In the last few years, the term metaverse became a buzzword. Recently, it’s been just something from science fiction, a technology that seemed pretty far from our reality. But tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook already started taking the first steps to create the metaverse. They plan to revolutionize the Internet and create a virtual space that unites all platforms. And if it happens, the market will change along with the way we buy things, so all online businesses will need to adapt to the new format. But how? Don’t worry, we’re here for you. In this article, we’ll tell you what metaverse is, which companies try to develop it, and how your business can benefit from this technology.

What is Metaverse?

The term ‘metaverse’ comes from the sci-fi novel ‘Snow Crash’, written by Neal Stephenson. Stephenson envisions the metaverse as the next stage of the Internet’s evolution. It should be a single virtual world where people can ‘exist’ in the form of avatars and do all the things they do in the physical world — hang out with friends, work, study, buy stuff, go to parties, etc. You could’ve seen similar worlds in the movies like The Matrix, or Ready Player One.

Avatars interacting in OASIS, a metaverse virtual reality game from Ready Player One

The concept supposes that people need to use VR and AR technologies to connect to such a digital world. You might think that this is already a thing since there are hundreds of games that allow users to enter their worlds with the help of virtual reality headsets. Plus, people can shop online, communicate on social media platforms, and work or study remotely thanks to services like Zoom.

Those are bricks that can help people build a metaverse, but they’re pretty far from its concept. While the Internet only allows users to view content, the Metaverse is supposed to let users actually be in the content. The users should be able to feel their presence in the meta world, and the presence of others.

Basically, the metaverse is a bunch of interconnected virtual spaces: imagine if you could access the Internet through virtual reality and seamlessly move from TikTok to Genshin Impact, and then go to a Zoom meeting with your colleagues. Also, venture investor Matthew Ball thinks that users of the metaverse should be able to move their digital belongings from one virtual place to another.

‘Your Counter-Strike gun skin, for example, could also be used to decorate a gun in Fortnite,’ — says Ball.

With the current level of the world’s technologies — both hardware and software — it could be very difficult to create such a gigantic virtual reality where many different digital worlds would coexist seamlessly. For now, Metaverse is more like an idea that just started to evolve. So, if this thing doesn’t exist yet, why do we even discuss it? Actually, the situation with the Metaverse is very similar to what it was with the Internet in the 70s — nobody knew what it would be in the future, and most people didn’t trust the technology. People that invested in the technology at its early stages now have the world at their feet. Let’s see which companies already try to grab their piece of the metaverse market.

Companies that plan to build their Metaverse

 

Facebook

Although the term metaverse is not new, people started talking about it a lot more since Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s name to Meta. The company already had a set of connected social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp — but they decided to go further. Now their goal is to bring the Metaverse to life, and here’s what they’re building for it:

✔️ Horizon Worlds — it’s one of the main virtual reality projects of Meta, a social platform that will allow users to interact with each other, consume and create content. One of Horizon’s features is tracking eye, face, and body movements: with the help of it, the user avatars can demonstrate mimics and move more naturally.

✔️ Infinite Office — it’s a virtual office for remote work that can be accessed via Oculus Quest 2, a headset developed by Facebook. The platform allows users to switch between full immersion in the virtual world and augmented reality.

 

Facebook, or Meta, is now on the list of first metaverse companies

As Zuckerberg states, the metaverse is a project that goes beyond one company, it will be created by people around the world, and open to everyone.

Microsoft

Microsoft plans to build its metaverse too, the company started with Mesh, an augmented reality platform where users will be able to collaborate using 3D avatars. Physically, users can be in different places, but with the help of Mesh, they will feel like they’re together in one place. The avatars are made by AltspaceVR, a social media platform that Microsoft owns since 2017. Further, the company plans to move from avatars to holograms, and make it possible for users to holoport to the metaverse virtual reality.

Microsoft hopes that Mesh will be popular among designers, engineers, developers, and other specialists that need to work together in one place but don’t have such an opportunity due to the pandemic.

What is Metaverse: Microsoft vision

 

Epic Games

Epic Games is another company that’s enthusiastic about the metaverse. Their online game Fortnite already has a lot in common with metaverse. At the start it was just a multiplayer shooter, now it’s a whole virtual space where people can communicate, buy stuff, and even visit concerts.

In April 2020, Travis Scott held a concert in Fortnite, and more than 12 million users watched it online. Ariana Grande did the same thing did in 2021 — of course, it wasn’t real-life Ariana, but her avatar performing in the virtual space. Before that, in 2019, Fortnite had a collaboration with Disney: they held an event, where they showed a piece of a new Star Wars movie.

 

So far, what Fortnite does is the closest to the metaverse concept from sci-fi. The game actually became a place where different universes cross, and different brands can partner with the platform.

‘Metaverse is a million-dollar opportunity,’ — Epic Games Inc. CEO Tim Sweeney.

Baidu

The USA is not the only country that plans to build its metaverse. In December 2021, the Chinese company Baidu launched its virtual world XiRang. They also introduced XiLing, a platform for creating digital avatars with the help of AI technologies.

Virtual reality headsets are not required for entering the XiRang world — users can access it from their smartphones or PCs. If they want to have a VR experience, they need to use Pico headsets. Baidu wants to make the platform open-source so that third-party developers can implement their own worlds and ways of entertainment.

 

Biadu shows their vision of what is metaverse with the XiRang application

 

Ways you can adapt your business to the metaverse

As you can see, the metaverse provides a lot of opportunities for business. Although it doesn’t exist yet, you can already start adapting your business to the future reality — add AR or VR features to your app, and gamify some processes. Let’s see how different industries can benefit from the metaverse:

E-commerce

The first thing that comes to mind is advertising. Your company can place posters and videos and even digital copies of products in the metaverse. Moreover, it’s possible to create NFT versions of products and sell them to users. For example, someone can buy an outfit from your shop and get an NFT of that outfit in the metaverse to dress up their avatar. Or they can buy an outfit only for the avatar — it’s up to you how to sell your products.

 

Fortnite x Nike collaboration

 

Social Media

One of the most promising features of social media platforms is avatarization. You can allow users to create their own 3D avatars to help them interact with each other without using their cameras. Sometimes people don’t want to show their faces when communicating via video chats, so this way you’ll give them an opportunity to avoid that.

Another cool thing that you can do is arrange extended reality streams. This is what TikTok and The Weeknd did in August 2020 by launching an interactive XR broadcast. The Weeknd experience gained more than 2 million total views.

 

The Weeknd Experience showed us what are the metaverse opportunities for artists

 

Entertainment

Just like what Disney did in Fortnite, it’s possible to arrange many different events in the metaverse. The pandemic changes the way we visit places, and it’s still difficult to hold big events for hundreds of people. With VR events, people can be sure that they won’t get infected with Covid-19.

It’s also an opportunity to increase the audience for many event organizers — mobility-impaired people will be able to visit museums, shows, and exhibitions, go to movie premieres, and immerse in that experience fully.

Education

Metaverse companies will change the way we study, too. Most schools and colleges already have online classes, but it’s not enough. Creating a metaverse virtual reality where students could practice together and really engage in the studying process would improve their experience a lot. If you have an educational app, it’s a good idea to gamify some processes to make them more interactive.  

Virtual X, a metaverse platform for education, business, commerce, sports and entertainment

 

Medicine

VR, AR, and AI can be used for surgical training — it’s possible to create a simulation of surgery to help medical students learn how to perform surgeries. These technologies also help doctors get a 3D view of a patient’s body to plan and perform operations better.

As for mental health, you can create a virtual space for online therapy — it will give disabled people access to therapy and life-life experiences.

Will the Metaverse turn into reality?

The Metaverse is a complex concept, and to develop such a technology, the world needs a new development model — an open-source platform where different worlds can be interconnected. So far, this model doesn’t exist. The digital worlds on the Internet are independent and located on different servers.

But the good news is that we already have a lot of tools to start building this virtual world — VR, AR, XR, MR, AI, and other fancy abbreviations. Another thing that can help to build the Metaverse is blockchain. Technologists believe that metaverse needs to be decentralized and taking NFTs and cryptocurrencies into account, blockchain seems to be a perfect solution.

At Brivian, we think metaverse is a promising technology, and you can already start implementing its features into your business. We suggest that avatarization will be one of the biggest trends in just a few years, so it’s one of our main directions in the metaverse field. Our developers can also build VR/AR features, implement AI technologies, and help you build a decentralized app based on a blockchain. It’s the best time for you to decide what is metaverse and how it will look in the future.

If you’re interested in adapting your business to the metaverse format or becoming one of the metaverse companies, we can help you with that. Fill in the form below and we will contact you in 24 hours.

 

❗️ Other articles on our blog on related topics:

✔️ Metaverse Enterprise Solution: How Business Can Use Meta Technologies

✔️ Top Metaverse Companies: Which Companies Will Make Our Universe Meta?