Is Metaverse just vapourware..

Recently, I was on a call with a fantastic design expert who presented a contrarian perspective on Metaverse. This week's theme is to explore Metaverse from a historical perspective and gradually build a 360-degree view beyond the hype to visualize how this wave of innovation has emerged from history. So let us go 130 years back into the history.

The journey to create smart visuals was perhaps started with English photographer Eadweard Muybridge created moving images of animal locomotion in 1893 which later became known as videography.

The early age creators worked with elementary stuff such as animations and illustrations. British filmmaker?J. Stuart Blackton?is credited with the first animation in America in 1900. It was perhaps one of the first use of stop-motion as a storytelling technique. In the above video, the bottle of wine erases the last drawn drawing part.

Let us return to our original topic, Metaverse. Chances are high you have read and watched several demos on how virtual reality and augmented reality are all set to change the way the world sees the future. You would have read about myriad applications of these concepts in the healthcare diagnostics industry apart from popularity in the gaming world. Let us extend the concept to the digital twin, and you can literally visualize the applications in the remote equipment debugging and manufacturing industry. Add haptics to it, and you have entirely new doors opening to build new experiences.

Metaverse is an attempt to become a category synonym for all experiences built using several mechanisms built over the past several years.

If you carefully notice, Metaverse has existed for many years now - with different names, at various places, in umpteen avatars. The term 'Metaverse' has united everything into a usable platform that can solve problems in different industries and become a category synonym for all things visualized and all experiences built.

Now, let me talk about the technology piece of Metaverse. It has taken a decade of innovation to reach this stage when something like Metaverse is taking shape.

Connectivity and human interfaces:?The journey started with high-speed connectivity way back in the last decade. Remember those days when telcos sold data at 'per 10 KB rate'? Today, systems have evolved to transmit terabytes of data efficiently. In a parallel universe, gaming grew to create incredible 2D, realistic 3D, stimulating haptic experiences for ever-demand gaming enthusiasts. In fact, AMD (Nvidia) built its whole ecosystem tapping into the processing hunger of the ever-growing gaming demands.

Creator economy with higher chances of success for artists:?In another world, we saw the evolution of the creator economy with the democratization of creative tools on just a $150 smartphone. Stanford's Paul Saffo suggested that the creator economy first emerged in 1997 as the "new economy". The trend picked up because it made a desire to be famous achievable for many people across the globe. It provided people a chance to claim their fame without risking everything to chase stardom.

Easy discovery: The algorithms that once powered investment bankers became commonly applied to give everything a number. It made discovery and likeability driven by numeric scores. It formed the basis of 'discovery engines' that fueled the creator economy across the globe. Today, Khyabi appears in an advertisement created by online sports betting company Dreams 11 for approx $270K. The content creators who could rise above the clutter got empowered to dream big and grow their fan-following.

AI-powered tools: The AI-powered creative tools can perform 100 days of work in a few hours. The filters on creating platforms evolved to give more power and confidence to creators as they built their tribe in the virtual world. They didn't require exorbitant sum of money to build a brand, to host money-burning concerts. They could simply build their followership just by creating a nice content, getting platform to facilitate discovery, and encouraging follower to hit Follow. Today, they have an assortment of design tools and digital assets to help them pursue creativity as a hobby and gradually convert it into a full-time business.

Here is how #Gartner formally defines Metaverse,

A collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality.?It is persistent, providing enhanced immersive experiences, as well as device independent and accessible through any type of device, from tablets to head-mounted displays.?

Metaverse is a culmination of this long journey that went from different routes to reach where it is. It offers a name encompassing all the means and ways to build great experiences and gives the world a theme to rally around. It aims to redefine the way we learn, shop, network, play, and work. Will it happen, and when? It took a couple of decades for the bulb to glow after electricity was invented in 1752. We need to wait to find an answer.

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