Hi, my name is Dylan, and I am from Ireland. Recently as you may know, Facebook have rebranded their company to “Meta” and have updated their logos to resemble the infinity sign and the letter M. This new branding will be apparent on all Facebook branding including the Oculus VR headset which was acquired by Meta in 2014. This is important to know because as the name and title implies, Meta plan on creating a thing called the “Metaverse”.
“What is the Metaverse?” you may be asking, the metaverse will be a place where physical and digital worlds amalgamate to create an environment where people can interact/play games, have meetings in virtual offices or even attend events such as concerts, social gatherings, and things of the like. Why is this so important? Due to the recent pandemic people have anxiety of those things and would rather be safe at home and still avoid missing out by attending virtually. This universe or “Metaverse” will be housed in the world of virtual reality. We have already seen Meta adopt this way of thinking in the past when they launched “Horizon Workrooms” which allow for people to enter the office or workplace from the comfort of their own home through the Oculus VR headsets.
Think about the idea of being able to shop online but be able to try on that piece of clothing from your favourite outlet before making the decision to buy it or not. Imagine being able to sit down at a college lecture and visually see other classmates’ avatars sit alongside you. The possibilities are endless if you think about it. There are good and bad points to be said for these experiences and the main one that sticks out will be that if we do migrate to the “Metaverse” will the lines become blurred between virtual and physical interactions and if for some reason will people choose to stay in the digital world more than the physical one.
So, think about it, will you be engaging with the “Metaverse”?
