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 committed to developing a metaverse.
The metaverse is considered the next evolution of the internet. It will take many forms, including gaming, online communities, and business meetings where people collaborate via a digital facsimile or avatar of themselves. Imagine a virtual world in which people live, work, shop, and interact with others -- all from the comfort of their couch in the physical world. This is known as the metaverse.
What is the metaverse?
The metaverse is defined as the convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space. This environment allows humans to interact socially and
economically as avatars in cyberspace, which acts as a kind of metaphor for the real world, breaking down its physical or economic barriers.
The metaverse concept isn't new. The word “metaverse” was coined in Snow Crash, a 1992 novel by Neal Stephenson.
In the metaverse, people use avatars to represent themselves, communicate with each other, and virtually build out the community. In the metaverse, digital currency is used to buy clothes -- or weapons and shielding in the case of video games -- and many other items. Users can also virtually travel through the metaverse for fun with no goal in mind using a virtual reality headset and controllers.
Even governments may extend their reach into the metaverse. The growth of the internet has spawned many services that are leading the way to the creation of the metaverse.
Here are several companies with their metaverse visions.
In an open letter, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company's metaverse investment represented a fundamental change and was part of a new vision for the social media giant designed to "bring the metaverse to life."
He also said that Facebook is a metaverse-first, not Facebook-first, company. That's an important change because it means users eventually won't need a Facebook account to use other services in the metaverse. Among other non-Facebook products, Facebook has already sold millions of its Oculus VR headgear units for navigating the metaverse.
In the Meta announcement, Zuckerberg said Facebook aims to accelerate the development of the fundamental technologies, including social platforms and creative tools, required to "bring the metaverse to life." After the Meta news dropped in late 2021, Facebook launched Horizon Worlds, a VR space that users can navigate as an avatar, and tools for developers to create additional virtual worlds.
Microsoft
The metaverse is coming to Microsoft Teams -- the software giant's online meetings competitor to Zoom. Microsoft said it will release Mesh for Microsoft Teams in 2022. The new service lets Teams users in different physical locations join collaborative and shared holographic experiences during virtual meetings.
Microsoft said Mesh will let users establish a virtual presence on any device using a customized avatar of themselves. This builds on the earlier announcement of Mesh for Microsoft, a platform for developers that includes a suite of AI-powered tools for avatars, session management, spatial rendering, synchronization across multiple users, and "holoportation." Holoportation is a 3D capture technology that lets users reconstruct and transmit high-quality 3D models of people in real-time.
Microsoft has already been working with the professional services firm Accenture to create Mesh-enabled immersive spaces. Accenture hires more than 100,000 people every year and uses Mesh to help onboard new employees.
New hires meet on Teams to receive instructions on how to create a digital avatar and access One Accenture Park -- a shared virtual space that's part of the onboarding process. The futuristic amusement park-like space includes a central conference room, a virtual boardroom, and digital monorails that new hires use to travel to different exhibits.
NFTs & metaverse.
Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) figure to play a big role in the usefulness and popularity of the metaverse. NFTs are a secure type of digital asset based on the same blockchain technology used by cryptocurrency. Instead of currency, an NFT can represent a piece of art, a song, or digital real estate. An NFT gives the owner a kind of digital deed or proof of ownership that can be bought or sold in the metaverse.
Metaverse Properties bills itself as the world's first virtual real estate company. The company acts as an agent to facilitate the purchase or rental of property or land in several metaverse virtual worlds -- including Decentraland, Sandbox, Somnium, and Upland. Offerings include conference and commercial spaces, art galleries, family homes, and "hangout spots."
While the metaverse has created opportunities for new companies such as Metaverse Properties to offer digital goods, established brick and mortar companies are also jumping in. For example, Nike acquired RTFKT -- a startup that makes one-of-a-kind virtual sneakers and digital artifacts using NFTs, blockchain authentication, and augmented reality. On its website, RTFKT said it was "born on the metaverse, and this has defined its feel to this day."
Before the acquisition, Nike filed seven trademark applications to help create and sell virtual sneakers and apparel. Nike and Roblox also partnered on "Nikeland," a digital world where Nike fans can play games, connect and dress their avatars in virtual apparel.
"NFTs and blockchain lay the groundwork for digital ownership," said Nick Donarski, CEO of ORE System, an online community of gamers, content creators, and game developers. "Ownership of one's real-world identity will carry over to the metaverse, and NFTs will be this vehicle."
Conclusion
While the basic idea of being able to engage in a virtual online world has been around for many years, a true metaverse where lifelike interactions are possible is still years away. In his annual year in a review blog post, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates noted that most people don't have the VR goggles and motion capture gloves to accurately capture their expression, body language, and quality of their voice. But for business, Gates predicts that in the next two to three years most virtual meetings will move from two-dimensional square boxes to the metaverse -- a 3D space with participants appearing as digital avatars.
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