Metaverse: An Introduction
You must have heard recently the term ‘Metaverse’, so what is it actually? The word “Metaverse” is a combined word from two words — ‘Meta’ meaning Beyond and ‘verse’ from the word ‘Universe’ hence the word literally means ‘The Universe Beyond’. The term Metaverse was first coined by N. Stephenson in his sci-fi novel “Snow Crash” which first appeared in 1992.
The Wikipedia definition goes -
“A metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. In futurism and science fiction, it is often described as a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality headsets.”
I would define Metaverse as -
“A Spatial Network of Virtual 3D Universes and Places where you enter as an Avatar, and Immersively experience 3D Content, Games, trade within the digital economy and virtual items, socialize virtually, and extend your current reality.”
In short, the internet we experience in 2D Screens currently, will be turned into a real-time virtual 3D experience, just like “The Matrix”.
Although Metaverse is such a wide topic and has many features some of its main features include:
- Digital Avatars: One of the main features of metaverse are Avatars (a Sanskrit term meaning Incarnation of God), rather than a static 2D profile picture, users will have to enter the metaverse by creating their Virtual Character and express their identities digitally. This brings in the concept of Digital Fashion, Branded Wearables and Exclusive Items.
- Decentralization: Although Blockchain Decentralization is not a defined need in the metaverse, with the rise of blockchain and NFTs, decentralization has become an important aspect of the Metaverse. All the purchasable assets in the metaverse will be in the form of NFTs (ever heard of Bored Apes?) — Non Fungible Tokens (Blockchain based Digital Items) — which will allow users to actually own their metaverse items in their Web3 Wallet. Users can trade, sell and cross-use their Digital Items which was not possible in say, traditional games.
- Immersive Experiences: By crossing all the boundaries of our physical existence in this universe, metaverse can bring us an infinite possibilities of mind-boggling experiences, metaverse can replicate almost any real-world experience from attending Virtual Classes (3D Zoom Classes with 3D Screen-Share!), Singing Concerts (Travis Scott’s Astronomical in Fortnite or Daler Mehandi’s Concert in PartyNite), Office Work (Immerse VR), Flying (Yes your childhood dream will come true), playing Games (Fortnite, Second Life or maybe one day who knows Ready Player One) etc.
Other aspects like Infrastructure, Security, Persistency, Creator Economy etc. are also features of the Metaverse.
As everything in this Universe, Metaverse too has its drawbacks:
- Addiction: Just like Gaming, Metaverse can become a widely addictive experience, more time in the metaverse will lead to being used to virtual reality leaving real reality just for food and sleep, Kids and Teenagers will have to spend balanced time in their extended realities.
- Virtual Bullying: Internet has lots of strangers, and it is hard to monitor such a vast no. of audience in the metaverse and keep track of these issues.
- Privacy and Security: Privacy and Security has always been a concern for the Internet, even big companies like Meta have already been hacked and the privacy has been compromised. Even Metaverse, although protected by blockchain, user data is still vulnerable to security attacks.
The Metaverse is not an application, or a concept, rather it is a complete Revolution of Internet and Web as we see today, although metaverse is not technically feasible even till date, Metaverse is already in action, games like Fortnite are already a form of Metaverse. Meta’s Horizon Worlds is already being used, other apps and games like VR Chat, Roblox, Spatial.io, Immerse are already in the Metaverse.
Although Metaverse is an age, Metaverse can also be used for — Virtual Meet with Doctors, Virtual Schools, Virtual Education, Games and Entertainment, Treating Traumas and Psychological Disorders (ex. Meeting with your passed loved ones in the Metaverse), etc.
Finally, I would conclude by saying that the Metaverse is already out there and is going to revolutionize the human experience we know till date, the metaverse is going to be a transformation. You can try out metaverse like — decentraland.org, spatial.io, sandbox.game
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