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Beyond its appearance in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, the “metaverse” was a largely obscure term.
Most people aware of the metaverse pre-2021 had either participated in virtual worlds like Second Life or played extended-reality online games like Roblox, Minecraft, or Fortnite.
But then Facebook changed its name to “Meta” in late 2021, reflecting owner Mark Zuckerberg’s dream to “build the Metaverse.”
Describing the metaverse as “a shared virtual world where [anyone] can socialize, work, play, and create,” Zuckerberg predicted it'd be the next iteration of the Internet, and committed Facebook’s (now Meta) future to create it.
With one of the world’s biggest tech giants betting the farm on the metaverse, interest in the concept has skyrocketed. More importantly, businesses are looking for opportunities to tap into the metaverse and harness this technology for bigger profits.