how different will it be for them to do their role, their job, their educational platform than being on video? Because we still haven't— I mean, if you look at YouTube and you look at 9 videos out of 10, the person on video really doesn't— I think I'm sorry if I upset some people on here, but they don't know what the heck they're doing already.

Right.

There's a lot of crap out there. And so are we building on top of like virtual reality? Well, that— are we going to continue to build virtual reality crap just as we've done with YouTube videos? Or, you know what I mean? Like, is this going to turn into more crap?

There's going to be a lot of detritus, just like, just like YouTube for a while. But you had me thinking about where the talent's going to come from. And where I've seen the most interesting talent is from people that are on stage in traditional theater because they have that presence of being in an environment where they have to interact and they have the ability to know the placement of themselves versus the camera because the camera is now a character instead of just a camera. Mm-hmm. I think our job is not to call out what is crap, but our job is to find the beauty within the crap and And amplify it, you know, if I—

That's very political, that was good.

But I mean, I do want people to try. I don't care if it's crappy content right now, I want people to be trying because right now we've gotta learn where some new muscles are that we've never used before because this is kind of new. People haven't been able to create in this way Before, and it's, it's a, it's a new mentality. We're gonna see a lot of stuff that we should be— we're gonna say, oh, that should have just been flat screen, or oh, that's just junk, that shouldn't have been flat screen or anything, you know?

Right. Oh, it's gonna be, um, it's gonna be a while, I'm sure, uh, to get the quality up, the quality of content, and then the source that's producing the content. Cream rises to the top, so on and so forth. But we're still figuring it out, and I, I know that, and I'm I'm totally, you know, obviously half joking. But okay, let's get back into the questions here. So, and I know Glenda didn't mean this as a question, but she said, so we need virtual reality concierges. You know, there's a whole concierge piece to this. And I agree with her. I agree. I mean, we're everywhere. Look at you right now. You're traveling right now. Wouldn't it be great to put on glasses and have a concierge help you with your luggage?

Or just, just even blinkers on my glasses, just blinkers going bing bong, bing bong, bing bong, go right, you know, go right to baggage claim because you can't read, you know, where you're at while you're in China or something. Yeah, I agree completely, and I think that will be kind of an overlay for everything. So one of the reasons that The new Apple iPhone 7 Plus has 2 cameras is so that we can get a better feel for what's going on in our world. Because think about it this way, Google Maps or Apple Maps or whatever, they're pretty valuable until you get to the place, and then they have no value anymore. But now that we have something that can understand a 3D environment, it can tell you where the Starbucks is, it can tell you where the currency exchange is, it can tell you where all these things are. So, we're going to have a better understanding of our environment. We are going to have that concierge, and that concierge is going to be driven by AI.

Okay, so let's introduce the last piece here, I think, that will complete our awesome hour that we've had, and that's about AI, artificial intelligence, and where you see artificial intelligence breaking into virtual reality? Where do you see it working and not working?

So characters— let's go back to video games. Characters in video games have always been knocking against walls and everything. Now we need to have characters in video games that understand their environments more and are able to guide us more. So they also have to be smart enough to fool us in a 3D world. I think that's really going to be it. And then the training aspect, when you're screwing up, it's able to guide you in an educational way as to which way to go. So I think those are the big components in AI for VR right now. The future is going to be a little bit more in-depth, where we're going to have friends that we're not going to be able to tell aren't friends, aren't real. aren't human. You missed it. So yeah, I'm highly interested in what's going to happen when technologies begin to merge, like AI. Yeah, AI is a big

one. So where do you think Facebook is going to take this? Facebook has Oculus, they've got chatbots, they've got Facebook platform, they've got, they've got every— they've got Instagram, photo, videos. I mean, they're building the community ecosystem that's potentially gonna reward and support everything we're talking about for the last hour.

Right.

Will it become everything that That, you know, I just said? Is it gonna become that conglomerate, or do you think somebody else is gonna take— try to take that?

You know, I don't know. It's one of those things where they're so— they're so big, but when you try to do everything, you don't do everything well. Like, Oculus Rift is not as— it's a subpar product in comparison to the HTC Vive. It's— oh wow, it's not as good, and it's— it's It's easily not as good. If you pay— if you're buying one or the other, you're paying $20 less for the Oculus Rift for something that's half as good.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's really— it's not there. And we always like to look at, like, what— Google was the 12th search engine or the 20th search engine or something crazy like that? I think there's a way for somebody to make something that's quite simple that people feel like they can go into. But right now we've got so many headsets coming out, they've got, you know, it's, it's really a crapshoot. But I want to see somebody do something cool. But then more than likely somebody's gonna do something amazing and then Facebook's gonna buy it. So let's just, let's just play it safe. And if I'm gonna look at the future, Facebook's probably probably going to be pretty big in there, and Google's going to be pretty big in there because I know that their game plan is really cool, and it's about having information at your ready.

I know that— sorry, go ahead.

I was just going to say with Google, they were showing me their thoughts about looking down at a bottle of beer and then say, I don't like this bottle of beer, and then it pops up and it says, okay, this is your list of don't likes, and here's your list of things that— so it connects it to Google, you know, which I think is cool.

I know Facebook won an Emmy for a movie. It was the first time that I've seen a technology company win an Emmy like that, other than Netflix and HBO and so on and so forth. But a straight-up technology company broke into Hollywood. I think that's pretty phenomenal.

Yeah, I was, I was there. I was at that, I was at that award.

Oh, wow.

So they interacted. That's when they announced the Interactive Media Awards. My friend Seth Shapiro, he wrote that book I was talking to you about, Television: The Disruptive Media. Like, that's such a great book. You seriously pick it up. But he called me up and he's like, I need you to come to this Emmys party that I'm having. And of course And of course, I'm like some nerd from a little town in Georgia. I'm like, yeah, yeah, of course. And I'm like, I go to my wife, I'm like, Lynette, what do we wear? What do we wear? Yeah, Oculus Story Studios, I think they won with Henry and what's his name? I can picture his face, but I can't remember his name right now. He was the voice of Henry. And it was really, really good. But we're gonna see a lot more of that because people are gonna be touched. I mean, I have to tell you this. This is an interesting fact. Like, I've had so many touching experiences in 360 video where I have felt more emotion and cried at things more than I can remember in the past decade of watch— of actual traditional movie watching. So, you know, the future is this: the scariest movie any of us are ever gonna see is gonna be in 360. Wow, that was loud as hell. The scariest thing we're ever gonna see is in 360, and the most amazing thing in the news is gonna happen in a 360 type of news thing. We have to realize that all this stuff that we've gone through before With things like JFK's assassination, the gift of the Magi from The Honeymooners, the Golden Age of television in the '70s, the comedy, figuring out comedy. All this stuff is going to happen again. It's just going to happen in this new medium.

Wow, man. It is unbelievable. And we could obviously talk for another hour, but the information that you shared today is This is great. I really appreciate it, especially given the travel that you have underway. And thanks for making it happen. I really appreciate it. Where can everybody find you?

Oh man, I love being on Twitter. Twitter's my buddy. Find me @ryan_a_bell. I use it as my signature. I'm pretty active on there. And follow us at vrscout.com. And I have a personal website, ryan.live, that was provided by our friends at RightSide because I'm a domain nerd.

Awesome, I'm gonna have to check that out. And also, you— anyone out there that is going to be in, I believe it's Atlanta, right? We're gonna be at BarkWorld.

Oh yeah, that's soon.

Yeah, yeah, that's coming up.

I wanted to tell you what I'm gonna do about Like, I'm doing a VR thing for Bark World about— remember the, um, it's bacon? You remember that commercial where the dog's running around and you can see—

No, I gotta check it out.

Okay, I made— I basically built a 360 commercial for a dog company.

Oh man,

that's

gonna be fun.

That's gonna be fun. So yeah, in Atlanta, you and I are gonna be hanging out and talking at Bark World. And I'm doing something special. And I'm sure you do something special every day. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just in your wake.

Ah, well, we'll see. I mean, you're bringing the, you're bringing the 360 goods. So, all right. So if you're going to be in Atlanta, there's a tweet out there. I think Lisa Leffler, who helped put this all together— thank you, Lisa— put a tweet out. So if you want to attend and you're in Atlanta when we're going to be there, dates I'm sure will come out on tweet as well. Then we will, we'll see you there. But otherwise, Ryan, thank you so much, man. Really appreciate it.

Thanks, that was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me on, man.

You got it, you got it. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

All right, bye, my friend. Talk to you later.

All right.