It’s the word of the hour – ’Metaverse’ – but what does it actually mean? Will metaverse change the way we live, work, and socialize?
Tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg or Satya Nadella talk about it, the metaverse is the future of the internet. Or it’s a video game. Or maybe it’s a deeply uncomfortable, worse version of Zoom? It’s hard to say.
Discussing what “metaverse” means in today’s times can be related to having a discussion about what “internet” meant in the 1970s. A phase where the building blocks of a new form of communication were in the process of being built, but no one could really know what the reality would look like. So while it was true, at the time, that “the internet” was coming, not every idea of what that would look like has come into existence.
Metaverse undoubtedly has been a hot topic of conversation recently, with Facebook and Microsoft both staking claims. But what exactly does Metaverse mean? And when will it get here?
Metaverse is a portmanteau, combining the prefix ‘meta’ and the word ‘universe’, and is used to describe a virtual universe, accessed by virtual reality (VR) technology. In the metaverse, avatars can transcend reality and enter a VR world. The word ‘Metaverse’ has been extremely popular in the gaming space for quite some time- Anyone who’s enjoyed a role-playing game (RPG) where they entered the world of the game and played live with other players and characters is probably familiar with the concept of a metaverse. The term has also been used by futurists for years to describe how we might connect digitally in years to come.
In simple terms, Metaverse is a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you. You’ll be able to interact with friends, work, play, learn, shop, create and much more”.
With this in mind, Meta and many other tech companies are keen to expand the metaverse idea beyond a vague concept and into something real, developing the tools required to bring the metaverse to life.
Today, the word metaverse generally refers to interconnected, virtual communities, or worlds, where avatars of individuals can connect via VR headsets, Augmented Reality (AR), smartwatches, and smart glasses, we can transport ourselves into the metaverse. It is imperative to know that at this point, a global metaverse that anyone can access doesn’t completely exist yet, so most of Meta’s ideas for the metaverse are still in the theoretical stages.
As Matthew Ball, partner of Epyllion Industries, summed it up beautifully recently- “Right now, we are on the cusp of the next internet,”
The next big question is: When will it get here in full swing? Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the newly named Meta (formerly Facebook), estimates it could take five to 10 years before the key features of the metaverse become mainstream.
Future of metaverse?
The fact is that the metaverse will become as real and common as the internet. As we can see, it is but a matter of time.
When Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney was asked by CNN what he thought about the future of the metaverse, he said, “I think it will take a decade or more to really get to the end point, but I think that is happening.”
At the same time, Sweeney said, “The metaverse isn’t going to be created by one company. It will be created by millions of developers each building out their part of it.”
So, in other words, the metaverse is still being constructed brick by brick and everyone will have a hand in its creation.
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Jai A
