Over the following few pages, we will likely hear a lot about the new Metaverse universe. We are quickly heading towards it: Virtual realities in which we will live digital lives coexisting with our real life. It is an innovative concept, full of business possibilities for many companies, which, little by little, we will see come to life. This article clarifies the Metaverse, its keys, and its applications.
The Metaverse is a concept that is beginning to be built. The company Meta, formerly Facebook, has presented the idea and announced significant investments to make it a reality. However, we will still have to see if other companies join the effort, creating the technologies that make it possible. There are no virtual reality devices that make us move as if we were realistically inside this universe. Infrastructure is also lacking in terms of design, and it doesn’t have any regions, streets, or anything yet, just some virtual rooms used for early testing.
Table of Contents
What Is The Metaverse Exactly?
The Metaverse emerges as a digital reality that can only be accessed through special devices, such as virtual or augmented reality glasses. This digital space would allow us to interact with other users through an avatar – a unique character for this virtual world – similar to the animated avatars already used in online games. We could interact in different immersive worlds through our avatar, interact with our friends, work with office colleagues, enjoy with our partners, travel, or even get a job in the digital space.
Metaverse is credited to author Neal Stephenson, who coined it in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. In it, the author imagined highly realistic-looking digital avatars inhabiting virtual reality environments.
The Metaverse incorporates augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D holographic avatars, video, and other media. Metaverse will offer a hyper-realistic alternate world as a kind of parallel universe as it expands.
The Metaverse As A New Business Channel
Metaverse will give rise to tens of millions of new objects and sensors, generating data in real-time. This will add value to the products and services of companies that use the Metaverse, constituting a new business channel. There will be a virtually endless list of products and services to be sold in various markets, both vertical and horizontal. Instead of the current model in two dimensions (Click and buy), the electronic commerce of the Metaverse will be able to create, among other things, a new source of income from digital products purchased synchronously.
For example, in human capital (HR), training can be done in virtual reality or augmented reality, superimposing information on a natural environment: Step-by-step instructions to assemble a complex machine, operate a new device or test a new product.
In sales and marketing, it will be common to connect with the client in the Metaverse to exchange experiences about the product or service virtually. Crypto products, such as NFTs, will be native Metaverse items, and companies will benefit from all options depending on their capabilities and needs. The main objective is to achieve the “metaverse as a service” and the corresponding certification and labelling for products and services.
The Pillars Of The Metaverse
The Metaverse brings people, processes, data, and things (real and virtual) together to make networking more valuable. It brings insights to action to create unprecedented new capabilities, richer experiences, and economic opportunities for businesses. It will be a universe in which billions of objects will have sensors to detect, measure and evaluate their state, all interconnected through public or private networks. We could say that the Metaverse has four primary areas of development:
- THE PEOPLE: Trying to connect the most significant number of users in a more valuable way
- THE DATA: Turning data into intelligence to make better decisions
- THE PROCESSES: Sending the correct information to the right person or machine at the right time
- THE THINGS: Connect devices and objects – physical and virtual – to the Internet and to each other to make intelligent decisions.
What Is The Metaverse Today?
If the Metaverse project is successful, it may become the gateway to most digital experiences and the natural successor to what is now the Internet.
As an example, among the most well-known uses in the Metaverse that have already been outline are:
- CONCERTS: The Metaverse offers the possibility of virtually entering a 3D concert. For example, in 2019, rapper Travis Scott held a show in Fortnite that brought together nearly 100,000 users.
- WORK: Meta (Facebook) is powering the Infinite Office, a space that allows users to create their ideal workplace through virtual reality.
- VIDEO GAMES: Here is a chance that a user will get a reward in a video game and then be able to show it to their virtual friends in the Metaverse.
The “Real Estate” And The Purchase Of Land In The Metaverse
Everything we can do in the real world will have a “digital twin” in the Metaverse. This includes investing and making money, just like in the real world.
Metaverse real estate is already big business. Superstars and global companies such as JP Morgan and Samsung have taken over plots of virtual land to develop various purposes. Less than a year ago. The regular price of a property to buy on Decentraland or Sandbox. Two of the largest platforms in the Metaverse, was less than $1,000, and today they are trading at around $13,000.
Like buying land in the natural biosphere. There are two main reasons someone might want to purchase land in the Metaverse. The first is to use them to build a house to “live in” or a place to do business. When we talk about “alive” in the Metaverse, we mean having a place to call “home”. Where you can display your possessions and even invite friends over to hang out. Metaverse “homes” will become the way for people to express their personalities online or host unique digital art collections.
The second reason for buying land is an investment. And as with any investment, there is no guarantee that its value will increase. We are now in the center of a gold rush when it comes to Metaverse real estate. With average prices cumulative by a factor of 10 over the year 2021. Many people buy digital land simply because they think it will be much more expensive and valuable in the future. Some even buy intending to rent, hoping for a healthy rental markets to emerge in the future.
conclusion
In conclusion, we have seen that. Metaverse has applications today and extraordinary potential for people and processes as well as for things and data. Many expect that will not only be the next evolution of the Internet. But also very important for the development of companies. Businesses and society for at least the next 20 years.