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Metaverse: What the Buzz is All About
“Virtual reality is the first step in a grand adventure into the landscape of the imagination.” -Frank Biocca

To a stereotypical boomer like me, holding up with the ever-evolving digital world is already challenging. With all this talk about Metaverse… my techno stress has gone through the roof! I can hardly keep up with all these changes.
I just had to get over my techno anxiety and learn about this new phenomenon.
So, what is metaverse?
The term metaverse is the creation of sci-fi author Neal Stephenson who used it in his 1992 book, Snowcrash, where he created a world where avatars meet and interact with each other in a virtual reality environment. At present, most of us navigate websites and apps through the screens of computers, smartphones, and tablets. Metaverse proponents say we’ll use virtual reality (VR) tech to enter the internet tomorrow, moving between virtual worlds in the form of digital avatars. And, as life imitates art, developments in technology have allowed us to create a “phy-digi” online virtual universe combining blockchain, crypto, NFTs, virtual reality, augmented reality, 3-D holographic avatars together on Metaverse.
We are no longer just dreaming of visiting planets with the fleet of Star Trek, we are actually using gaming platforms (Rec Room, Fortnite, Decentraland, and Horizon Worlds) to enter the Metaverse. Of course, this would not be possible without consumer acceptance by Gen Z, Blockchain, crypto currency and leading platforms like Ethereum. Since 2020, the Metaverse has grown to a $655B industry. Based on an annual growth rate of 55%, the Metaverse is expected to reach $800B by 2024 and $13T by 2030. Today’s metaverse has been adopted worldwide. There are over 500 companies involved in the Metaverse many including “the usual suspects”:
- Online Gaming: Roblox, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard
- Design Software Industr y: Adobe, Autodesk, Unity
- Social Networks: Facebook, Tencent
- E-Commerce: Amazon
- AR/VR Hardware: Lenovo, HP, Logitech, Acer.
But in addition to the players expected to be involved, there are quite a few others that are not anticipated participants: