What is the Metaverse?

Thijs Menssink

August 12, 2022

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably have seen Facebook’s announcement that, from now on, the company’s name will be Meta. With that, Mr. Zuckerberg also introduced the metaverse, a witty marriage of meta and universe.

What is the metaverse?

Essentially, the Metaverse is a virtual reality experience, a digital world in which people come to connect, work, play, or go to school. In other words, it is virtual reality-based internet. A three-dimensional world in which digital creators and brands sell houses, clothes, sneakers and just about anything we sell in the real world.

With VR headsets getting more affordable, and with the addition of LiDAR 3D scanners on phones, this trend is likely to gain further traction. Also, 5G technology enables devices to access insane download speeds enabling brands to create unique 3D experiences on the go.

But the Metaverse is not a new idea; the term has been coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in the 1990s. In fact, VR headsets have been around for a while and online worlds too. Since 2014, the online platform “VRChat” has been offering an online world where people come together and chat.

What is the metaverse?

Essentially, the metaverse is a virtual reality experience, a digital world in which people come and connect, work, play, or go to school. In other words, it is virtual reality-based internet. A three-dimensional world in which digital creators and brands sell houses, clothes, sneakers and just about anything we sell in the real world. With VR headsets getting more affordable, and with the addition of LiDAR 3D scanners on phones, this trend is likely to gain further traction. Also, 5G technology enables devices to access insane download speeds enabling brands to create unique 3D experiences on the go. But the metaverse is not a new idea; the term has been coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in the 1990s. In fact, VR headsets have been around for a while and online worlds too. Since 2014, the online platform “VRChat” has been offering an online world where people come together and chat.