![]() ![]() Paul Tomlinson, 41, has worked remotely for years, living in rural Maine with his family and managing tax and financial-processing software for a firm that works with municipal and state governments. Kids are not the only ones wading out into the metaverse breakers. ![]() “I couldn’t manage to make plans in real life because of the pandemic, so I took the chance of building a cool place to host the virtual event,” he tells TIME. Hackl’s son wasn’t alone in having a birthday party on Roblox over the past year the 16-year-old creator of the Roblox game Math Obby, who goes by the username 0bid0, threw himself a party to which he invited not just friends from school and Twitter, but also fans of the game. “This metaverse concept gives us the opportunity to create any universe that we’ve ever imagined.” More than a social network “There’s clearly a kind of a desire to move that direction,” says John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier BNP Paribas and an investment analyst focusing on emerging technologies. ![]() The idea that we might be able to “feel like we’re together when we’re not,” he argues, could likely lead someone to create a company on par with Facebook and Apple. Read more: The 100 Best Inventions of 2021įor Riccitiello, the most exciting part of the metaverse is what it might mean for our relationships. What your friends have said about it pops up.” “You’re walking by a restaurant, you look at it, the menu pops up. “You’ve got your goggles on, 10 years from now, but they’re just a pair of sunglasses that happens to have the ability to bring you into the metaverse experience,” says John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, maker of a video game engine that is increasingly used to develop immersive experiences on other platforms. At its core, the metaverse (also known to many as “web3”) is an evolution of our current Internet. Think about how the LiDAR scanner on newer iPhones can take a 3D scan of your surroundings. Think about how Netflix gauges what you’ve watched before to make suggestions. These two worlds are already interwoven, no headset required: Think about the Uber app telling you via location data how far away the car is. Whether in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or simply on a screen, the promise of the metaverse is to allow a greater overlap of our digital and physical lives in wealth, socialization, productivity, shopping and entertainment. Today, logging onto Fortnite, joining a chat with friends over a console platform and launching into a game with them is, especially to younger generations, just as social an experience as most other physical interactions. The game World of Warcraft became a persistent social scene for millions in the early 2000s, and communities have continued to sprout up within and around games. Online communities have existed since at least the mid-1980s, and grew in the 1990s with chatrooms, AOL instant messenger and the first social media sites. However, the metaverse is far from the stuff of sci-fi. The word “metaverse” is often traced to Neal Stephenson’s 1992 dystopic, cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, and many see a more recent inspiration in the dazzling warren of experiences at the heart of Earnest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One. Hybrid offices, video-based education and online social communities are just a few of the ways in which more of our lives-for better or worse-is spent in digital spaces. Nike is even, analysts say, preparing to sell virtual sneakers. Virtual productivity platforms are growing too, with Facebook and Microsoft announcing new ways to collaborate online. Interest in purely digital ownership-and the technology that proponents believe can ensure the security of persistent virtual experiences-has spiked dramatically, with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies making headlines. Millions of people are spending hours a day in virtual social spaces like Roblox and Fortnite. It’s also part of the “metaverse.” Once a niche concept beloved of tech enthusiasts, the idea of a centralized virtual world, a “place” parallel to the physical world, has careened into the mainstream landscape this year, as epitomized by Facebook’s decision in October to rebrand as Meta. Available on most desktop and mobile platforms, it is simultaneously a venue for free games, a creation engine that allows users to generate new activities of their own, and a marketplace to sell those experiences, as well as side products like outfits for a personalized avatar. Roblox might be unknown to many over the age of, say, 25, but the 13-year-old platform is booming. ![]() The futility of throwing an outdoor pandemic-friendly event in January wasn’t the only reason Hackl’s son lobbied for a digital event. ![]()
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