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Augmented reality overlays visual elements, sound, and other sensory input onto real-world settings to enhance the user experience. In contrast, virtual reality is entirely virtual and enhances fictional realities. Big tech companies would have you believe that high-powered virtual reality or augmented reality (VR/AR) hardware is an essential — perhaps even the most essential — ingredient in a metaverse. Corporations see them as a way to becoming the dominant computing interface suppliers for 3D virtual worlds, and thereby also becoming the choke points that intermediate people’s metaverse experiences. They believe the infusion of more data into people’s experiences, progress in artificial intelligence assistive systems and the creation of entirely new spaces and experiences for tech users could enrich and expand their lives. Of course, as with all digital tech, there are concerns about the health, safety, security, privacy and economic implications of these new spaces.

There's no sense in living a metaverse if there isn't an economy that can't support the activities of its users. And so, creating value that can easily monetized is a crucial element of any virtual world. Remember, all types of activities can take place inside the metaverse and users need an incentive strong enough to want to enter and stay in it. Competition, scarcity, supply and demand, those are the real-world economics that speak to any of us. This idea has been around for a while, or at least since Neal Stephenson coined the term metaverse in his 1992 dystopian novel 'Snow Crash' . And many of us would have come across some meta references in pop culture like in the Matrix, Ready Player One or Tron, so the basics of the concept aren't that unfamiliar after all.

Join metaverse thought leaders in San Francisco on October 3-4 to learn how metaverse technology will transform the way all industries communicate and do business. As these metaverse-wide identities build, spread, and accord meaning to our real selves, we will want to invest in them. Our digital selves will have needs — probably some Black Mirror mutation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — that will start to direct our behavior.

Coca-Cola launched a "flavor born in the metaverse" alongside a Fortnite tie-in mini-game. Head over to our on-demand library to view sessions from the live event and rewatch your favorite sessions from our virtual days. Success is measured by how much people forget you’re a person and how much they think of you as that virtual construct. Speaking of which, make sure to SMASH that Follow Button for more dank thought leadership. The "ancient" and "decrepit" Millennials giving way to the digital natives of the Zoomers while shaking their cane and exclaiming how great the internet used to be before these damn kids came on and ruined it for everyone. I think there’s a missing part of the conversation, a piece of the metaverse puzzle that is assumed into existence by adherents and assumed out of existence by non-believers.

This kind of wishful-thinking-as-tech-demo leaves us in a place where it's hard to pinpoint which aspects of the various visions of the metaverse will actually be real one day. If VR and AR headsets become comfortable and cheap enough for people to wear on a daily basis—a substantial "if"—then perhaps a virtual poker game with your friends as robots and holograms and floating in space could be somewhat close to reality. If not, well you could always play Tabletop Simulator on a Discord video call. Tech giants like Microsoft and Meta are working on building tech related to interacting with virtual worlds, but they're not the only ones.

In September 2021, the company announced a $50 million investment in global research and program partners to ensure that metaverse technology would be developed responsibly. Proponents of the metaverse view the concept as the next stage in developing the Internet. Meta, for example, has already invested heavily in AR and VR, developing hardware such as its Oculus VR headsets, while AR glasses and wristband technologies are in the works. Interest in the metaverse is expected to grow substantially as investors and companies want to be part of what could be the next big thing. "And I think it's going to be the next big chapter for our company, too, doubling down in this area."

The primary escape for people is a shared VR landscape called "the OASIS" which is accessed with a VR headset and nfts wired gloves. The OASIS functions both as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and as a virtual society. The pandemic underscored the need for more immersive experiences — beyond traditional text based communication platforms, such as email — as the use of other remote conferencing and telepresence tools, like Zoom and others, soared.