Understanding the Metaverse

 

Friends, thank you very much for taking out time from your busy schedule to read my blog(s). Sharing knowledge with you has become my passion now. I feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments. Today I’m happy to present my 91^st Blog “Understanding the Metaverse”.

Dear Friends, way back in 1992, author Neal Stephenson published his breakthrough novel, SNOW CRASH, a cyberpunk exploration of then futuristic technologies, mobile computing, virtual reality, wireless internet, digital currency, Smartphones and augmented – reality headsets.

 

25 years later, Stephenson’s cult has become canon in silicon valley – San Jose, California, USA, where a host of engineers, entrepreneurs, futurists, and assorted computer geeks still revere SNOW CRASH as a remarkably prescient vision of today’s tech landscape. Among the prophetic inventions in the book is something Stephenson called ‘ The Metaverse” the same sort of wireless, online virtual – reality experience that Facebook, Google, Samsung, and practically every other major tech company are now competing to commercialize.

 

Since then, there have been advancements in the field of AR, VR, and gaming. Second life i.e. vast 3 – D Generated virtual World and platform filled with user – generated content where people can interact with each other in real –time, was considered as the first representation of the Metaverse as it allowed users to build communities in virtual spaces since 2003. With the creation of VR glasses, the concept of virtual worlds gained colossal momentum.

 

Meta is one of the tech companies that understood the importance of the Metaverse very early. Once again, in late 2021, the Metaverse gained tremendous momentum when Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of his company and changed his parent company’s name to Meta from Facebook, expanding the scope of their virtual offerings in Metaverse world in the future. After this incident, the Metaverse is seen as the latest paradigm shift for the internet and has become one of the household technological concepts.

 

To simply put, a Metaverse is a VR world in a VR universe, where one can build avatars/appearances, communities, alternate realities, or lifestyles. Any brand can create its own virtual world, so there can be any number of Metaverse. In the same way, smaller brands can rent or lease spaces from other corporates’ virtual worlds. The Metaverse can theoretically virtually replicate any activity that is possible in the real world. There can be various user experiences, including education, entertainment, gaming, business, e-commerce, research and social gatherings.

Functions of VR, AR and MR in Metaverse

Metaverse is a much broader concept than just virtual gaming, and it’s a combination of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), Blockchain, Web-03, Crypto Currency, Social Media and much more, therefore, while VR, AR and MR are one of the most important elements of the Metaverse, which essentially offer the users a 3D immersive virtual experience.

Dear friends, let’s understand the concept of Metaverse.

Virtual Reality (VR):

Virtual Reality refers to a 3-D and computer-generated virtual environment either to replicate a real environment or an imaginary world, which is created by a combination of realistic sounds, images and other sensations through devices like VR headsets / helmets, gloves and body detectors equipped with sense detectors. A person is able to immerse and interact within that environment. VR can bring people closer by shortening the distance, even between people across the world virtually.

Augmented Reality (AR):

Augmented Reality is a live view of a physical environment with its elements augmented by the digital sensory input like sound, graphics, videos or GPS data.  In other words, Augmented Reality exists on top of our physical world by allowing users to see the actual environment through the screens of their Smart Phones / Tablets or by using smart glasses and making virtual changes to it on the screen. Through the cameras of smart phones / tablets or the smart glasses, the apps can put an overlay of the digital content into our actual environment. This technology doesn’t account for users’ surroundings or requires interaction with users’ space; it rests on top of any surface, with our physical world acting as a static background for it.

Mixed Reality (MR):

Mixed Reality is sometimes referred to as hybrid reality.  It is the merging of the virtual and physical worlds to produce a new environment where interactions among virtual and physical objects are enabled in real-time. Unlike Virtual Reality, which immerses the users in a totally virtual environment, or Augmented Reality, which simply over layers digital content on top of the physical environment without considering its unique and changing composition, instead, Mixed Reality devices constantly gather new information happening in the surroundings. Such information is very helpful for being able to seamlessly place digital content in the physical environment, and users can interact with it. Mixed Reality blends both virtual and physical worlds together where the virtual and physical are intertwined.

 

As per Gartner, Elements of A Metaverse are Digital Currency, Market Place / Digital Commerce, Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs), Infrastructure, Devise Independence, Gaming, Digital Assets, Concerts – Social & Entertainment Events, Online Shopping, Workplace, Social Media, Digital Humans, and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

 

Metaverse provides new opportunities to engage the audience and provide a richer, more complete, and immersive content experience. If we want to stay ahead of the curve in this ever-changing landscape, we need to start creating content for the Metaverse today through content marketing and effective PR. Each strategy has advantages, but they all boil down to the same basic principle: telling compelling stories that are worth sharing through any medium available, including the Metaverse.

 

As mentioned above, the concept of the Metaverse has been around for almost two decades. Still, it has only gained mainstream attention over the last couple of years with the rise of immersive technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality. While the Metaverse is still in its early stages of development, it holds great potential for enterprise brands and their customers.

 

The Metaverse could be a new place to hold product demos or virtual press conferences for brands. It can also serve as a virtual customer care department. With its ability to immerse users in a realistic, digital environment, the Metaverse has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses operate and communicate with their constituencies.

According to a report from Tech Republic, 91% of enterprise companies are already using or planning to adopt Metaverse-related technology i.e. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the coming years with the following use cases:

§  60% are using it to supplement production and labor

§  53% are using it for customer care

§  53% for design & product engineering

§  26% are using it for corporate training

To conclude;

As the Metaverse continues to evolve, we will likely see even more brands exploring its potential as a way to create new and improved customer experiences.

Last but not least; brands need to consider data privacy and security carefully. Since the Metaverse is built on top of the internet, it inherits the same risks as managing an e-commerce site or a Facebook page. Brands must protect their and customers’ data from hackers and cyber threats when planning to switch over to Metaverse.

Thank You for reading the blog.

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