What Is the Metaverse, How Does It Work, And Who Wants It?
Facebook recently decided to rebrand its parent company as Meta. The term “Metaverse” has been brought into the discourse by Mark Zuckerberg. The growing craze for the Metaverse poses a lot of questions. Some of the most pressing ones are: what is the Metaverse, is it the next big thing, and how significant will it be to us?
Where did the concept of Metaverse come from?
Hiro Protagonist reflects on being caught in a dead-end job during a global economic downturn. He’s barely scraping by, and the future doesn’t provide him with much to aspire to. Above all, the traditional money has been replaced by encrypted alternatives on his planet. As a result, a few large corporations mold things to suit their purposes. To get away, he puts on virtual reality goggles and embarks on a journey to the metaverse. There his virtual avatar strolls through the streets of a more fascinating, intriguing, and equitable society.
This is a vignette of Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. This term was first coined in his novel and offers a vision of 21st-century reality.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated, “ In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine. Getting together with friends and family, work, learn, play, and shop. You will be able to create completely new experiences as well, that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.”
Mark Zuckerberg has set an ambitious goal. He aims to bring a billion people into his version of the metaverse by the end of the decade. Last year, he vowed at least $10 billion to make that a reality.
What is Metaverse?
Metaverse facilitates a digital environment with augmented reality. That adds visual elements, audio, and sensory input onto realistic conditions. It, therefore, allows users to create social networks, play online games, and invest in crypto. It also enables to access augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). As a result, it provides users with simulated real-life experiences while also connecting them online. Alternatively, virtual reality is entirely digital and adds to the richness of fictitious worlds. According to Zuckerberg, the metaverse is a virtual world where, individuals can subsequently, connect, attend meetings, acquire real estate, and much more.
“The Metaverse is an expansive network of persistent, real-time rendered 3D worlds and simulations that support continuity of identity, objects, history, payments, and entitlements, and can be experienced synchronously by an effectively unlimited number of users, each with an individual sense of presence,” — stated by Mathew Ball, a venture capitalist, in June of 2021.
Properties of Metaverse
To help clarify the concept, below are the metaverse’s properties.
- Massively scaled
- Interoperable
- Real-time rendered
- 3D virtual worlds
- Synchronous
- Persistent
- Unlimited number of users
- The individual sense of presence
- Continuity of data
What Will Power the Metaverse?
The following are some of the technologies that will be used to run the Metaverse successfully
- Cloud infrastructure
- Software tools
- Platforms
- Applications
- User-Generated Content
- Hardware
The Metaverse will feature the following virtual experiences for their consumers-
- Entertainment
- Gaming
- Commerce
- Social Interactions
- Education
- Research
When can we expect to see it?
Mark Zuckerberg predicts that the metaverse’s primary capabilities will take five to ten years to become widely adopted by the general public. Not entirely, but some aspects of the metaverse are becoming apparent with time. Ultra-fast bandwidth rates, virtual reality headgear, and games, to mention a few, are now available, even if they aren’t for everyone.
The metaverse is a novel idea that isn’t going away anytime soon. It will alter people’s perceptions of marketing and social media networking. Furthermore, it won’t be long until science-fiction films like Ready Player One, which are based on the metaverse, become a reality. From having business meetings to shopping and selling goods and services, and travel experiences can be made easier and virtually better by merely sitting in one place. So get ready to learn more about these impending changes, as they could be quite valuable to you as marketers and brands.
What are your thoughts on this new technological development? Will it be a success or will it fall short of it’s expectations? Do share your thoughts on metaverse in the comment section below!
