Metaverse will Change Online Experience: Explore How?

Metaverse is undoubtedly a successor to the internet. If you are a regular user of online services and social media, then there is an excellent chance that you might have come across the term “metaverse.” This term is associated with the latest version of the internet that grabbed the spotlight when Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, announced that Facebook would be known as Meta now.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Gaurav Kanabar, Founder and CEO, Alphanso Tech – “Metaverse will Change Online Experience: Explore How?”

The CEO of Facebook said metaverse would be an immersive internet; this virtual world will shape all experiences on the web with use cases ranging from chatting with friends to gaming, education, entertainment, and fitness. He added that work would be a use case for immersive tech, whereas virtual meetings can be immersive. A single company can’t make a metaverse; millions of creators are needed to build it.

What is Metaverse?

A network of the 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection is termed a Metaverse. In science fiction and futurism, it is described as a hypothetical iteration of a single virtual world that is facilitated by augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets.

Statista report shows that the global metaverse market reached around 38.85 billion US dollars in 2021. The market is projected to grow and reach around 47.48 billion US dollars and is expected to jump and reach 678.8 billion US dollars by 2030. In simple words, it can be described as an iteration of the internet, where the digital and physical worlds come together.

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The “metaverse” term originated in 1992 in the science fiction novel Snow Crash. It was found from the combo of two words, “meta” and “universe.” Its development is often linked to modern VR technology due to rising demands for immersion. However, the new interest in metaverse development is influenced by Web3.

The Metaverse and Web3 are used as a buzzword these days to exaggerate the development progress of lots of related technologies and assignments for public relations purposes. User addiction, safety, and information privacy are concerns within metaverses, arising from challenges facing the social platforms as well as video game industries as a whole.

Difference Between Metaverse and internet

According to Gartner’s report, the metaverse consists of lots of elements. It provides decentralized, persistent, interoperable opportunities, a collaborative, and a business model that enables businesses to extend their reach online. Many get confused about the difference between Metaverse and internet to help them out, we have listed the difference between the two.

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The internet is simply a network of millions of servers, computers, and other electronic devices. Once going online, internet users can view, and interact with websites, use an app like Netflix to enjoy their favorite streaming content, communicate with each other, and sell and purchase goods and services.

The metaverse does not compete with the internet; it builds on it. Users traverse a virtual world that emulates factors of the physical world using technology like artificial intelligence, AR, VR, digital currency, and social media. The internet is a thing that people “browse,” while the metaverse is what people “live.”

Metaverse Exist in the Today’s World

Metaverse is going to become an assimilated internet; it has certain properties that divide it from isolated virtual experiences. The metaverse is an interoperable and scaled network of real-time 3D virtual worlds that can be persistently and experienced synchronously by effectively infinite users with a unique sense of presence and continuity of data like history, identity, objects, entitlements, payments, and communications. It has properties for better clarity like:

Persistent
Synchronous
Interoperable
Massively scaled
3D virtual worlds
Real-time rendered
The individual sense of presence
Unlimited number of users
Continuity of data

Futuristic Metaverse Retail Example

The metaverse exists when users can enter a virtual shopping mall that can be participated by lots of people as virtual space can fit, purchase a distinctive digital item, and sell the same items digitally a few weeks later inside a different virtual world or possibly on eBay, OpenSea, and Twitter.

Metaverse has the potential to affect different realms like gaming, retail, computing, finance, marketing, and more. More than 60% of US adults somewhat or strongly understand the purpose of the metaverse. At the same time, many agree that the metaverse will become popular as traditional social channels.

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The film “Ready Player One” was a book written and published by Ernest Cline and Random House in 2011. Steven Spielberg directed it; it’s the best visual example we have of what metaverse conceptually looks like.

This movie has fundamental differences from views of the metaverse, including there is a platform in the movie, the Oasis, making the metaverse build the game company Gregarious Games. One more difference is the use of VR hardware to interact in the version of the metaverse, as experts believe that virtual reality has less use when compared to AR hardware.

What Will Power the Metaverse?

The metaverse is various drive-by technologies like software tools, cloud infrastructure, platforms, user-generated content, hardware, and applications. In addition to tech requirements, the metaverse includes different user experiences, including gaming, entertainment, social interactions, education, research, and commerce.

When Will the Metaverse Arrive?

Many people wonder how long it will take before moving from proto metaverses toward the grand metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg believes that it will be arriving by the end of the decade; however, it can be seen sooner than that as foundational elements have arrived already.

The infrastructure behind the internet enables massive qualities of individuals to assemble in virtual environments, like when about 12.3 million players tuned for a virtual concert in Fortnite featuring Travis Scott. Present infrastructure is impressive, yet it will likely require to evolve to support the metaverse experts envision.

NFTs Fit into the Metaverse: Explore How?

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) play a significant role in the popularity and usefulness of the metaverse. It is a specific type of digital asset based on the blockchain technology utilized by cryptocurrency. Instead of traditional currency, an NFT can be used as a piece of art or digital real estate. Non Fungible Tokens provide owners a kind of digital proof or deed of ownership that can be sold or bought in the metaverse.

Metaverse Properties bills have become the world’s first virtual real estate company. The brand acts as an agent to facilitate the selling or purchase of land or property in metaverse virtual worlds like Sandbox, Decentraland, Upland, and Somnium. In addition, offerings include commercial and conference spaces, family homes, hangout spots, and art galleries.

Metaverse has created great opportunities for companies like Metaverse Properties to provide digital goods, established brick and mortar industries are also jumping in. For example, Nike just acquired RTFKT, a company that makes digital artifacts and one-of-a-kind virtual sneakers using NFTs, augmented reality, and blockchain authentication.

RTFKT on their site mentioned that it was born on the metaverse and has defined its feel to this day. Before the acquisition, Nike fielded around seven trademark apps to sell and create virtual sneakers and apparel. Roblox and Nike also partnered on “Nikeland,” a digital space where Nike fans can easily play games, dress, and connect their avatars in virtual apparel.

CEO of ORE System, Nick Donarski, said, Blockchain and NFTs lay the groundwork for digital ownership. It is an online community of content creators, game developers, gamers, and more. Ownership of the real-world identity can easily carry over to the NFTs, and the metaverse will be this vehicle.

How Close is the Metaverse?

The basic idea of being able to amuse in a virtual space has been around for many years; a metaverse where lifeline interactions are possible is years away. In the annual year review post, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates commented that people do not have the motion capture gloves or VR goggles to accurately capture the body language, quality of their voice, and expression.

However, Gates predicts that virtual meetings will move from one or two-dimensional square boxes to the metaverse in just two or three years. In this 3D space, participants appear as digital avatars. It will change everything about how we enjoy our lives; it will transform within 10 years.

About the Author:

Gaurav Kanabar is the Founder and CEO of Alphanso Tech; an India-based IT Consulting company that provides video streaming script and other app development services to individuals as per their specific demands. Besides this, the founder also loves to deliver an excellent niche helping readers to have deep insight into the topic.