What is the Metaverse

The Metaverse is the Internet in 3D.

It’s remarkably simple and I would recommend it as an answer to colleagues, friends and grannies.

For those of a more technical or argumentative nature, let me explain a bit more.

The internet is the “network of networks” which launched in or around 1969 as a method of communication that could withstand nuclear Armageddon. It was born out of a joint partnership between US academia and the US military. The World Wide Web was built on top of the Internet in the early ’90s and is different to the Internet, but often confused.

That is why it is important to differentiate between the two when saying: “The Metaverse is the Internet in 3D”. I am not talking about 3D websites as being the Metaverse. Nor about social media sites being the Metaverse. Facebook/Meta is doomed in this regard because it is breaking Marshall McLuhan’s maxim of ‘the message matching the medium’. Facebook defined the medium of social media, but the Metaverse is a different space entirely.

Metaverses are 3D online spaces which people inhabit through avatars. These spaces should be real-time — like life — not bulletin boards for sharing post updates, like Facebook. As much as possible Metaverses should be spaces for imagination, play, socialising, learning. While these adjectives sound childlike, they are what every happy adult should be doing also.

So back to our definition. The Internet in 3D is a combination of the visual capabilities of the video games industry, with the communications strengths of the internet itself. The worldwide web was 2D because bandwidth and computing power was the best way to go. But as both speed and power increase, so creativity and 3D quality can be accelerated. Which is where we are left today — with powerful 4G, 5G and soon 6G networks that enable real-time 3D visuals that feel super realistic.

When the proto-Metaverse Second Life was in its heyday, detractors would say: “I am busy enough in my first life to spend time in a second one”. Then social media came along and proved that, for many people, the opposite was true. As Fortnite, Second Life and others rapidly gain market traction, we should be mindful of the impact of the Internet itself, and all the successful communications products that were built upon it, because they will all be built again, but this time in 3D.

Guy runs Charisma Entertainment, powering that avatars that will keep people engaged with Metaverses.