The Metaverse Is Not Ready Yet, But That’s Okay
The metaverse isn’t ready yet, but that doesn’t mean your business can afford to ignore it.
A special series about using the past to visit the future.
Many among even the most intellectually voracious people do not yet understand the concept of the metaverse, beyond the simplicity of the buzzword. Metaverse… even the phonetic pronunciation of the word invokes the same craving for manic innovation that perhaps embodies more of our current culture than we’d like to admit. Maybe this is why many folks, when hardpressed to formulate a verse or two of their own when the topic inevitably comes up in conversation, are either diehard metaverse believers or heckling naysayers. Does it have to be this way? Probably, but not for you.
A distilled definition of the metaverse is in order, drain the hype. To avoid taking the drab ‘ole way — explaining the history of the entire internet, we’ll take a detour, a scenic route if you will.
The broad trajectory of the internet which we currently seek to decipher draws striking parallels to drivers on an interstate highway. Gross simplification? Yes, but again, better than explaining the history of the entire internet. Web surfers are our drivers, and the always-ephemeral connection to our local wi-fi router (mine had a particularly monstrous outage last week) is our roadway. Each driver’s goal is to reach a final destination, in the same way that internet tech is trending toward a common end. But what is that destination?
Surprisingly, websites are not the catch-all (many people are surprised by this). Websites are just like little billboards that whizz by en route. Some come and go, maybe the ones in your favorites tab are connected to gas stations, a minute’s rest on a driver’s journey. Don’t misconstrue this, we can get quite a lot of useful information from billboards, and we often do (case in point the Instagram page that earned four million followers proving just how many life lessons we can glean from billboards). Even so, at the end of the day, billboards are just text on a screen, just like websites. What, are my journalistic readers still doubting my logic? Don’t take my word for it, apparently a bunch of internet maker people agree with me, because about 50% of all webpages have actual ads on them. Smart people built them that way.
“The metaverse is an interstate to a new kind of internet. Technological progress is a traffic jam, but the result will be worth the wait.”
The introduction of photos and videos to the internet forms another rest stop on a driver’s trek. A quick stopover at Mcdonald’s fueled by the need to feel something? That works. The ones in your TikTok feed definitely feel like junk food. Users feel so unfulfilled by scrolling that TikTok saves the world daily by telling us to take a break.
So what is the final destination? Or perhaps, emerging from the land of makebelieve back into the real world, the more appropriate question is: Why do people use the internet? Mark Zuckerberg got at least something right by identifying that it lets us “connect and express ourselves more naturally.” It’s all about in-person interactions.
“In recent decades, technology has given people the power to connect and express ourselves more naturally. When I started Facebook, we mostly typed text on websites. When we got phones with cameras, the internet became more visual and mobile. As connections got faster, video became a richer way to share experiences. We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn’t the end of the line.”
Right now, the internet helps augment our in-person interactions. Blogs like this one give readers insight into the mind of the writer. Looking up that poppy seed chicken casserole recipe might lower your risk of a dinner disaster (don’t even think about winging it). Insta-stalking might help potential partners find a match. But creating a space to take those in-person interactions online is the ultimate goal, from work to school to clubbing on the weekend. Meet the metaverse.
