The Metaverse is one of those terms that has emerged recently and seems wonderfully fluffy but whose definition is becoming clearer.
The Metaverse is, perhaps, where the internet is ultimately going (until the next generation gets bored of it). It is an immersive, augmented reality ‘place’ where we all do what we do on the internet, but ‘in person’. Clearly, to old journalists, this brings up questions such as ‘why’, but for a digital native, it makes complete sense.
Already big companies are working out how to launch a brand in one Metaverse and market it in the other (reality and virtual reality).
Obviously, at this early stage, we are looking at experiments and test labs, but some serious brands support the Metaverse concept. As we have said, NVIDIA is already working with BMW in Germany to build a metaverse of one of its factories.
As you can imagine, gaming is the first arena to see an immediate incentive to invest, and Epic Games has pledged to invest $1 billion so that players can ‘seamlessly shift between the physical and the virtual.’
Mark Zuckerberg is not only convinced but is now starting to talk about Facebook as a ‘Metaverse’ company. We can think of other terms, but his (new) vision is that his social platforms will be immersed with his AR technology to become a cohesive version of the internet, one where people can be ‘wholly present.’
CBInsights, an outfit known for tracking where new funding is going, is bullish, and one of the things they track (cleverly) is how many CEOs mention a new term during earnings calls. This year mentions of the Metaverse have doubled and doubled again.
It is still very early days, yet it is beginning to make sense. In (let’s not be fanciful) 30 years, the conversation about working from home or going into the office will be one that results in raised eyebrows because you will be able to do both from the same place.
The Metaverse is something that companies are building out; in parallel, we assume with 6G and 7G is years away. But the concept is beginning to take a real shape, even to cynical old journalists who still don’t know what on Earth an NFT is.
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