It seems that everyone and their corporate parent companies are talking about "the metaverse" these days as the next big thing to transform our online lives. Everyone seems to have their own definition of "the metaverse", if at all.
The original concept of "metaverse," as Neal Stephenson called it, was first used in Snow Crash (1992 cyberpunk novel). The book's Metaverse, which is always capitalized in Stephenson’s fiction, refers to a shared "imaginary space" that's made available to the public via the worldwide fiber-optics networks and projected onto virtual reality glasses. It allows developers to "build buildings and parks, but also things that don't exist in Reality" such as large overhead light shows and special neighborhoods, where rules of three-dimensional spacetime can be ignored. There are also free-combat zones, where people can hunt and kill one another.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO (formerly Facebook), and his colleagues used the term "metaverse" more than 80 times in less than 90 minutes at last week’s Facebook Connect keynote presentation. This was where the company officially announced its new name. Stephenson made it clear that there has been no communication between him and FB and has not had any biz relationships. This means that Facebook might interpret "the metaverse" in a different way than Stephenson had originally thought.
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Although Meta's rebranding is driving most metaverse conversation today, the almost 30 years since Snow Crash have seen many online networks that reflect some or all of what Stephenson's book describes. Many online games and gathering spaces have been created to "create the metaverse", which has resulted in many online games and gatherings that capture some of the most important concepts of the metaverse without ever using the term.
John Carmack, Oculus Consulting CTO, recently stated that "But here we were". Mark Zuckerberg decided now is the right time to build the metaverse. So huge wheels are turning, resources are flowing, and it is certain that the effort will be made.
Is the metaverse the next major breakthrough that will transform the way we connect with one another? Or is it a repackaging existing technologies into a new catchall concept? Is it just the latest marketing buzzword?
It all depends on your definition of "metaverse".
Definition of the metaverse
Last week's Facebook Connect keynote by Zuckerberg stated that the best way to fully understand the metaverse was to actually experience it. However, it is a challenge because it does not yet exist. Asking people to experience something that doesn't exist seems like the best way for you to communicate your bold corporate direction.
In his keynote speech, Zuckerberg spoke of a grandiose vision for the metaverse, which he described as "even more immersive, embodied internet" in which "you're going to be able do almost everything you can imagineget together, work, learn and shop, as well as completely new categories that don’t really fit with how we think about phones or computers today." Although this is helpful, any description that includes "almost everything you can imagine" is too broad to really be meaningful.
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We've identified these elements, which together seem to be the foundation of a metaverse. Any business that uses the term will have one or more of the following elements:
A social network with avatars that represent users
This is the basic building block of Zuckerberg's metaverse concept. A username or thumbnail image might represent you on a website or social media network. A metaverse avatar is a representation of you that can speak, move and/or perform animated actions.
Since the 1990s, avatars of this type have been used in many online games and social media (remember Habbo Hotel?). However, an avatar's ability and fidelity can vary from one service to the next. Virtual reality has made it possible for users to see through virtual eyes and use hand-tracking controllers (to gesture and interact with virtual objects) to fully embody their fantasies. VRChat is a space that showcases the complexity of these VR avatars.
An ongoing "world" that avatars can interact with and inhabit
This could refer to a virtual world that replicates the constraints of space and scarcity of the real-world, such as Second Life's discrete parcels of land. Other times, this could simply mean users sharing space created for a specific game or an event that is time sensitive, such as recent Fortnite multimedia concerts.
A metaverse where every user has their own virtual world is idealized, each user can share the same virtual world. Items and property are preserved for all users between sessions. Many modern metaverse-like spaces are split into sharded servers, where only a limited number of users can interact. This is for technical reasons.
