What is the Metaverse?
In recent months you may have heard of something called metaverse. You may have read that metaverse will replace the internet. Maybe we will be living there in a few years. Google the word metaverse and you will find tons of definitions.
Wikipedia describes it as a shared virtual space, created by a combination of advanced reality and persistent virtual reality (VR), which includes the sum of all the virtual worlds, the augmented reality (AR), and the internet.
SO, METAVERSE STARTED AS A SCIENCE MYTH, DIDN’T IT?
Correct, Science fiction author Neal Stephenson coined the term “Metaverse” in his 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, introducing a realistic 3D world in which people were represented as avatars, and could interact with each other.
It is only in recent years that the metaverse has gained mainstream momentum. In April 2021, Epic Games announced a staggering $ 1 billion investment to build a metaverse.
Let us break down and figure out why Metaverse is so important.
Metaverse can be the next major online destination where users around the world gather, engage, buy, sell, play, and work. Both will be advanced technologies that will continue to grow over time. Artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced user interface (UI) will be used in these technologies.
As companies recalibrate around employee expectations and requirements during the new normal, VR will become a valuable resource. It will help employees to switch to hybrid work and ensure that remote employees enjoy the same level of engagement and accessibility as their office colleagues.
The metaverse will promote a vibrant new economy at all levels. For content creators and VR developers, it means another source of revenue. A crypto-based economy will also allow for fair content promotion and regular royalties.
You can invest in buying Metaverse properties and own NFTs. Lastly, let's not forget the potential of metaverse to create job opportunities.
In the metaverse, everything can be traded, this is a great opportunity for creators to come up with something unique and find a niche for themselves. You can rent your space to do events, you can create costumes that people can buy and wear around in the metaverse, you can have billboards and build games. It all depends on your imagination.
Therefore, the future of reality is here. Imagine 10 years from now, you are wearing your goggles, which have the power to bring you into the immersive metaverse experience. Because of this, you can walk by a cafe, look at it and the menu pops up.
Also, The world has changed a lot in the last 20 years with a variety of innovations released in the market. Two of these names, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), have continued to grow in popularity over the past five years or more. Recently, there have been a few trends in the Metaverse market that have begun to affect both AR and VR.
So basically AR is a combination of digital and our real world, where we in our world can generate digital visuals, information to enhance the quality of work and activity. Through the cameras of phones/ tablets or smart glasses, AR can put an overlay of the digital content into our actual environment.
It is an absolute example of technology that creates a simulated environment around us completely different from the real existing world that can be explored in 360 degrees.
Ever heard about VR Training? Well, we are the experts in that area. WoWExp’s subsidiary company Wenergy.in, builds custom virtual training platforms for Businesses, Startups & Institutions to continuously upgrade and upskill the workforce - anytime and anywhere.
MR is sometimes referred to as hybrid reality, it is the integration of real and virtual worlds to produce a new environment in which the interaction between virtual and physical objects is enhanced in real-time. Unlike VR, which immerses users in a virtual environment, or AR, which simply augments digital content over a physical environment, instead, MR devices constantly collect new information happening in the surroundings.
AR and VR developers have started to apply machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to their many applications.
One such company operating in this domain is WoWExp Technologies. Their AR engineers developed AI algorithms to provide Augmented Reality features such as enhanced interaction with the physical environment.
Both of these technologies have the obvious benefits of teaching and training, and this is useful in all schools and professional development courses.
WoWExp Technologies also provides the Renewable Energy Virtual Training Platform for Corporates and Institutions (REVTCI). Through the use of VR, emerging professionals in these industries receive training in a simulated environment that provides a significant level of accuracy while avoiding the risks associated with the error.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens that are unique or limited in quantity. Digital assets in the VR world can be managed by NFTs, and regulated through smart contracts. For example, asset ownership in the world of VR or games can be embedded in NFT.
So if you buy any NFTs, either hold them or resell them in the marketplace. The transaction of this purchase will be recorded by the decentralized network and create a certification of authenticity that can’t be erased or altered.
The avatar is a visual image of the user and is driven by the user's movement in the virtual world. The Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality market will be driven by the increasing demand for virtual VR / AR avatars where users can interact with the physical world through the visual avatar from a first-person perspective.
The first thing you need to do before entering a metaverse is to create your own avatar. When we talk about personalized virtual avatars of ours, there will be accessories we’ll own such as garments, shoes, cars, etc. as we purchase in the games at present time.
The intuitive implementation of virtual try-on solutions enhances the purchasing experience and customer support with real-time 3D experience, simulation, and visibility for individual customers.
WoWExp Technologies offers a collaborative visual experiment for a short-term visual product solution that supports the pre-selection of customer information. This leads to a slowdown in product return rates and the unpredictability of future product purchases online.
These 2 technologies, namely AR and VR will play a major role in shaping the future of Metaverse. The true metaverse will be the one that becomes the center of our lives, a developed world. And by 2030 it will be everywhere.
We have all looked at how in sci-fi movies one can teleport from one world to another with the help of a device. But how to do it in real life? A phone is great for a sneak-peek, but for the full experience, you may want to consider purchasing a VR headset or, a pair of smart AR glasses. There are several factors to consider when deciding how exactly to enter a metaverse. Choosing the right VR headset is probably one of the most important things that can make or break your experience.
But, is the metaverse worth it? Will we be able to do things we are assuming of? Let's get all these doubts cleared, of what you can actually do in metaverse:
The e-sports world and the people in it are already enjoying the metaverse games like Minecraft, and Roblox is one the most prompt examples of providing just metaverse-like features.
You must have heard about the sandbox, gaining popularity in the crypto games. You can build your own world from scratch, paint, harvest anything you want, pay in the game’s currency, and attend any worldwide virtual event you want to.
In fact, you can claim those pieces of land with NFTs, in those games, and even use fungible governance tokens to change the locations of the area of the estate you would own in the virtual world.
You can invest in NFTs, or create one of your own and sell them. Investing in virtual lands in the early days can be the smartest move one can make before the metaverse becomes mainstream. It's about actually owning a space, a real estate in the upcoming virtual world. The price of virtual plots on Decentraland and the sandbox have hiked so much that the buyer of $10,000 land can make $500 million from reselling the same land.
So can NFTs be produced by some specific companies, and we can only purchase them? No! NFTs can be anything that is unique and you can also create it and sell it, let’s see some examples of NFTs:-
The metaverse world has tons of opportunities for uplifting your e-commerce business in every possible way. Business owners can give the pleasure of both physical shops and the relaxation of online shopping. Even the e-commerce business will have a graphically designed look of their stores, which can be the same or completely different from their original shop. This is how the world will be, shortly.
Digital e-commerce makes your shopping experience easy, speedy, and convenient. Many of the big brands have already started inculcating the virtual shopping experience to their customers.
You can hang out in multiple spaces in the metaverse. The process of being in it is quite simple, just like you login into the web2, with google. You'll be given Metamask in web3 login. And thus you can enjoy either the pre-built rooms or free yourself by creating one of your own.
You will be able to have a virtual meeting at the office and then can enjoy coffee or lunch with your long-lost friend in just the next few hours.
Who would have thought that you could attend your favorite star’s live performance sitting in another part of the globe? Well, the metaverse turned such an impossible dream into reality.
Artists like Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, and even marshmallows have performed in the metaverse and the results, attendees were surprisingly more than enough. You can make your avatar look and do anything, from being a large fashionable avatar to doing crazy stuff like roaming around up in the sky and everything.
Gaming is one of the most exciting and realistic use cases of the metaverse that exists at present too. Crypto gaming is already a massive business and surely going to boom in the near future, it covers both online casino-style games and also the “play-to-earn”, the recent gaming paradigm.
Metaverse is the next step, where all the crazy imagination will take place, and soon we'll be able to have it in real life. With all these advances, the future surely looks a lot better and more powerful with technology. Don't forget to read our blog, "Future of Online Metaverses" to know more about the metaverse.
Still confused about how these weird, are cool-looking toons floating all around on the internet, getting popped on Instagram ads being called NFTs, so important?
The interplay of NFTs and metaverse is undoubtedly a highlight in the blockchain space and will affect what the metaverse is gonna look like.
When we all are talking about metaverse, cryptocurrency, and NFTs, the core factor blockchain somehow seems to be left behind. And blockchain is the core technology that controls everything at the basic level.
Blockchain is a technique that stores information in a decentralized manner. ‘Decentralized’ means that there will be no central authority that controls it.
Our readers are well-known about the news of people buying a virtual estate in the Decentraland with the help of Mana(cryptocurrency). And not only buying, renting them out, and even reselling the land on a high profit. This is the beginning of using blockchain-based money for the transaction for lands and property in the metaverse, and in the future, it will just get denser.
To know more about the topic, do read our blog "Metaverse and Blockchain".
Though, the terms “NFTs” and “Blockchain” are still fresh and very new to someone who isn't connected to such a great level of technology. And, soon a perfect combination of AR, VR, MR, crypto, NFTs will bring you a new virtual world where you’ll be enjoying every activity in every possible way while being at your home.
Let’s suppose you have funds to invest in the NFTs and you are all set to be a part of the metaverse and Blockchain. But how will you proceed?
Don’t worry we have got you covered, you can start your investment journey by following some fundamental steps.
There are three ways to invest directly in the metaverse:
The first step for investing in any platform is to create a specific wallet. Create a crypto wallet and load it with currency for investing in the metaverse.
Recommended wallets for:
|
Metaverse Tokens |
NFT Purchases |
|
WazirX |
MetaMask |
|
CoinDCX |
Coinbase |
|
CoinSwitch Kuber |
Binance |
To know more about how to invest your money in the metaverse and what to do after creating a wallet, do read our blog "Start your Investment Journey in the Metaverse Today!".
With all that we have discussed so far, it is clear that no doubt metaverse will help all of us to grow professionally and make us more interactive on ground levels. It will let us expand our horizons, travel anywhere we think of, and meet amazing people. However, it will also bring risks associated with it.
Let’s jump into the topic and break down the complex risks associated with metaverse:-
As the rise of social media has grown in years, we’re well known about the impact it puts on society on a daily basis. The misinformation spreads fast as fire in the woods, and alone Facebook has a bad record of spreading fake news.
The internet to date exists in this world, so we have cyber laws and human rights. Anything that happens on the internet, has a proper solution to date, what about metaverse? Will the virtual space have any laws and regulations? The lack of proper laws on metaverse can cause serious issues like property ownership, and privacy concerns.
If you haven't heard about the blunder of data theft by Facebook, then you are indeed living under the rock as of now. If one app can harm your personal life so much, by giving you notifications of the things you were discussing. Then imagine what would happen when you hand over your whole life to a system of software, the metaverse.
Melanie Subin, director of consulting for the Future Today Institute(FTI) says identity theft with the amount of personnel data collected will be greater than anything we’ve seen today. And stating it as a playground for hackers she continues, “your home, your face, your health, and everything can be accessed, and fraudsters can misuse your attributes and personal assets.
We at WoWExp look at it as a Utopian place, full of opportunities, a platform for brilliant minds to come together at a place, to create a better place for its users. Despite all the possible consequences, we have tried to build up India’s no. 1 safest metaverse space for you all. We don't want any of you to be deprived of the latest technology, so grow with your community.
Other than Facebook which owns Oculus, companies like Alibaba’s Ali metaverse, Epic games’ video games, and tik-tok have shown interest and possibilities in it. Let’s hit the big names that are in the race of the metaverse and have planned platforms for the future universe:-
Microsoft has recently launched and is establishing mesh. Though, it's going to be a mixture of both virtual as well as augmented reality. It is usually used in teams. It's going to be one of the momentums in HoloLens2.
It is said to be a well-defined virtual workplace for anyone and everyone. People can have custom avatars, freshers can have a look at their work through virtual buildings.
It is one of the Chinese giants. Though it is at a real early stage, the possibilities it holds for the future are miraculously incomparable. Being in the technology rush, the raccoon has already applied some of the metaverses-related trademarks and only going forward to upskill.
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the biggest investors of the virtual universe. The reason is, a 3d world, full of virtual, augmented reality is the ultimate future. It is said to be the next big place to be socially connected with everyone, and in regards to the same, the plan is to create a virtual world as soon as possible.
You must have heard of the most popular metaverse example, Fortnite. Epic games are one of the biggest investment companies in the metaverse, the amount is around $1 Billion, out of which $200 million is Sony's shares. Whereas, their vision is quite different from Mark’s metaverse; he wants his players to interact and wants the space to be free of ads and restrictions.
In amidst the big giants like Meta, there are various startups budding up in the space of Metaverse. One such ever-growing startup is “WoWExp Technologies”, which builds interactive & immersive products with emerging technologies like AR, VR & MR for making a mindboggling impact on society as well as businesses.
The company is currently working on building a metaverse city wherein people can collaborate and interact via avatars. From attending their classes in a “Metaverse Campus” to dancing in a club for an event or a concert, everything will be held in the WoWExp City (WEC).
Metaverse is the future knocking and waiting to be welcomed at our door. It's just a matter of a few years for it to become a mainstream platform for every other activity.
Muskan Kapoor
She is a writer by day and a reader by night.
