What is the Metaverse? The Augmented Reality Future We Could All Live In
Metaverse has been making hundreds of headlines recently, especially after Facebook’s (in)famous name change to Meta. How possible, useful, and entertaining is the future of virtual worlds going to be? Are we just creating fun games or an entire simulation for ourselves and future generations? Let’s dive deep into what Metaverse really is and what perspectives to view it from.
Metaverse is a Virtual World
Before we go any further, it should be noted that there are a lot of people who have seen the Metaverse and do not consider it a virtual world. They say that it is a mixed reality or an augmented world. These people have seen everything from Metaverse apps (think Snapchat) to 360 videos of other people’s dreams from people who still don’t understand what Metaverse is. This is not the only conversation that is going on about the Metaverse.
Understanding what the Metaverse is will make for more intelligent discussions about virtual worlds and augmented reality in general. I call it a virtual world because I am not willing to accept that it is a social layer or a social gaming platform like Second Life.
What are the Benefits of the Metaverse?
One of the biggest potential benefits of the Metaverse, as mentioned earlier, is that it can be made public and accessible, as opposed to being an intricate system that requires a myriad of coding skills. Because the entire system is essentially a software program, any developer could easily create a game in it.
This is much easier and very inexpensive. So the potential of allowing any individual to create a game in a Metaverse sounds super exciting, especially when you consider how “no two games are alike” when it comes to most software. This, in turn, could lead to huge success with many developers joining the Metaverse and not only creating games, but also various educational and therapeutic experiences that could be available to anyone and everyone in the world.
How to Make Money in the Metaverse
The goal of Metaverse is to make virtual worlds easy to use and grow rapidly to hundreds of millions of users. One way to make money in Metaverse is for a company to take a “blockchain-based company”. This means they will collect virtual coins in users’ accounts, and by buying and selling these coins, the money earned will be tracked and taxed.
Right now it is mostly for early adopters of the blockchain-based company. It is not possible to sell these “virtual coins” unless the user is from another country. This means virtual coins will eventually be locked and no longer accessible to users from other countries. Users and Virtual Items Can be Shared and Liked. People can make user-generated content in Metaverse like any other platform.
The Future Workspace
Though the term “virtual world” has been thrown around often, few actually know what that means or what it will mean. In essence, a virtual world (or world virtualization) is a digitally simulated and interactive world. It’s the difference between a video game and a fully simulated and interactive simulation.
For those of us who love video games, that’s great news. In most cases, a virtual world can be a lot more immersive than a video game, and we all know how much we love immersion. I say that virtual worlds are simply better than video games when it comes to immersion, but the caveat is they need to be more than just entertainment.
Who Has Access to the Metaverse?
At this point, it is quite clear that we are not in Kansas anymore. We’re not even in Kansas, Massachusetts. We are, quite literally, in the Metaverse! Let’s take a look at how we can access this information. I first have to explain what the Metaverse is not. The Metaverse is not any one thing and I am not going to make a thesis statement. The Metaverse is not owned or controlled by anyone corporation or entity. It is open and its goal is to grow so that everyone has access.
What Is the Metaverse Really?
The Metaverse is a collective consciousness space created by mankind. As mankind grows to populate the metaverse with rich information and sensory inputs, we create a unique ecosystem of rich experiences.
The Future of Marketing and Advertising
Companies of all sizes have been changing the way they market their products. That’s why social media has become such a huge influence on the way marketing works. The big players in social media, such as Facebook and Google, have started to use and develop social tools to give the potential customers more data about what to look for in a product. In essence, it turns into a future where companies can actually turn data into useful consumer-oriented information. And that is what the Metaverse brings to the table: Advertising.
Conclusion
Big tech has been watching this one and started investing early on (Samsung, Facebook, HTC) for all these reasons.
Long story short: It’s a fun game that can be tailored to your desires and the actual use cases. It can turn into a product that people can’t stop talking about and will undoubtedly be very successful.
In the end, there’s no escaping augmented reality. It’s just part of the future.
It’s impossible to know which direction the Metaverse will go in, but all the mixed messages to market it are quite interesting. It’s still up to the users to decide if it will become a place for the average people or a place for special people.