A number of major players in the software industry and media top shots are putting more resources into creating the infrastructure and ecosystem on which the metaverse will be built. There is no question that the entire world has transitioned from a physical to a virtual reality existence.
It is also possible that the metaverse will also be a large-scale industrial workspace where manufacturing companies can make digital copies of their machinery that they can test in the metaverse before implementing it in the real world.
The design can then be corrected or improved before construction begins, saving time and resources. This has been implemented in the creation of robots and other designs by their creators.
In today’s article, I would like to beam more light to the futuristic vision of positioning your company in the metaverse as seen from the perspective of 3 major companies that are exploring the metaverse.
What is the Metaverse?
The metaverse is a virtual universe that extends the dimensions of the physical world. Imagine it as a hyper-real video game. Its intention is to replicate what people already do in their daily lives, for example, socializing, shopping, or attending concerts. It reproduces the real world in a virtual environment, where people can interact with spaces, objects, and other people.
There are many companies interested in developing and deploying virtual realities on the metaverse with a lot of them in test mode as at the time of writing this article. This has also brought in a lot of small companies who are creating the required tools like avatars, virtual goods like NFTs, merchandise, audio, videos, and other tools that would be required in the metaverse.
Why are these 3 companies exploring the metaverse?
In no other of importance or preference, below are 3 major companies who are deeply interested and exploring the metaverse.
Facebook: It is no longer news to everybody that Facebook is keen on transforming the internet into a virtual medium for interaction. Consequently, the company rebranded its name to Meta to show its commitment to a new way of interacting with the world.
Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta) took over an hour to detail the prospects of using the metaverse in a vivid explanation of how the metaverse would involve an embodied experience, especially how the users can interact with the internet.
This involves having a shared emotion of the space in an interactive manner, and also the ability to convey the emotions in a virtual world is more interactive than using a screen to view and convey the same.
Facebook (Meta)
Facebook (Meta) is exploring all the possibilities of how humans interact especially in the social context, their Avatars, Home space, Teleporting, Interoperability, Privacy and safety, use of virtual goods, and interactions on natural interfaces. As a major player, this would in no doubt give them an edge in delivering the metaverse in the way the world would easily integrate in a seamless way.
Microsoft
Microsoft, meanwhile, is looking to build a work-focused metaverse that connects its hugely popular offerings in a digital environment called Mesh.
Inside Mesh, you’d be able to use Microsoft Teams, Windows, and other services in virtual reality (VR). This would give its users the flexibility of working from anywhere and collaborating with work done in a decentralized way but in a virtual world.
Google actually stands out as an early leader, with its Google Glass, a slim and lightweight pair of glasses with an AR overlay on one side. The screen’s size and resolution were limited, but it was a fascinating early look at what might become. Google will absolutely have to be a part of this new reality.
Its pervasiveness in maps and search are a natural fit, and its artificial intelligence prowess might be the best of all tech giants. What was perhaps lacking was a more modern approach to AR hardware and software which can be seamlessly integrated upon acquisition of a company that has such technology.
In conclusion, the world is expected to brace itself for the gradual transition of the present physical world to a virtual world which would bring a different perspective of how the users can carry out their daily living in a world undeterred by limitations and boundaries.
Only time will tell when my next article about the metaverse will be published in a virtual world using Microsoft Mesh or integrating my documents using Google AR.