The Metaverse IS Coming ...

You Are In It, Ready or Not ...
As part of our work on Digital Accommodation and Megatrends, we look at Mark Zuckerberg's ambition for Facebook to become the online "Metaverse" company.

Mark Zuckerberg laid out his vision to transform Facebook from a social media network into a “Metaverse company” in the next five years. So what is a Metaverse?

A Metaverse is an online world where people can work and communicate in a virtual environment. Work environments can be created, think of a “Virtual Office” with real people.

Zuckerberg described it as “an embodied internet where instead of just viewing content, you are in it. You feel present with other people as if you were in other places".

Facebook has invested heavily in virtual reality, spending $2bn. on acquiring Oculus VR. In 2019, the company launched Facebook Horizon, an immersive environment where users can mingle and chat using Oculus headsets, in a virtual space.

At TSE we also like what is happening with Spatial.io, "virtual spaces that bring us together" and Immersed.com "working faster in VR than in real life." We plan to build this into our Club and Private Client Group activity.

The concept of a metaverse is popular with tech companies who believe it could be a novel 3D internet, connecting digital worlds where people hang out in virtual reality.

Origins are credited to Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where the concept served as a virtual-reality-based successor to the internet.

Zuckerberg explains, "Wherever you are, with a snap of your fingers, you will be able to pull up your perfect workstation. You can walk into a Starbucks, you can sit down, you can be drinking your coffee and kind of wave your hands and you can have basically as many monitors as you want, all set up, whatever size you want them to be, all pre-configured to the way you had it when you were at your home.

If you want to talk to someone when you’re working through a problem. They can teleport in. They can see all the context you have. They can stand next to you and interact. Then in a blink they can teleport back to where they were.

We call this “infinite office. I think it’s going to be great for task sharing and for setting up your work environment anywhere.'

Want to know more? Check out the full post from Casey Newton "Mark In The Universe" and Matthew Ball's Metaverse Primer. Or join The Saturday Economist Private Client Group. "The "Metaverse is coming. You will be in it, ready or not!"

#DigitalDisruption #DigitalAcceleration #DigitalAccommodation #DimensionsofStrategy #TheSaturdayEconomist #JohnAshcroft #Metaverse

References ...
1 Mark In The Metaverse. Facebook's CEO on why the social network is becoming a "Metaverse company" Casey Newton The Verge 22 July 2021
https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

2 Matthew Ball and the Metaverse Primer
https://www.matthewball.vc/the-metaverse-primer

3 Private Client Group
https://www.thesaturdayeconomist.com/private-client-group.html