We will quickly look at what a metaverse is and explore the metaverse in a nutshell. The metaverse is a digital world in which your avatar (a digital representation of yourself) and other avatars can exist and interact with one another in a virtual space. People in the metaverse would be able to meet and talk to one another, explore unfamiliar worlds — or familiar ones — play games or watch movies independently or with friends, all while enjoying an unprecedented sense of immersion.

It’s also worth noting that it’s not necessary for there to be only one metaverse, but rather that multiple interconnected metaverses could co-exist alongside each other. Worlds within worlds that are completely independent from each other even though they might share the same physical infrastructure (such as servers) will be possible thanks to the nature of the internet.

Questions on the metaverse In a nutshell explained

What is the history of the metaverse? Who coined that phrase?

The metaverse is a term coined by visionary Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash” to refer to the vast network of interconnected worlds that exist alongside our world. And while the development of the Metaverse has been hindered by technological limitations, there are many reasons why now may be the time for this project to take off.

We’ll explore what the metaverse really is, how it may soon become a reality, and why this could be very good not only for video games but for social well-being as well!

Have there been Metaverses before?

Interestingly, even though a metaverse has been a staple in science fiction for decades, there have been no serious attempts to create one. There have been many attempts to create a single virtual world — such as Second Life — but they’ve all failed to live up to the expectations set by sci-fi movies and novels.

In fact, it’s debatable whether or not Second Life can actually be considered the “metaverse” since each separate world in Second Life is isolated from each other and there’s no way for people from one world to find out about people living in another world.

What can you do in the metaverse?

So how would this all work in practice? How exactly would these worlds be connected?
The metaverse can function as a fully functioning parallel universe, where users can go about their business without ever leaving the Internet. People could even open up shop on the network, just like they do on eBay or Amazon today.

A user of the metaverse might see an ad for a product that they’ll be interested in, and then they could browse to that product’s website or simply follow its link on Twitter to find out more information about it. If they happen to be fans of the game Second Life, they could check out items for sale within Second Life too… And so on and so forth.

Why will the metaverse take off?

There are a number of factors that will help bring this technology to life. Some of these include:

The internet as we know it has become vastly faster and more efficient over the last few years, and we can expect more and more things to be possible for us on it — especially as the world continues to move towards broadband speeds (like your home Internet connection).
That means we’ll be able to do more and more of our work via computers instead of humans. This includes not only interacting with other people but also interacting with computer-generated avatars, which are known as digital doubles. So this technology is becoming increasingly viable, even if it may still have some drawbacks.

The rise of AR, VR and MR (Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality) will also help the metaverse grow. Read more about AR,VR and MR here.

Though this leads back to talking about what it means to exist in the metaverse, if you think about it this way everything is an “augmentation” of reality anyway.

For example, imagine you’re sitting in a park and somebody sitting on the other side of the park tries to talk to you. Unless you call out to them they’ll most likely never be able to reach you — and that’s your reality.

But what if there was some way that you could call out to them and they could hear you? They would be able to traverse their own reality and end up where you are, and they would be able to see and interact with everything that’s around you as well as anything else in the world. That’s an augmented reality.

So augmented reality isn’t just for video games, it’s also for the metaverse. Imagine being able to sit in the middle of some virtual city and have all of your friends on the other side share their views of that city. Then imagine that they all have their own digital doubles, so some are standing right beside you, while some are looking at you from far away. That’s a virtual reality.

Is the metaverse just a FaceBook project?

No, it’s not. The metaverse isn’t some far-fetched new virtual world that Facebook is developing in-house. In addition to the many new projects developed by Facebook’s Oculus VR unit, there are also a number of new projects from other companies that may become a reality sooner or later.

These include: AugmentedReality for Desktop for Google Glass, Google Cardboard and other Virtual Reality devices.

Conclusion

The metaverse is just in it’s inception phases right now, but it’s safe to say that this technology is one that should be taken serious. It will allow us to take advantage of all of the tremendous potential present in the world today while also enabling us to reach out into other realities.

Whether it transforms into a reality or not, I’m sure many people would find it exciting. Whether or not you decide to invest in the technology, I’d recommend reading some of the sci-fi novels and movies featuring this particular technology. They’ll help you better understand what your current reality could one day become like.