Metaverse: the Future of Internet

“Metaverse” - a word that seems to be Silicon Valley’s favorite thing at the moment. The term originated in the novel “Snow Crash,” written by Neal Stephenson in 1992. A metaverse can be defined as virtual collective space, a sum of virtually enhanced physical reality and virtual space. The word combines the prefix “meta”, which means universe, and a suffix derived from “universe”. Thus, could the perspective of a Metaverse, promised by all the big names in Tech, such as Mark Zuckerberg, offer a paradigm that goes beyond the universe? 

What exactly is the Metaverse and how does it work?

The metaverse isn’t exactly a new concept. Popular online games such as Fortnite, or Minecraft, have been creating user-built virtual worlds for years. These virtual worlds echo the general idea of a metaverse: a collection of worlds connecting in space. The boom of video-conferencing tools throughout the pandemic also foreshadowed the shift to come, whereby physical realities aren’t restricted or bound by physical laws. Just as it is possible to communicate daily with loved ones and colleagues through Zoom, in a realistic manner with voice and image, in the years to come we may be able to merge the virtual reality and the physical one to create the Metaverse.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, and founder of Facebook, which now boasts 2.85 billion monthly active users, wants people to be able to shift between virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 2D, thanks to realistic avatars. With a snap of a finger or a flick of a virtual screen, you should be able to tap into the metaverse to accomplish just about any task relevant to your daily life. 

Interoperability and merging platforms

What makes the metaverse different from what we call the Internet at this point, is said to be its capacity to merge platforms and offer powerful interoperability. For example, if users want to communicate via Messenger but also make an announcement via Twitter or Reddit, they will be able to do it all simultaneously. The metaverse offers a space in which the physical reality of being at a set place in a set timeframe will be able to be combined with the virtual reality of combining any feature available online. As Christina Wootton, VP of brand partnerships at Roblox said, “the brands that are progressive in this area are the ones that understand the fact that self-expression is such an important component of why people spend so much time online. They can be who they want to be.” Communication and self-expression seem to be key elements in the drafting of the metaverse, which might be why Zuckerberg is so involved in it… 

The metaverse - not quite there yet 

“It’s probably fair to say that what we have today is not quite the Metaverse yet,” said Moritz Baier-Lentz, member of the Metaverse venture capital fund BITKRAFT Ventures. It seems as though we won’t be witnessing the advent of the metaverse in the weeks to come. The hardware used nowadays would need to be developed much further to be able to support a digital world experienced by billions of simultaneous users in real-time. 

Once we come up with computing capabilities strong enough to be the metaverse’s infrastructure, we will also have to provide a solution to the humongous energy consumption the metaverse could cost. The huge energetical price to it would provide great problems for power grids and, inevitably, for the environment. Lastly, cultural changes could be essential to welcome the development of the metaverse. If we take VR and AR as examples of milder advancements, only less than 20% of Americans have been or still are VR headset users. This leaves great room for potential users to adopt technological advancements, in time, thus it is clear that people are not ready for invisible screens to be popping up in their local cafe or supermarket. However, Baier-Lentz also predicted VR and AR headsets could surpass gaming consoles in 2025...

Metaverse, the new 3D Internet

All in all, the metaverse is a new iteration of the Internet; one which provides real-time physical consequences to virtual actions. It will also offer a customizable version of reality, in an altogether social and collective way: Tim Sweeney, chief executive of Epic Games (creator of Fortnite) said “The metaverse is not an App Store with a catalog of titles. In the metaverse, you and your friends and your appearance and cosmetics can go from place to place and have different experiences while remaining connected to each other socially.” 

Staying connected, wherever you go. Wasn’t that the idea behind the Internet? Well, the thinkers of the metaverse promise to reinvent the concept of the Internet. It seems to be the new frontier for online interaction - now that we can do just about anything in a virtual world online, the pioneers of the metaverse want us to be able to transfer those activities into our physical realities. 

The importance of 3D

Avatars could become a huge part of the applications of the metaverse, using them for shopping purposes for example. Let’s say you find the perfect outfit online, and you want to buy it but you’re not sure it would look good on you. What you would be able to do in the metaverse is try it on, thanks to your hyperrealistic personal avatar, and see if it suits you. 

The metaverse is more than just using a digital avatar to try on clothes, though. It could also mean virtual real estate. It seems as though virtual metaverse is already happening: in March 2021, a piece of real-estate on the Somnium Space platform, which is a VR game space, was purchased for $500,000. In April 2021, a plot of land on Decentraland, another virtual platform, was sold for $572,000. Thus, the metaverse may already be unfolding, as users are purchasing virtual real-estate daily, providing the foundations of a metaverse economy.

What is certain, is that the metaverse will require any user to have a personalized avatar to navigate through the stages of its virtual, beyond universe. Ready PlayerMe is a cross-game avatar platform specialized in creating avatars for the metaverse. Here at PixCap too, we can also help you find your avatar and curate your metaverse persona in a way that suits your use of the metaverse. Using AI image capture, you can create your high-quality, fully customizable 3D avatar and use it for gaming, hanging out in virtual spaces, trying on outfits, and even purchasing land in the metaverse!