“Web 3.0” could be the necessary infrastructure upon which the metaverse will work. Rather, we should focus on the future development of interoperable systems, standards, and computing power needed to create a truly persistent and synchronous experience across metaverse services.īuilding the technical infrastructure and protocols to achieve such a fluid state of digital services is a tall order.

Naturally, pop culture references and gaming anecdotes conjure an immediate sense of the metaverse however, the essays of Michael Ball and other industry experts have emphasized that the VR- or AR-enhanced visual space is but one dimension to view what is ahead. But ask any two people what the metaverse actually represents and diverging opinions quickly arise. So what is the metaverse? For all of the kerfuffle, one might expect a straightforward answer. 'Creating digital scarcity and assigning immutable ownership to creative work or R&D-related resources will ultimately be required to incentivize participants to create in the larger metaverse' The last twenty years have shown that a dominant position for services distribution and access can be lucrative. For incumbents, it is being touted as essential for their future relevance. For emerging tech companies, the metaverse poses an opportunity to circumvent existing barriers in the form of app stores and closed ecosystems. As a result, tech companies are jockeying for position in VR and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software businesses.

For instance, Epic Game’s Fortnite held a virtual musical performance by Ariana Grandein August that, while pre-recorded, drew over 12 million concurrent users who could watch and interact with one another in their outfitted avatars.īloomberg Intelligence estimates metaverse projects such as these represent a global market opportunity that could reach as high as $800 billion by 2024. Meanwhile, a host of “otherworld” building games already offer glimpses into new forms of online interactions. Fuelled by greater connectivity and data from IOT devices, B2B firms are also investing heavily into visualization tools that use 3D renderings of real-world objects, which hold diverse applications across factory production, logistics and public security. Just days following Facebook’s high-profile name change to “Meta” this past October, Microsoft publicly disclosed plans to begin offering web conferencing services in virtual reality.

Fluid app fintech