Yes, my dear crypto-readers, it’s true. The metaverse is not a new concept. It has been around for about thirty years. Contrary to what most of you guys might think, transporting the real world onto a digital universe is not a new concept. Since the early days of the internet, the concept has been around and a few great projects have been developed since as early as 2000 and they are still alive and kicking.
The metaverse concept
The term metaverse was first used in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel called Snow Crash. In the novel, humans lived as avatars, in a 3D virtual world where they interacted with software agents and other humans. The term was used by Stephenson to describe a virtual reality-based world that would be the successor to the internet. Since then, the concept has been widely improved and later applied in the gaming industry.
It all started with the popular game . Sims was supposed to be a representation of the real world where users would control avatars in a 3D environment and perform everyday tasks in order to advance in the game. Users would interact with an IA instead of with other players and it still lacked a system that would allow players to interact with each other and monetize their time spent in the game, but it had almost all the ingredients to become a metaverse. Of course, this was still a cumbersome vision to what was supposed to become the metaverse, but I guess we could say it was the start.
The Second Life Revolution
After a while, a platform that was looking to fill this gap emerged to introduce the metaverse revolution – Second Life. Second life was first launched in 2003 offering its users a place where they could be who they wanted to be. It offered a chance for users to escape reality to a pre-designed digital world where they could create virtual representations of themselves, called avatars to explore the world and socialize with other users. The Second Life metaverse allowed its users to do their everyday bidding as in the real world. They were allowed to shop, generate content, and trade virtual property as well as services with one another. Linden Labs, the creator of the platform even designed its own token called Linden dollar to fuel the virtual world economy thus enabling users to monetize their presence in the game by being able to exchange Linden dollars for real dollars.
Development and Alternatives to Second Life
Second Life was pretty hyped back in 2003, seeing its user’s base grow exponentially in its first years. According to qrcaviews.org, the number of Second Life users went above one million in 2006, but because of the introduction of social networks such as Facebook and due to the lack of development throughout the years its user base practically stayed the same. In 2017, following the VR hype, Linden Labs tried to innovate by introducing a new platform called Sansar which was developed to leapfrog the old platform model onto a completely immersive Virtual reality world, but plans did not go that well and Linden Labs ended up backing off and abandoning the idea.
Second Life huge success caught the interest of other projects who tried to compete and present an alternative as is the case of The Open Source Metaverse Project, while others were trying to establish different niches in the ecosystem as is the case of which allowed users to create and play games developed by other users.
Currently, the crypto industry unearthed the term and once again a new metaverse revolution is set to be underway.
The unforeseen importance of the metaverse
The immense potential this new concept unveiled and the real implications left by the notion brought by “Snow Crash” led to a sudden interest in this technology and the way how it could be used for educational and business purposes. A study done by Brian E. Mennecke at the Iowa State University in 2008 focused on the wide uses for the metaverse and its potential to become the internet successor stressed the importance that this technology could play in the future.
Currently, Marc Zuckerberg's Facebook announced his plans to have the popular social network rebranded to Metaverse and it seems that the next big revolution in the webspace is already here.
What do you think about the potential for the Metaverse to change our everyday lives? Let us know in the comments below!
