Colm is the editor of VR 360, with a mission to bring the most important developments in technology to both businesses and consumers.











A new partnership between blockchain-based AR platform Arcona has partnered with VR programmatic company Advir to help monetise advertising in VR.

The partnership brings together three distinct areas: VR/AR, programmatic advertising and blockchain technologies.

Arcona is an ecosystem based on blockchain (or distributed ledger technology) that looks to link the real and virtual worlds together, by layering mixed reality over real locations. The company uses GIS data to break the world into areas and places, that are then sold to the public in the form of tokens. Once they have bought virtual ‘land’ the owners are free to create their own virtual worlds and projects.

Because the Arcona is overlaid over the real world, the company is hoping that real estate companies and local businesses use the platform to provide content to customers. An example would be allowing tourists to use their smartphones to see architectural wonders from the past or witness recreations of past events.

“People need an incentive to buy and develop digital lands,” said Daniil Girdea, co-founder of Arcona. “This is where Advir comes in.”

Programmatic

Advir is the first programmatic monetization platform aimed at VR and AR. Programmatic advertising is an algorithmic process for purchasing digital advertising space in real time, where the buying, placement and optimisation of the ad is automated.

The Advir platform allows the owners of the ‘land’ to specify the area of the virtual environment will be sold to advertisers as a place for their ads. So, for example, they can automate the process of selling the space on virtual billboards in their environments. The platform is a network partner with organisations such as Yahoo and AOL.

Instead of getting money every time someone engages with an ad on their website, the VR content developer will make money every time a user sees the advert. The platform also has the ability to allow users to actually purchase the product in the virtual environment.

“There is this misconception that virtual worlds are just for play, and not as valuable as the real world,” said Sam Huber, CEO of Advir.

“We see Advir as a virtual estate company empowering people to build real businesses in the digital world. But great AR content is hard to find. The fit with Arcona is perfect, as they are building a digital layer across the world, which will give users an infinite number of opportunities to develop their projects. We are delighted to assist them with our tools to monetize.”

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