Metaverse – The next big thing?

The metaverse is a digital reality that combines aspects of social media, online gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain to allow users to interact virtually. We are currently just at the beginning of this technology, but the concept is a little old. Science fiction author Neal Stephenson coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. Numerous sci-fi books, television series, and movies are set in metaverses—digital worlds that are indistinguishable from the real world.

According to Facebook (Meta), the metaverse is a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you. It will enable creators to deliver connected, immersive experiences based on activities. You’ll be able to hang out with friends, work, play, learn, shop, create, and more. It’s not necessarily about spending more time online — it’s about making the time you do spend online more meaningful.?

Nowadays augmented reality (AR) mobile games are common; we have already seen the success of AR games like Ingress and Pokémon Go. A lot of people these days seem very interested in bringing this near-future vision of a virtual world to life, including some of the biggest names in technology and gaming. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated interest in the metaverse as more people have worked from home and gone to school remotely. Of course, there are concerns that the metaverse will make it even easier for people to spend time apart—even in a post-COVID world. Interest in the metaverse is expected to grow substantially as investors and companies want to be a part of what could be the next big thing. Apart from meetings and socialization, many other use cases exist. Training is one of the more common use cases. Entertainment is one of the first industries to offer virtual reality experiences for customers, while manufacturing and healthcare have been among the first to incorporate mixed reality and augmented reality experiences for employees.

Though Facebook (Meta) has taken lead in building the Metaverse, it isn’t a single product one company can build alone. Just like the internet, the metaverse exists whether Facebook is there or not. And it won’t be built overnight. Other companies talking up the metaverse include Microsoft and chipmaker Nvidia. There are lots of companies building virtual worlds and environments in the metaverse, in the same way, there have been lots of companies doing things on the World Wide Web. A common standard is being developed so that there is only one such metaverse.

Building the metaverse responsibly is the most important thing. We have seen how social media platforms used algorithms that prioritized profits over people. Privacy, security, social responsibility and, much more have been put on the side-line to serve Ads and not actual people. The long-term success will be defined by how we can minimize the amount of data that’s used, build technology to enable privacy-protective data uses, give people transparency and control over their data, provide more choice, encourage competition, ensure safety plus integrity online. Having an open discussion with the government, industry, partners, academia, society representatives to think through issues and opportunities will ensure a thriving, inclusive digital innovation.?