When businesses define what the metaverse is, they define it as a 3D virtual world that combines VR, AR, gaming and social media that allows its users to interact and engage in an immersive experience.
To backtrack a bit, the term “metaverse” originated from author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 sci-fi novel “Snow Crash.” Stephenson referred to the metaverse as an all-encompassing digital world that exists parallel to the real world.
The movie “Ready Player One” also showed a version of what the metaverse can be as the protagonist avoids his life he calls “miserable” and escapes to a virtual world where he lives his life.
In 2022, experts actually still aren’t sure whether the metaverse could evolve into something similar to what Stephenson wrote and what “Ready Player One” envisioned.
What is known is that as an ecosystem operating in real time and is always active, the metaverse breaks through the limitations of geographical boundaries. People can visit different countries, etc.
“To bring education to marginalized zones, kids in some countries have to walk two hours to get to their education environment,” said Ricardo Vanegas, vice president of growth and strategy, USA, Zeeve. “The metaverse gives kids the opportunity to attend school without that journey, and it lets them visit different cities.”
Vanegas spoke at the 2023 Enterprise Metaverse Expo in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
With the metaverse, businesses can holistically transform consumer engagement, extend realities to bring virtual goods and services to market and create frictionless commerce in virtual marketplaces.
What the metaverse also enables is allow businesses to train and collaborate through VR and AR. Vanegas gave an example through an engineering team.
“AR lets engineering teams sit in front of a table and let anyone use a computer to look into the structure of the machine,” said Vanegas. “Anyone can interact, touch and change it – move it around, too.”
A few challenges that come with the metaverse, though, are infrastructure, the ability to go from one world to another, having the devices in place to access it and computer power.
Still, the metaverse provides a financial opportunity. Businesses should embrace it to boost sales, awareness and engagement.
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
