The Creation of the MediaVerse

In the beginning there was chaos…. everything was dark, cloudy, foggy…. but then a team of researchers and developers set out to bring some light…

Of course, things are not this easy! Eleven partners have formed a consortium with very ambitious goals and now that the project starts all aims and objectives have to be specified. While the original plan already laid out what shall be done, the experts need to sit together and define the details of how this can be done.

There was a time when “sit together” meant meeting face to face, all 30+ participants in one room gathered around a table, sharing slides and ideas, scribbling spontaneous diagrams, data flows, and storyboards on whiteboards or flipcharts. But that was another life, a life before COVID-19. Nowadays we meet virtually and discuss our thoughts from home. It works, definitely! The first fruitful day of the Kick-off Meeting is over and we understand each other a little better… mostly. But where there are still questionmarks these would also be there after a physical meeting. What is missing is the coffee break! Everyone can have a coffee during the “convenience break” – at home, alone. But getting to know each other is so much easier over a coffee and a cookie shared in the same room!

The good thing is that we have been used to online collaboration in distributed teams for years AND MediaVerse wants to take this to a new level! While sharing documents and even working on them simultaneously across distances has become quite common, MediaVerse aims to enable co-creation of multimedia experiences. Accessible videos, even 360° videos and 3D models with individual control of the related copyrights. 

We all agree that sitting together at one table can be fun, but the current situation has made the MediaVerse objectives more important than ever: to enable content creators to work together across several kilometres and develop great results despite the distance.