What Is This New Meta Trend??
How Meta brings an end to our physical side of the digital world
Key Points to be discussed:
- What is Metaverse
- How does it work
- How impactful it can be
- Change it brings to Businesses in 2025
To begin writing on the topic of Metaverse, I put on my Virtual Reality headset (the Oculus), turned it on. And I got teleported to another world, not in reality but virtuality; A virtual world of METAVERSE. In this world, I had an Avatar indicating my identity and had some fancy clothes which were being purchased using NFTs. While writing I wasn’t typing, I didn’t have to research the data by going to different websites collecting information. Just thinking of moving some fingers was enough. The neurological sensors (Sensor Fusion) and AI would detect what I want to write and how I want to structurize my write-up.
In addition to this, Augmented Reality has made it far easier for me to even let me take a view of how it looks and when and where I want to publish it. Perhaps if I want to let the letters dance for a while, or turn them suddenly into a melody, I could do it. I had the autonomy to do anything with it. I will set the rules and I will make decisions.
So, what exactly are we talking about?
The Metaverse is the concept of an online 3D virtual space, which will be mutually shared by all the users emerging Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Blockchain into its systems.
The term META first originated in the sci-fi novel ‘Snow Crash’ by the American writer Neal Stephenson. And ironically, it is going to be the same as described in the novel.
In simple words, we can understand the Metaconcept as:
“The future of the digital world where we will be living our life.”
Everything that we have been doing in our physical world; now, in Meta, we’ll be re-doing. We would be shopping, working, socializing, hanging out, building properties, running economies, and whatnot.
This trendy term Meta became the talk of the town after Facebook announced rebranding itself as META on October 28th, 2021. However, before this big news, the Metaverse concept had already existed and we were learning more and more about it through sci-fi movies, playing games like KnightFall, Pokémon, and Fortnite which lets you experience the Virtual Reality World and gamers are making millions of dollars out of it. In the same way, the current metaverse concept is looking to accomplish something similar while focusing on real-life aspects.
Now let’s discuss the Impact of Metaverse:
It’s not that simple how it looks. It is a very diverse, complex and vast technology. It is going to change the way we live, the culture we practice, the way we behave, and even the way we think.
Today, we look into a screen and perform digital actions. In Metaverse, we will be inside the screens performing all the actions.
And no wonder, Blockchain and crypto would also benefit this concept by providing transparent, secure and reliable governance to the system.
So, what change will it bring to Businesses?
It has already greatly impacted the gaming industry and soon it will revolutionize the business sector. It would shift the consumer goods sector when instead of buying outfits, accessories and shoes; the consumer will be purchasing NFTs to fancy their virtual world properties. Famous brand Gucci has already done that by setting up a Gucci Virtual Garden on the Roblox platform. And let me tell you it was certainly a success.
then, what will it be in 2025?
In the upcoming two to three years, the need for physical goods will always be there but the want for other virtual possessions will greatly increase as the users will begin to adapt to the metaverse concept. New skills will be generated; creators, coders, designers, programmers, developers, video editors and marketers will be high in demand. Because, as the companies would be going for Meta, they would need meta immersive graphic designers especially 3D modeling experts for creating digital avatars, VR, etc.
Also, users will be making money through it; socializing, meetings, hangouts, businesses and advertisements will all start to enter this world.
No doubt the excitement will increase in 2025, but there is still a huge chance that we won’t be able to completely adapt to this concept until 2025. The reason why is that though it has a lot of productive benefits, brands will be first making mistakes in the first phase of Metaverse.
Take an example of Elon Musk when his first rocket launch exploded in Space X and then his back to back failures. We humans take no time to get excited about something new but it takes time to change habits. Metaverse will no doubt thrive better and is our future. But by 2025, it will only make the concept more obvious and easier to adapt for users. In addition to this, the people belonging from non-technological fields will surely take more time to be influenced by this Meta-universe.
In conclusion, Meta will be set to emerge and it will eventually start to affect the culture, and behavior we practice, and will open new horizons for all sectors as not just Facebook but Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and big tech giants are all after it. But before that, a lot of development needs to be done in this field; designers and creators need to unlearn the practices of Web 2.0 and have to force themselves to build a new mindset to flourish in Metaverse and Web 3.0. Until we do that, we will keep on modernizing our physical digital world and will be looking forward to this upcoming virtual side of the digital world.
