Unleashing a New World of Possibilities through the Metaverse: Pt 1

 

Introduction to the Metaverse

     Web 1.0 - Started from the end of the 20th century till the beginning of the 21st century(up till 2004). The website was typically used for static websites, decentralized communication and read only platforms.

     Web 2.0 - Commenced from the start of the 21st century  around 2004-2016. During this time interval, there have been an evolution of social platforms and a provision of user generated content i.e read and write.

     Web3.0 - From the year 2016 till present, the internet has been steadily progressing towards Web3.0 where virtual environment and virual interaction between users would be possible.

     Virtual Reality(VR) and the Metaverse have seen extensive expansion especially in recent years. In this regard, new niches i.e gaming, entertainment, education and health keep rising in the VR sector.

     The owner of renowned social media platform Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg made an announcement regarding the metaverse that is considered a breakthrough in the field. He and his team are working on a plan to create a virtual enviroment that will help poeople connect and interact with each other.

He named it the "Metaverse". Before we get more insight into this concept, let's travel back to the beginning of the virtual reality idea.

   

     Computer interfaces have transferred from the early IBM punch cards used in the 1970s to MS-DOS and now to the graphical user interface(GUI). Computer interfaces here refers to the way humans have interacted with digital machines throughout history. In the middle of the 20th century, the advent of programming languages allowed human beings to interact with computers.

Punch cards were the initial milestones that allowed humans to come in contact with come in physical contact with computers.

MS-DOS commands were the next big things after punch cards. They allowed humans to interact with machines by typing words into them. The development of the GUI(Graphical User Interface) allowed people to click pictures on their computer. In modern days, GUI is present in almost every digital machine ranging from ATMs to touchscreens to ticketing machines and the likes.

After punch cards, MS-DOS and GUI, the fast rising computer interface does not have a single name. It is known instead by many names: Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Extended Reality or Mixed Computing. Although there are slight differences between all these concepts, they have one thing in common: the use of 3D space. Hence they are collectively known as spatial computing.

What is Metaverse? 

Metaverse is a combination of two distinct words i.e Meta and Verse. 

Meta means Virtual and Verse refers to Universe. Bothe terms are collectively called the " Metaverse" which means virtual universe. 

The term "Metaverse" was first introduced by Neal Stephenson an American fiction writer. He coined the term in his 1992 novel "Snowcrash". He mentioned a 3D virtual space where human beings live as programmable avatars in his book. The metaverse described in his book appears to be an urban environment. The environment is developed over a 100m long road known as a street. This street spans a featureless black spherical planet whose circumference is 65,536km. A corporate group known as Global Multimedia Protocol Groups owns all the virtual real estate on the planet. Through this real estate, people of the metaverse can buy and develop buildings. The primary source of transportation on the metaverse is provided with the monorail running across the entire length of the street. The monorail stops at 256 Express Ports located at every 256km interval.

A World of Possibilities

     The metaverse is a virtual environment that furnishes enticing, interactive experiences that are impossible in the real world. People have been thinking about what life will be like if they are empowered to create their own worlds. The metaverse fills in that role by providing ample opportunity to all to own property in it's virtual real estate and to design spaces based on creativity and imagination.

 

     If you doubt that the metaverse is the next great thing, you need to understand that it is surely a big technological intervention. The metaverse has revolutionized the way people interact and meet with each other. It is empowering may sectors such as gaming, employment, commerce, real estate and so on. Many startups across the globe are already entering into the Metaverse i.e MTN recently purchase 141 plots of land in the Metaverse to become the first African startup to enter the metaverse. 

 

Web 3.0 and the Metaverse

     Web 3.0 relies on the notion that there was already change in how we employ the internet moving us from Web 1.0(20th century internet) to Web 2.0(contemporary internet). Now there are already signs of Web 3.0 in terms of blockchain, NFTs, mixed reality and so on.

     The metaverse and Web 3.0 are not exactly the same thing but they can overlap and can be synergized. For instance, digital artists can make money by selling their arts as an NFT with the help of an NFT marketplace i.e Opensea, Rarible, Known Origin. This would offer the buyer exclusive ownership of the outfit. Now when people imitate that design, their avatars will not be worth it as the real owner has the unique NFT of the original product. We talk more about the metaverse in the next article. Hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, you can leave a comment below.