Apparently Facebook is going a step further, According to a media report the social network giant is planning to rebrand itself with a new name that focuses on the metaverse. Facebook Inc. is switching its name in order to differentiate its heaping parts from the social network, which has a progressively bad reputation pretty much everywhere. They are all ready to ditchthe name Facebook and rebranding is the new big plan of the global company to develop a virtual world but it also looks like an attempt to shift focus from the recent controversies.
In Greek, ‘meta’ means ‘after’ or ‘beyond’. Mark Zuckerburg wants to club all his products Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp into a single box. It will all fall under a single parent company called Meta.
The word Metaverse is made up of the prefix “meta” which means beyond and the stem word “verse” which is a back formation from the word universe. The term is typically used to describe the concept of Future Iteration of the Internet made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe.
What is metaverse ?
It is supposed to be the post-Internet world. It is a decentralised computing platform of sorts.The metaverse will be continuous, and live. According to experts, the metaverse does not reset or pause or end, but “continues indefinitely.” It is a parallel , virtual world where users can have different identities, possessions and characters.
Metaverse is the hot new buzz-word in tech.The parent company will be known as “Meta”.
To understand it, let’s talk about how we engage with people on the internet. We go to different websites such as social media platforms or messaging applications, communicate with other users via text, share multimedia and make video calls , metaverse aims to take this experience a notch higher.
The metaverse wouldn’t replace the Internet but would be an iteration of it. Instead of just texting your friends you could actually meet them or their avatars online.
The internet helped us find our tribe of friends that were going through the same thing as us. Reddit communities, Facebook groups, blogs, chat rooms all of these gave us a chance to anonymously vent our frustrations and receive genuine help without feeling too exposed.
The metaverse will take the same greatness that the Internet brought us in the way of support at the physical presence and real time interactions. It’ll still remain anonymous if desired and will add a personal touch to everything that you were doing before on the Internet.
The idea is to create new online spaces in which people’s interactions can be more multi dimensional where users are able to immerse themselves in digital content rather than simply viewing it , so metaverse basically refers to digital spaces which are made more lifelike by the use of virtual reality or augmented reality, In other words it’s an online world where people can use different devices to move and communicate in a virtual environment, some people even use the word metaverse to describe gaming worlds in which users have a character that can walk around and interact with other players.
The idea follows the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, where the phrase metaverse was first used. The novel is set in a dystopian world where governments have ceded power to private corporations and deal with many aspects of the modern world be it virtual reality , digital currency, etc. Stephenson’s book has found a god- like reverence among Silicon Valley leaders.
Science fiction is another example: many sci-fi films are set in fully fledged metaverses meaning they are set in alternative digital worlds which are indistinguishable from the real physical world. Until now this was the stuff of fiction but the concept is catching on. The idea of the metaverse had impressed a lot of people and it has also been playing out in works such as Ready Player One and The Matrix.
Metaverse is not something that just one company can build. Facebook is not the only company working on this. Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite, has big plans for the metaverse using its unreal engine. Fortnite already has many elements which would conform to the idea such as live events, its own currency, etc.
It foresees the Internet as a 3D living space , where individuals dip in and out , interacting with one another in real time
Decentraland – a virtual world where visitors can watch concerts, visit art galleries, and gamble in casinos.
Here plots of land have been sold worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in MANA, a cryptocurrency.
The beings of the tech world are now seeing a virtual reality universe as the future of the internet. The metaverse will exist both in the digital and physical realm. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the company will try to transition from being a social media company to a metaverse company in the next five years or so . The tech giant has even announced plans to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union over the next five years. To help build the so-called metavers
Microsoft also intends to converge the digital physical world. Big tech has its eyes set on the metaverse. The popular children’s game roblox describes itself as a metaverse company. It is a highly interactive, shared virtual world. Epic games Fortnite is also considered to be a part of the metaverse
Musicians can do virtual concerts within these platforms. For example in September millions of people watched the singer Ariana grande virtually perform in fortnite. Virtual concerts are entering the metaverse. The world’s biggest fashion companies have also experimented with making virtual clothing which people’s avatars can wear in metaverse environments. The potential of this emerging technology is limitless. The accelerated interest in the metaverse can be seen as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic as more people have started working and going
to school remotely. Interoperability ( computer systems working by exchanging information with each other) is key to metaverse’s success.
Virtual reality would be an element of this metaverse. However, the idea goes beyond just donning a VR headset and starting to play a game. There has been an increase in demand for ways to make online interactions more lifelike. Fans of the metaverse now see it as the next stage in the development of the internet.
How will metaverse work ?
The metaverse is being envisioned as a new world order, where your services could be offered virtually in exchange for other virtual assets, or cryptocurrencies. Your existence will be enmeshed with the digital world in a much deeper, complex way. On one level it does sound dystopian.
Most examples in popular fiction where the virtual and physical world have merged live up to that image. Everything and everyone is supposed to be a part of this, interoperability will be key. In order to ensure that the metaverse functions smoothly, it would require a rewriting of the current rules.
The metaverse is critical for Facebook’s future. Facebook has its own Oculus VR gaming platform, which could prove to be a gateway into this metaverse.
In a metaverse, we are set to live in a digital world where we spend most of our time interacting with friends, where virtual assets have higher importance, where the rules will be entirely different.
According to Facebook’s own definition, found in its news announcement, the metaverse will let users hang out with people who are not in the same physical space. “You’ll be able to hang out with friends, work, play, learn, shop, create, and more.
It’s not necessarily about spending more time online – it’s about making the time you do spend online more meaningful”.
Facebook also admits that the metaverse won’t be built overnight and many of the products will only be fully released in the next 10-15 years. It needs to work on the questions of how the metaverse will be built. The social media giant says it wants to help build the metaverse “responsibly”.
September 2021 – Facebook announced the XR programs and research fund. It is a two year $50 million investment in programmes and external research.
In this fund, Facebook will partner with the “industry civil rights groups, governments, nonprofits, and academic institutions to determine how to build these technologies responsibly.” Facebook and Microsoft on the other hand are approaching this a little differently , think about what it would be like to get work done in the metaverse. Facebook launched horizon workrooms, a new way for office workers to connect using virtual reality and an oculus headset. Zuckerburg is particularly excited about the idea that co-workers could be brought together in a virtual route that feels like they are face-to-face. You can have VR meetings of up to 16 people or well their avatars , all moving around a virtual office space in real time.
Microsoft is looking to transform the way businesses and operations happen altogether by creating an entire digital twin of the real world that we interact with through mixed reality. The metaverse is aimed to be far more immersive and a continuous experience for future internet users.
The laws that would govern this metaverse and enable it to blend with our daily life are still a work in progress. As of now it’s understood that much like the Internet of today there will be no single owner or no operator of the metaverse, it would ideally work as an open source system built on community-based standards.
