The Metaverse: The future and revolution of Internet

Over the past few years, a new phenomenon has been brought to light.

The Metaverse.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know the power of social media and online presence has created a life of its own. With the help of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, the next generation will be able to experience one of the most defining things in history which may create a broad shift in how we interact with technology forever.

So, what is it?

From an overall perspective, the metaverse is an integrated network of 3D virtual worlds focused purely on social connection. We can access this through a mixture of virtual and augmented reality headsets (VR/AR)

Humans can be created into avatars and can wander around this virtual world where we can characterise and personalise it to how we wish.

High expectations?

As a marketing agency, this new digital world may seem exciting with all the marketing hype and money that could be involved in something as big as this! However, Facebook has set expectations high with its vision of a future, for example, a world where everyone has access to a digital wardrobe. Clothes that we cannot physically wear ourselves? Hmm, we aren’t too keen on this concept– this is one of Facebook’s ideas to make money selling virtual clothes and NFTs.

Some of the biggest companies have agreed to play a part in this new sensational discovery. The likes of Coca-Cola have launched a ‘flavour born in the metaverse’ and the iconic Fortnite video game gave added a tie-in mini-game.

An insight as to what it will entail…

Hundreds of different ideas have been thrown into a large mix about how the metaverse will look like and how it will be perceived.

One of the optimistic scenarios included fake houses you can design as your own and invite your friends to hang out in. Microsoft also believes we will be able to create virtual meeting rooms to train staff or to chat with remote co-workers. Can you imagine a world full of cartoon characters and calling it ‘work’?

Ermmm we’re all for it!

The next step…

As part of its bid to spend over $10 billion over the next year to build out its vision of the metaverse, it will need longer than 365 days to create the next step of evolution. In hopes of pulling through a variety of different activities such as gaming, online communities and business meetings where people will collate themselves within this digital world. With Zuckerberg’s unholy mindset of wanting to ‘take over the internet’, Koobr have come to terms with this world being ‘built’ on the internet rather than it being ‘taken over’.

Haven’t I seen something like this before?…

This concept isn’t new. There have been many influences that have been built up to create this fake reality, some of which you may know:

Based on the 1992 novel ‘snow crash’ which created a perception of the internet in dark light and was more of a dystopian view of the future which led an online hacker into a downward spiral– a new virtual world was created in 2003 called ‘second life’.

It is a multimedia platform that allows people to create avatars and live and move about in an online world.

Sounds familiar right?

How about the novel and later film ‘Ready player one’ which was another idea that may have possibly aided and popularised the idea of an online reality?

Again, set in the dystopian sci-fi-based era, set in 2045, where humans escape earth’s problems by going to a virtual world called ‘The Oasis’. The players could access this using a VR visor and gloves which allowed them to touch and grab objects in a digital environment. Which is frankly very similar to the equipment Meta has released to take part in this new online universe.

NFTs

So we have all heard about Nonfungible tokens? They are digital assets similar to cryptocurrency, however, they can be used to represent a piece of art, clothing, song or digital real estate. Crazy right?

An NFT can give an owner a digital deed or proof of ownership that can be exchanged in the ‘metaverse’. These essentially lay the groundwork for digital ownership and carrying over identity to virtual life.

So, how long until it is complete?…

The basic idea of virtual online reality has been around for years – the expectations metaverse has for the interactions they want seems like a long way off from being complete, and with the average person not having access to VR goggles and motion capture gloves – this may seem like a task.

Koobr’s thoughts?

As an ongoing digital agency that works online every day, our office has a variety of different opinions on how successful this may turn out!

Well, I say a variety of different opinions very lightly… the whole team thinks the metaverse is a big pile of… and our wonderful digital marketer, Holly, thinks this is the next best thing!

We would LOVE to discuss your thoughts on this crazy new concept! Follow our social media – check the footer below!