What is the metaverse?
It’s our new digital world. We are moving more and more of our lives online. But what if there was a virtual world where you could live out your life in an immersive 3-D environment? The idea of this digital space has been around since at least 1992, when Neal Stephenson wrote his book Snow Crash. While it’s not exactly clear whether we will all be living in this virtual world anytime soon, with the rise in innovation entrepreneurship it may happen one day real soon.
We have all heard of virtual reality. Many people probably know that it is a computer-generated, three-dimensional environment that a person can interact with and explore while wearing a headset.
But what about the Metaverse?
The Metaverse is a proposed shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet. The word was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash.
So, if the term was coined so long ago, why is it popular and a semi reality only now?
Probably because, the idea outlined in Neal Stephenson’s famous novel “Snow Crash,” published in 1992, goes well beyond any single game or video-conferencing tool.
The epidemic of the coronavirus has prompted a lot of interest in shared virtual environments, or the “metaverse.”
During the pandemic, the concept grew in popularity as lockdown measures and work-from-home regulations drove more people online for both business and pleasure. The phrase refers to a wide range of virtual worlds, including everything from office tools to games and community platforms.
Many of the new platforms are based on blockchain technology and use bitcoin and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), allowing for the creation, ownership, and monetisation of a new type of decentralised digital asset.
A blockchain is a distributed database that can be accessed by a network of computers.
It is extremely difficult to modify a record once it has been put to the chain. The network performs regular checks to guarantee that all copies of the database are identical. Blockchain has been used to underpin cyber-currencies such as bitcoin, but there is a slew of other applications on the horizon.
The future of Metaverse
When we talk about the future of metaverse it is important to consider its present relevance and popularity, and the relevant business idea validation.
Social media has become a vital element of how people connect around the world. It brings people together and enables for quick connection with the rest of the globe. For example, leaders of countries are now using Twitter to make statements and other things. It provides organisations with a quick and reliable approach to target a specific population, which can help boost brand awareness, leads, sales, and revenue in certain industries.
The popularity of social media and the possibility of altering the trajectory of the most popular social media platform are both appealing. Facebook began as a tool to connect people at Harvard University and has since expanded to include all universities and colleges. Seven out of ten adults in the United States now use Facebook. Turning the world’s largest and most popular social network platform into a metaverse firm might mean that metaverse is the way the world communicates in the future. There’s a theory that the metaverse will be the Internet’s future. The transformation appears to have started already, with Facebook encouraging users to buy virtual reality goggles.
It’s unclear how realistic a true metaverse that perfectly mirrors actual life can be or how long it would take to create, but…
Will the world be fully dominated by avatars who work, socialise, attend events, and shop full-time online? This may appear ridiculous, but if you think about it, we’re already halfway there. All of these things are already done online. Creating a virtual environment that combines augmented reality and virtual reality (also known as XR or Extended Reality) would only enhance these experiences, increasing the likelihood that people will get even more engrossed in this future metaverse.
Recent Comments