Imagine being inside a Hollywood science-fiction movie, where you can create your own avatars, build your own place and make new friends. No, this is not a game or a social networking application. This is the metaverse. The future of technology.
Why should we settle for looking at a video, through the window of your phone, when you can actually be present there, through the metaverse. This is the future that virtual reality, augmented reality and block chain technology has to offer for us. A much more immersive experience than what we could possibly imagine.
The rising growth in technology and the users’ excitement in implementing these new innovations to their everyday lives makes us wonder, can metaverse be a real game changer?
Can Metaverse Be a Real Game Changer?
Bill Gates believes that with proper virtual reality goggles and motion capture gloves to capture the expressions, body language and voice, it is possible. Metaverse is going to bring about a huge shift in how we interact with technology. Are we going to accept and settle with what is already available? Or are we ready for more?
Bits and portions of the metaverse are already existing.
- World of Warcraft allows the players to sell goods in their virtual world.
- Fortnite gives a virtual experience of their gaming world, where the users can create their own virtual selves.
- Mc Donalds‘ has a virtual restaurant in metaverse.
- Meta sells virtual houses and properties, where the users can have meetings or just hangout with friends in their digital avatars.
- Walmart is entering the metaverse to provide users with a digital shopping experience.
- Nike is selling digital sneakers.
- Epic games allow users to purchase and sell weapons and clothing to upgrade their avatars.
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How The Metaverse Started?
The term metaverse has been a buzzword, to elevate technological advancements made in various fields of information technology, entertainment and games, since the 1990s. We can clearly understand the concept of metaverse through the movie “Ready player one” by Earnest Cline. The movie shows how the players in a virtual reality game, compete in their own avatar, in a place called Oasis.
Metaverse, mimics the aspects of our physical world. It helps the user have a digital presence in social media. Facebook has officially announced their rebranding to “Meta” for exploring social networking through metaverse. Microsoft has also shown interest in communicating through metaverse. They are working on ways to provide a 3D generated virtual reality for their “Zoom” application, named as “Mesh”. Many other large companies and new start-ups like Roblox, Nvidia, Unity and Snap are looking at metaverse to create a bigger and better virtual world.
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How Big is the Metaverse?
The concept of the internet and its scope, when it was introduced in the 1970s was unimaginable, to the people of those days. Now it is a part and parcel of our everyday life. The livelihood of over 20 million people is dependent on the internet. It is estimated that the average time a person spends on the internet is 12 hours. Do you really believe that technological advancement has reached its peak? No.
Arts and Entertainment In Metaverse
The world record for the largest audience in a concert ever, was conducted by the French composer Jean-Michel. 3.5 million fans attended this concert held at the Moscow State University, on September 6th 1997. This record was broken on 2020, during the midst of the pandemic. 27.7 million people attended an online, in-game concert, conducted by Fortnite. Travis Scott’s Astronomical, the virtual concert, illustrated the creative excellence and possibilities available for live-stream and virtual concerts. This is one small example of how big of a change metaverse could bring to the future of our digital entertainment and arts.
Business Organizations In Metaverse
‘Holoportation’ is a 3D technology that generates high quality models of people in real time. Microsoft has been adding developments to their existing application ‘zoom’. They are preparing a metaverse ‘Mesh’, where the users will be able to attend meetings and make calls with their virtually augmented avatars. How great would it be to meet friends and co-workers in their virtual self, instead of looking at them on a tiny screen at hand. Accenture is also working on a tech where they have introduced a central conference room, visual board rooms and digital monorails. They suggest that these can be used for in-house training and employee development in large organizations.
Online Trading In Metaverse
Metaverse increases its scope by allowing users to buy and sell virtual items on the various platforms using NFT (Non fungible Tokens). This is a secure type of block chain technology used by the crypto currency. Digital versions of art, fashion, music and even real estate can be bought and sold with the help of NFTs.
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The Metaverse Today
The rising growth of the embedded music industry, largely impacts the relationship between independent artists and the record labels have with their fans. It is speculated that the rise in NFT records could interconnect the artists with their fan base, by minting a particular number of NFT copies of their original song, the artist can give some of their super fans an opportunity to earn partial royalties on their original music. This is speculated to become an inception of a stock market within the music industry.
Can you believe that there is a digital fashion house? The Fabricant is a 100% online digital fashion store, which allows the user to purchase and ‘wear’ the digital fashion products through augmented reality. Fabricant has also worked with famous brands like Under Armour, Adidas and Puma. This promises to create fashion for the new era.
There has been a notable rise in the digital collectibles, making virtual fashion a serious business. Nike’s acquisition of RTFKT, a digital sneaker maker is a notable development. RTFKT has been valued to be $33 million, which further enhances the power of virtual fashion.
Metaverse Properties is the first virtual real estate company. Here the user can buy and sell properties and assets from the metaverse. “Nikeland” is a company formed by Nike exclusively for the metaverse. Here you can purchase virtual sneakers for your metaverse avatars.
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Wrap Up
Many small and large companies are already entering the race to metaverse. Stimulating ‘presence’ in the digital world is vastly rising. The rise in demand for VR goggles is skyrocketing. People are more inclined to enter and be a part of this rising global phenomenon. The metaverse is history, in the making. Are we ready to enter into this new era where augmented reality meets our physical world? Can metaverse be a real game changer?
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1 What Is Metaverse In Simple Terms?
Metaverse is a virtual world that has all aspects of physical world, enhanced with technologies like the virtual reality, augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence, Digital currency and the social media. You can no longer just browse through the internet but also live in it, through Metaverse.
Q2 How Do I Enter Metaverse?
Entering the virtual world of Metaverse is very simple. All you need is a VR goggles and hand controllers and the right servers. You can enter the world of virtual reality and augmented reality through the Metaverse and be virtually transported to an alternate dimension.
Q3 Is Metaverse VR or AR?
Metaverse is a virtual world that combines the best of both virtual reality and augmented reality. You can live as an avatar in the Metaverse, as you would in your everyday life. You can live a virtual life and have access to unlimited resources.
