The metaverse is a virtual parallel world in which, thanks to an avatar, you can do almost everything like in real life: meet friends, hold meetings with colleagues or go shopping.
Image: Jess Ebsworth
Microsoft, Fortnite, Roblox, Niantic: Mark Zuckerberg is not alone in his dream of a parallel universe. What are the plans for 2022?
S.e since Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg presented his vision of the metaverse at the end of October, there are two types of doubters: Some consider his virtual parallel universe to be the perfect dystopia and are afraid of an advertising-financed, algorithm-optimized world full of zombies in the form of brightly colored cartoon characters. The others scoff at the backwardness of the project: Wasn’t such a world, whose inhabitants communicate, play, do business or make love as weird fantasy creatures, failed spectacularly under the name “Second Life” in the mid-noughties? And even if the idea could be reanimated, then not in this dusty design with its avatars off the shelf. For die-hard science fiction fans, it was only the fading stage of the future that books like Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” or films like “Ready Player One” had promised them.
Broadening the horizon
The fact that the metaverse will come in one form or another seems inevitable, if only as a result of the gigantic investment. Meta plans to invest ten billion US dollars in the development. The sale of the Oculus Quest 2 VR glasses has only made up a small part of the Group’s sales so far, but it is growing faster than almost any other division. The biggest business, besides advertising, is likely to be to do with apps for the 3D world, from which Facebook, like Apple and Google today with their stores, would earn a lot.
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