Right now the “Metaverse” is much more of a concept than an actual entity with clear borders. It only exists in the realm of fiction as envisaged by American writer Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash, in which he coined both the phrases, “Avatar” & “Metaverse” (published in 1992). The notion revolves around a persistent connection to a virtual world that parallels the actual environment & allows people, represented by avatars, to interact across experiences that both simplify their existence & make life much more convenient.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook & many other big tech players are betting on this idea. It was reported that Facebook has around 10,000 technologists currently working on the project. Additionally, Facebook Horizon, announced in 2019, which follows earlier social virtual reality (VR) apps by Facebook (Oculus Rooms, Oculus Venues, & Facebook Spaces) is its major initiative towards creating the Metaverse.
Essentially, the Metaverse will be a multi-connection, Internet-type platform that will allow millions of people to interact in a given space to experience both common & individual experiences depending on their preferences. For instance, it would connect thousands of music fans to attend a virtual concert where they would “feel” as if they were in an actual arena. Not only that, it would also permit a person to buy something from a virtual store on their partner’s thought suggestion without having to receive an actual text message.
The Metaverse, in theory, would be “brought to life” by a combination of AI, AR & VR, but would not be any of these technologies in their own individual way. To visualize the difficulty of connecting the planet to multiple, but combined experiences you just need to know that massive multiplayer games such as Fortnite can, as of now, only manage around 100 players in a connected immersive environment. The technology to create a Metaverse is in its infancy, but the foundations are available to formulate it in the very near future if it’s managed effectively.
Clearly, the Metaverse, like the Internet, cannot be “owned” by a single company or individual if it’s got any hope of survival. The Metaverse would need to be decentralized, much like cryptocurrency is, to succeed. “Players” would need to interact with & create new & meaningful applications on a broader stateless, borderless floating decentralized technology that would allow individuals represented by avatars to transport from one virtual environment to another without needing to reinvent themselves, depending on who owns the platform.
Additionally, since the Metaverse is meant to replace the devices we currently use to connect with each other, such as smartphones, the devices envisaged, which as of now revolve around cumbersome headgear & crudely placed body-motion detectors, would need to evolve into receptors that are comfortable to live with.
Opportunities for commerce would abound since the Metaverse would feature its own economy. Naturally, it’s this aspect of the Metaverse that has all the big tech companies super excited. However, even for ordinary folk, options to create, for instance, designer fashion & accessories for Avatars would become a lucrative pursuit.
Currently, it’s the massive Online gaming companies such as Roblox (a user built gaming community) & Epic Games (Fortnite) that are ahead of the game in bringing the Metaverse to life, but even according to these innovators the actuality is years, if not decades away.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
