Dusseldorf For people who work professionally with the Internet, it is good manners to proclaim new eras from time to time. It’s just that time again.
This time we are talking about Web 3.0 or the Metaverse. The real world, according to the idea, should be supplemented by a virtual dimension.
Facebook has even declared that it is seeking its strategic future in this virtual world. Which is kind of understandable, because the real world isn’t doing so well for Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
Does the metaverse actually follow the conventional Internet 1.0 and the collaborative social web of the Facebook era as the third stage of the networked revolution?
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The relevant management consultants at least sense a huge business. According to a consulting firm, the Metaversum is well on the way to “surpassing all previous waves of technology in terms of its economic and social importance”. And analysts give insane estimates of how much revenue would be made in this metaverse by 2024 – they say $800 billion.
In fact, much of it probably serves as a meta-level for mundane marketing nonsense. Ultimately, the metaverse is a three-dimensional digital landscape in which people come together – to chat, play or learn.
It’s an interesting application, but a lot of it has been around for a long time. For years, users of computer games, equipped with virtual reality glasses, have been meeting in such rooms. Companies are now spending millions of euros on virtual properties, as our Friday title shows.
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Fashion companies bring out virtual collections. CEOs consider holding their board meetings in the metaverse. And even the staid department store chain Kaufland has acquired an island in the virtual world.
These are sometimes fun activities. However, it is rather unlikely that a new Internet will actually emerge here – if only because of the rivalry between the tech companies.
Microsoft will build a virtual world for everyday work, something like a team meeting with VR glasses. Facebook, in turn, will try to create a digital amusement park. And game providers will just carry on as before.
But it will hardly be possible to chat with your avatar from the virtual Microsoft working world in the Facebook metaverse during your lunch break and later hunt down a few gangsters in the multiplayer game “Mafia Wars” after work. The brave new meta-world will consist of many mini-universes, if at all.
Epoch-breaking talk is especially relevant to those who have little to offer other than marketing. The metaverse in the IT industry has been around for a long time, even if no marketable name was previously thought up there and no one immediately pretends to create a new civilization.
Companies are already working on so-called digital twins of their factories, which can be maintained remotely using VR glasses. In this way, an engineer in Munich, for example, can walk through the digital version of a factory that is actually in India.
Doctors can twist and turn their patients’ virtual bodies before surgery to better understand where to place the scalpel later. And drug makers can test their pills on virtual versions of human organs.
The hype surrounding the metaverse will result in billions of euros being spent on nonsense. There will be a lot of silly money going into virtual real estate and digital knick-knacks.
After all, this promotes an infrastructure of very powerful computers for artificial intelligence that can eventually benefit the real world.
But don’t worry: it will be many, many years before conference participants can meet on the holodeck of the Starship Enterprise. Until then, I guess I’ll have to make do with this avatar here.
More: The next level of the internet faces many problems