Call me crazy, but I’ve been moderately involved with the virtual world of Second Life (which is most assuredly not a game, by the way) since late 2006. While many gave it a try in its heyday during the mid-aughts, a good number of people weren’t sure what to do without a specific goal or thought it was too complex to learn. SL has had its ups and downs, and has even seen some growth since the advent of the pandemic. Personally, I’ve enjoyed the creative freedom and the social connections its provided me over the years.
The concept of (and the term) “the metaverse” was applied to Second Life long before Facebook and general tech appropriated it. It’s interesting to me to see how other entities are taking the idea of a virtual environment and expanding the definition to include AR, VR and mixed reality.
- Decentraland’s Metaverse Festival is a First-of-Its-Kind Event [TrendHunter] “Decentraland is exploring festivals of the future with the overall theme of Evolution and a main stage design that will change every day from Water to Earth to Space and finally, Metaverse. Naturally, the Metaverse Festival will have its own merch shop with a twist, thanks to NFT wearables.”
- How to Govern the Metaverse [Wired] “Researchers and designers of virtual worlds are increasingly setting their sights on more proactive methods of virtual governance that not only deal with acts like virtual groping once they occur, but discourage such acts in the first place while encouraging more positive behaviors too.”
- Why the ‘Metaverse’ represents a revolution in advertising [Ad Age] “Isabel Perry, director of technology at Byte (part of Dept) noted, “Metaverses are jam-packed with innovative marketing potential, (ranging) from live shopping to virtual stores, fashion shows, product launches, content production, live flagship events, enhanced social, pimping-up of Zoom calls and NFTs paving the way for real economies. The possibilities that this hybrid digital/physical world offers are near-endless. It’s time for forward-thinking brands to get involved.””
- The metaverse: A parallel universe online [The Irish Times] “Yet after the social isolation foisted on much of the world’s population by the pandemic, the idea of escaping into a fully digital space no longer seems as outlandish. If workers took to Zoom so easily, why not congregate in a digital office?”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- What is a metaverse (Sparkes, M. (2021). What is a metaverse. New Scientist, 251(3348), 18.)
- New York Comicon Goes Metaverse (MACDONALD, H. (2020). New York Comic Con Goes Metaverse. Publishers Weekly, 267(37), 55–61.)
- What will the Internet look like in the next 10 years: The metaverse concept (What will the Internet look like in the next 10 years: The metaverse concept. (2021, September 30). Hindustan Times.)
