Are you enjoying the social media virtual world? How about creating real experiences / moments through such a virtual world, naturally?
Yes, you read it correctly. Imagine you are sitting at your home and proposing love of your life near Eiffle tower in Paris? It is possible, may not now, but surely in future, through new internet revolution, Metaverse.
In April 2020, Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement that their company is launching a web-based application called ‘Horizon Workrooms app’ which can be accessed through the Oculus Quest 2 Virtual reality headset. Recently, on an investor call he again made an announcement towards the launch which he considers to be a step towards building the Metaverse.
Metaverse is a terminology first floated in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, Snow Crash. Matthew Ball, prominent investor in start-up world described it in an influential essay where he explained that metaverse will be an experience that spans both the digital and physical worlds, private and public networks / experiences and open and closed platforms, besides being “a business”, “offer unprecedented interoperability”, and be populated by “content” and “experiences”. So basically, now one need not step outside their home and can still time travel in virtual world to embrace ‘experience’.
Technically, the Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space including the sum of all virtual worlds and the Internet. It may contain derivatives or copies of the real world, but it is distinct from augmented reality. The word “metaverse” is made up of the prefix “meta” (meaning beyond) and the stem “verse” (a backformation from “universe”); the term is typically used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe.
The metaverse is a virtual environment where people can create their own universe and virtual characters, and interact with each other. So, in metaverse, one can be present with people in digital spaces, one can kind of think of this as an embodied internet that a person is part of rather than just an internet which everyone is using / looking at. One can picture the popular alternate reality options available today – augmented and virtual. The closer the experience gets to reality, the more ‘meta’ it is. But it doesn’t just have to involve immersive technology.
So, for example, while chatting with a friend on the internet, one is interacting at a very superficial level. Messages like ‘Lol’, ‘ROFL’ etc doesn’t really ensure true emotions behind it. Video call may be better option than chatting. But while in metaverse, this conversation can be taken to whole new level where one can feel present in an environment. So, instead of interacting with friends online as is the case now, one can meet them in a digital universe in the respective digital avatars, using a virtual reality headset or other device. Imagine being able to log in to a virtual universe using an AR headset and calling up a friend to meet at a virtual destination, where he / she shows up as a virtual avatar near a serene waterfront. Obviously, it’s not a real waterfront. So, one may not feel breeze in the surrounding or smell wet soil. It’s only a digital representation. But in this metaverse, one can theoretically hear each other, feel each other and also interact with other elements surrounded by.
What virtual and augmented reality can do, and what the Metaverse broadly is going to help people experience, is a sense of presence that is just much more natural in the way that we’re made to interact. And it will be more comfortable. The interactions will be a lot richer. In the future, instead of just doing this over a phone call, one will be able to sit as a hologram on a couch and visit the place virtually. It’ll actually feel present in the destination even if such destinations are in different states or hundreds of miles apart. Such experiences are beyond one’s imagination yet has potential to grab a lot of attention and access from all across the world.
In a nutshell, metaverse is a decentralised evolution of internet.
Facebook has launched its VR based social network, Horizon in April 2020. Since the inception participation is on invite only basis as it is on beta stage. Facebook has been making revenue from ads and transactions so far. With the metaverse getting more popular and accessible, creation of whole new virtual economy can take place, where people are buying digital versions of everything that’s required to be present and look presentable while in Metaverse. Although all these would be virtual, but real money would be used to buy these. Facebook’s metaverse is essentially its users spending more time and money on the platform. Reliance Industries in its AGM held in July 2020, also had made an announcement towards such a development through Jio platform. To be sure, the very idea of a metaverse isn’t new even if is more often than not found in dystopian science fiction novels. Epic Games is also working on metaverse which owns most popular online game ‘Fortnite’. Fortnite counts as a metaverse because it hosts experiences such as virtual live performances, a shopping zone, and more for its players besides the core gameplay. Further, in April 2021, Epic Games announced a $1 billion funding round to support its long-term vision of creating a metaverse. The gaming company Robloz is calling itself “the shepherds of the metaverse”. Not only gaming companies but enterprise solution provider, Microsoft is already working on building the “enterprise metaverse”.
As the future of technology will only become better and better with time, concept like metaverse is surely an ambitious dream project for many tech companies. It will not only change the way we live, but the way we interact, the way an economy functions and the way changes takes place all around us. Although such virtual world can keep users engaged on the platform, it would be interesting to see how other industries gets affected. So, whether travel industry gets affected adversely as now one need not step outside to visit any travel destination in the world. Or whether garment industry gets affected as one can buy virtual clothes/ wallets/ purse etc and dress up nicely. The commodities we consume in a real world could undergo major transformation. Also, large offices would not have relevance as one can be present in a virtual conference room. A person can multitask efficiently without any spending any time on commuting / travelling. These are few examples, and time would only tell how and which industries are changing in its functioning.
With evolution of technology, more and more industries may get disrupted and many new industries may evolve over a period of time. This not only opens limitless business opportunities in a virtual world but also creates a novel virtual economy in itself. Other developments in the area of finance and legal such as privacy protection, law enforcement for censorship, control of communications, regulatory enforcement, tax reporting, the prevention of online radicalization and data security and many more such challenges will need to be addressed in a rapid pace, worldwide.
