The metaverse is a virtual world in which users, businesses, and digital platforms can exist and interact. It includes everything from virtual social and gaming platforms (e.g. Roblox) to NFTs, a.k.a. non-fungible tokens (more on those later).
Can you imagine going to a mall, partying out with friends, doing lots of shopping and all this by not even stepping out of the comfort of your homes. Well, this is absolutely true and will soon become a reality. All thanks to metaverse.
Going a step further, metaverse real estate seller Metamall is bringing a virtual mall where you can spend hours, meet your friends and interact with them at a cafe in real-time without bothering about booking a cab or getting out of home. You can even buy or lease a space in the Metamall.
The metaverse is a longtime science-fiction dream made reality. Films like Tron and Ready Player One have long envisioned digital worlds that hold just as much weight as real ones. The metaverse is just that — a digital world accessible via virtual reality headsets, populated by real people (often using digital avatars) and full of endless possibilities.
It might seem like a new concept, but the idea of a multi-platform digital world has existed for years. We’ve seen it take form in everything from video games to social media. From World of Warcraft and Runescape to MySpace, the early versions of the metaverse have been a part of our world for quite a while. The 2020s metaverse simply builds on these ideas and takes them to the next level.
Right now, there’s really no universal interpretation of the Metaverse. That’s because no one has built it yet, which means there’s no clear idea on how it will work. But if we want to speculate, the Metaverse will offer a variety of virtual experiences and environments where people can meet, work, play games, attend school, go shopping, and experience live concerts using VR headsets, augmented reality (AR) glasses, smartphone apps, or other devices. Or, we can consider what Facebook–perhaps the tech company with the largest stake in the Metaverse–has to say about what the Metaverse is.
According to Facebook, the 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. To truly understand the Metaverse, it’s important to understand what it isn’t. It’s not a game, a piece of hardware, or online experience. It’s a virtual universe where everyone and anyone can exist as a digital being (avatar) and collect, own, exchange, and buy digital items. When the Metaverse is complete, the goal is to combine our physical reality with the digital world.
Implementations
Video games
Components of metaverse technology have already been developed within online video games. The 2003 virtual world platform Second Life is often described as the first metaverse, as it incorporated many aspects of social media into a persistent three-dimensional world with the user represented as an avatar. Social interaction and 3D virtual worlds are often an integral feature in many massively multiplayer online games. The multiplayer game creation platform Roblox has been described as a metaverse and has since employed significant usage of the term in marketing. Other claims of developing a metaverse include the games Active Worlds,The Palace, and Fortnite.
Virtual reality
In 2019, the social network company Facebook launched a social VR world called Facebook Horizon. In 2021, Facebook was renamed "Meta Platforms" and its chairman Mark Zuckerberg declared a company commitment to developing a metaverse. Many of the virtual reality technologies advertised by Meta Platforms remain to be developed. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen criticised the move, adding that Meta Platforms' continued focus on growth-oriented projects is largely done to the detriment of ensuring safety on their platforms. Meta Platforms has also faced user safety criticism regarding Horizon Worlds due to the occurrence of sexual harassment on the platform.
Network
It seems that Meta’s metaverse is going to be a social platform first and foremost. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a virtual “reality” if users didn’t get the chance to interact in some way or another. Sure, this applies to crypto exchanges and NFT purchases too, but it also involves socializing in a more classic sense.
Roblox is just one example of networking in the metaverse. Social media has long served as a way for professionals to meet peers and clients alike. The metaverse is a natural extension of that, and it often provides new and exciting ways to do it.
Invest and do business
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, you’ve probably heard the terms “NFT” and “cryptocurrency.” Both are important building blocks in the metaverse and great ways for users and businesses to invest in the platform. Cryptocurrency is a term encompassing a number of digital currency platforms. The most famous of these are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency run through a blockchain system. Its value is in a state of somewhat constant flux but longtime platforms (especially the aforementioned ones) have skyrocketed in value since their inception.
Shop
These days you can use cryptocurrency to buy just about anything in real life. Heck, New York mayor Eric Adams even accepted his first paycheck in Bitcoin and Ethereum. In that sense, the shopping possibilities of that corner of the metaverse are endless. At the same time, there’s a form of shopping that relates far more directly to the metaverse. Whether you’re building up your inventory of NFTs or building out your avatar’s world on a platform like Roblox, there’s plenty of shopping to do in this new virtual space.
