The next Internet, or Facebook’s plan to create a metaverse. This one can change our lives

The term metaverse first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s work Snow Crash, in which the author imagined it as a creation, as a “successor to the Internet”. Now, in turn, a well-known company that has Facebook, Messenger or Instagram, i.e. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, has an appetite for turning it into reality.

Facebook’s metaverse is meant to be the next step in connecting people in the digital world

The easiest way to compare Metaverse is to the virtual world, but not the kind of creations present in computer games. It is something completely new and more advanced, meant to bring people even closer to each other, despite their distances. This peculiar alternative world that we would move to as avatars, in Facebook’s reasoning comes down to “a set of virtual spaces in which you can create and discover with other people who are not in the same physical space as you”. Unfortunately, we do not know how something like this is to be achieved.

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Take it easy though. You do not ignite the imagination, because vice president of Facebook Reality Labs, Andrew Bosworth, and vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, agree on one thing – we will wait several years for the metaverse. In their words, “metaverse is not a single product that one company can create by itself… and won’t be built overnight. It could be fully realized in the next 10-15 years. “

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Therefore, the company is just taking steps towards creating a metaverse, which is equivalent to the announced two-year investment of $ 50 million. This is what the XR Programs and Research Fund will allocate to external programs and research that will help in this endeavor. Facebook will join forces on this project with experts from academia, industry and government to assess the opportunities and approach the project wisely.