After the announcement made by Mark Zuckerberg of rebranding Facebook as ‘Meta’, there was a huge buzz created around the word Metaverse. Most of us didn’t know what a Metaverse is and the few that knew what it meant seemed to think that Metaverse is only about gaming or entertainment.
All in all, Metaverse is not entirely a new concept, shortly after Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989, Neal Stephenson, a sci-fi writer, devised the word ‘Metaverse’ as a three-dimensional virtual reality space in 1992. And if you’ve watched the movies The Matrix, Ready Player One, Tron, or The Free Guy you already must know a few things about the Metaverse.
Every time we discuss the internet and its evolution, we talk about Web 1, Web 2, and Web 3 but now we also have the Metaverse. According to experts, Metaverse is the next iteration of the Internet. It is believed that Metaverse is going to bring revolutionary changes to our day-to-day life.
Imagine, you can have a whole other life per se an alter ego, in the Metaverse your alter ego will be able to create, play, earn and learn anything moreover you will be controlling every aspect of it. It will not be limited to you pressing buttons and giving commands from a keyboard and watching everything unfold on a screen, you will be able to experience everything on a three-dimensional level, by being inside the metaverse. In short, you can do anything, own anything, and customize anything.
But why should you learn about the Metaverse and its use cases? Before we dig deeper into the use cases of Metaverse, let us first learn about what Metaverse is and its characteristics.
What is Metaverse?
Metaverse is a 3D virtual and augmented reality world. It is a virtual world where people can interact in real-time. It is a portmanteau, Meta having a Greek origin meaning beyond and verse signifying the universe, on combining the two we get a universe beyond our reality i.e., a virtual world that is close to our actual reality.
In the era of the Coronavirus pandemic, we couldn’t sit with our friends or have a family get together with our extended families but in the Metaverse, we can all sit together in a virtual world using the required hardware for entering the metaverse platform.
No more playing games or holding board room meetings through a computer screen or TV, we can actually sit in a virtual conference room and have a conference meeting. Our gaming characters won’t need any commands through the consoles.
Let’s go through a few characteristics of the Metaverse:
Virtual World
This is the most important characteristic of the Metaverse. The Metaverse will allow you to be actually present on the platform and it will provide a more immersive experience. You will no longer need to write in commands or use a computer screen to look at what you’re doing on the platform. No more two-dimensional the Metaverse will bring you a three-dimensional experience.
Virtual Reality Headsets
To enter the platform you will require virtual reality headsets, they will allow you to step inside the metaverse, you will be able to move around in the metaverse while wearing them (until you dash into your wall and get a slight head bump).
Social
In the Metaverse, there are going to be a lot of people in their different Avatars, a few of them will be BOTS demonstrations of Artificial Intelligence. You will be able to do real-life activities and hang out with people’s Avatars. The whole premise of the Metaverse is set on people interacting with each other in real life. In a normal video call, we can only look at each other through a screen but in the Metaverse our Avatars can turn around and sit or stand beside other Avatars. This makes Metaverse a Social Platform too.
Creator Driven
Users themselves will create the content in the Metaverse based on their experiences making the Metaverse creator-driven. Such users will be independent individuals or commercial enterprises.
Persistence
The virtual world will exist in real-time and you can visit it whenever you want. You can buy land and then develop it by creating a virtual building on it and the next time you visit it, the development and changes will remain intact.
Functioning Economy
You will be rewarded for creating, investing, owning, selling, or any other work that will create value that will be acknowledged by others. You will be able to do business in a virtual reality world.
Bridged Virtual Worlds
Users will be able to jump into different virtual worlds and they can also move their digital assets, digital items amongst different virtual worlds. E.g., your Fortnite skin and unlocked weapons can be used in Call of Duty.
Why Should You Learn About the Use Cases of the Metaverse?
Microsoft and Meta erstwhile known as Facebook have already embraced the Metaverse by investing billions in the Metaverse Platform.
Celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, and giant corporations like Adidas, Disney are already investing in digital real estate. This only goes to prove the credibility and potential of the Metaverse.
Before the world of Metaverse explodes and we all miss out on the opportunity to learn, invest and create something valuable and profitable we should understand what are the use cases of Metaverse.
What Are the Metaverse Use Cases?
The world of Metaverse is not limited to Gaming and Entertainment. Let’s go through the use cases of Metaverse:
Gaming
The gaming industry has received the most hype when it comes to a Metaverse platform, as gaming was the first-ever use case of the Metaverse technology.
Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and many other metaverse projects are already having successful implementations and operations. In The Sandbox, players can also create and sell their own NFTs. These platforms are more than just gaming platforms; they have their own Marketplace as well.
You can earn crypto tokens and these tokens have in-game purchases utilities and also allow you to buy and sell NFTs. Tokens earned can also be traded on crypto exchanges.
On Axie Infinity top players can earn up to 435 USD per day by earning 1500 Smooth love potion (SLP) tokens i.e., one of the native tokens of Axie Infinity.
Virtual Working Space
The whole world adopted the work from home model as the Global Coronavirus Pandemic hit us. We were compelled to embrace digital modes of communication and remote working. The conference room meetings were no longer in a conference room, we all stared at the screen of our computers and this experience was unsuccessful in providing interactions that were compelling or engaging.
But the Metaverse platform will help colleagues come together in a three-dimensional virtual conference room that will be graphically rich with 3D Avatars. Instead of just looking at your colleague through a computer screen and talking through a microphone, you can explore a virtual environment in real-time with other people in their life like Avatars. This will provide ease in remote working.
An example of virtual working space is Horizon Workrooms created by Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a virtual meeting space where you can sit across from your teammate and discuss work.
Virtual Real Estate
Metaverse provides users with the utmost premium quality virtual reality experience, which will allow users to take virtual tours of the real estate, instead of wasting time visiting and traveling to different locations and viewing dozens of apartments, houses, shops, plots, etc, The agents can provide virtual tours of the property listings, which will be indistinguishable from the experience of taking a physical real estate tour. It will also give prospective buyers real-time options to explore.
Furthermore, real estate agents can orchestrate the virtual estate tour as per the prospective buyer’s specific taste.
Social Networking
Facebook, the kick-starter of social media was relaunched as META which only goes to show how the Metaverse is going to radically change social media platforms. The metaverse will provide a much deeper immersive experience from our present and traditional social media messengers.
In the Metaverse, instead of just sending a message through your phone or computer, your 3D Avatars or Virtual Clones will be able to hang out together and do real-life virtual activities together.
Shopping
Online shopping has become all the rage today, entrepreneurs are thus very keen to turn the two-dimensional interaction with the buyers into an amazing three-dimensional virtual experience. Without any of the physical world limitations, the buyers will be able to test products, try on clothes, take expert opinions from experts and get answers to any of your queries in real-time.
Metaverse shopping will replace online shopping in the coming future. Instead of going to actual malls, users will be able to virtually shop from Metaverse Supermarkets.
Zara in collaboration with Ader Error has launched a line of fast fashion in the South Korean Metaverse Zepto. Also, brands like Gucci and Ralph Lauren, have created lines and collections specifically designed for 3D Virtual Avatars.
Virtual Tourism
Metaverse can play a vital role in Virtual Tourism as it provides a deeply immersive experience. So people who might have physical limitations can experience different locations virtually and gain an almost real-life travel experience.
As customer preference is ever-changing, customers want a one-of-a-kind stay experience. Through virtual reality, customers will be able to take their 3D Avatars on a virtual tour of Hotels and the rooms and services provided by the Hotels.
You can take a virtual tour of the Hotel Atlantis and The Palm in Dubai.
Education
An interactive world would be a big asset for schools and colleges. Imagine being able to zoom in and out of the solar system while learning about it and clicking on a planet and getting complete information about it. The more fun it will be to interact with the learning environment the easier it will be for the students to learn. It would also be extremely helpful in providing educational opportunities for students in rural and remote areas.
Entertainment
During the pandemic, there were a lot of virtual events, and a lot of art was shifted to online platforms. But instead of just streaming a concert or a stand-up comedy show there was an actual virtual arena where our 3D Avatars got together and attended a Virtual Concert. And we could take Virtual Museums Tours and at the end of the tour buy souvenirs from their virtual gift shops.
With the Virtual and Augmented Reality bringing us a deeply immersive experience with amazing 3D Graphics and the ability to interact with each other’s Virtual Clones in an enticing real presence it’s not that far that we attend Virtual Concerts of our favorite singers or take Virtual Tours of the Louvre.
But Remember:
Metaverse is still in its development stage, there is a long way to go but due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the shift made to the online platform and a lot of corporations already investing billions in the development of the metaverse platform the future of Metaverse is much closer than we anticipated.
The World is going to enter the age of the Metaverse soon. It is the next step of the internet and every time the internet has evolved we have embraced it with open arms. Metaverse proving its use cases in almost all the areas of real-life will bring drastic changes in our day-to-day lives. But we should remember that real life cannot be replaced by a virtual world. Or maybe, it can. You tell us.
Until then, the best you can do is head over to this link and start preparing for this upcoming revolution of Blockchain based technologies.
原文链接：https://nasacademy.com/blog/article/real-life-use-cases-of-metaverse-how-virtual-world-is-the-new-real
