Facebook announced this week a major investment in the “metaverse,” the next generation of the Internet, just as the mobile Internet was the last great leap for the Internet. The metaverse is a platform that allows people to interact in 3D using virtual reality and augmented reality.
What does this have to do with car audio, you say? Not much at the outset, but eventually, your store, and many stores may have a virtual presence in the metaverse.
While there are already areas of the Internet that create virtual communities, the metaverse would let users hop from one virtual area to another, using the same avatar. Users could shop at virtual stores, attend meetings at a virtual office, go to a virtual concert and more. At a virtual retail store, avatars of shoppers might interact with a salesman’s avatar in 3D and then pay via bitcoin.
Facebook announced Monday it plans to hire 10,000 high tech workers in Europe over the next five years to build the metaverse. Microsoft, Nvida, Roblox and Epic are creating software for the metaverse, or for their own virtual worlds within it, said The Wall Street Journal.
Facebook wrote in a blog post Sunday, “Facebook is at the start of a journey to help build the next computing platform. Working with others, we’re developing what is often referred to as the metaverse — a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like virtual and augmented reality. At its heart is the idea that by creating a greater sense of ‘virtual presence,’ interacting online can become much closer to the experience of interacting in person.”
Facebook added that no one company will own and operate the metaverse. “Like the Internet, its key feature will be its openness and interoperability.”
See Facebook, The Wall Street Journal, The Verge, The New York Times (subscription may be required for some sites)
