The phrases ‘Metaverse’ and ‘virtual reality’ are often used alongside one another, causing confusion as to what they genuinely mean. It is important to remember they are not interchangeable terms as they represent two distinctly different aspects of the emerging virtual world.
The ‘Metaverse’ is an online collaborative virtual environment that consists of a “network of interconnected worlds” as described by Forbes Councils Member Fabio Moili. Each world is managed independently and allows the sharing of content and applications with users from all across the real world to remotely connect and collaborate on a realistic scale like no other form of remote meeting. Whilst at the moment nothing can fully replace a face-to-face interaction, the ‘Metaverse’ offers a promising solution to recreate the lacking authenticity that often plagues remote meetings.
‘Virtual reality’ on the other hand is simply just a way of accessing one of these virtual worlds. With its ability to fully immerse the user into a virtual environment it is the perfect way to access the ‘Metaverse’ in order to experience it to it’s full potential. For more information on ‘Virtual reality’ consider reading our “Virtual Reality vs Augmented Reality” article.
Hi Harry,
That makes it clear. Can you also explain how Web3 relates to the Metaverse?
‘Web3’ is the third generation of the internet and like virtual reality it is easy to confuse with the term ‘Metaverse’. It is important to note that whilst the ‘Metaverse’ and ‘Web3’ are connected they are noticeably different.
‘Web3’ according to Forbes’ Mark Minevich is “built on the philosophy that the internet should be a decentralised network of computers” as opposed to a centralised system. The logic behind this is there would be no single point of failure and no controlling authority gatekeeping information. To put it bluntly the goal of ‘Web3’ is to take the power of control out of corporations and make the internet essentially public property. This is opposed to the highly centralised ‘Web2’ that is commonly used today with a handful of ‘tech behemoths’ controlling the mainstream flow of information.
On the other hand, the ‘Metaverse’ is a virtual based environment where users can interact with one another. Essentially it is an extension of the internet where the focal point is the authenticity of an immersive and interactive collaboration with users from all across the world.
The connection that exits between these two technologies is that they complement one another extremely well. Given that the ‘Metaverse’ is comprised of several separate interconnected worlds, it fits hand in hand with the decentralisation that ‘Web3’ is based upon and provides a genuine application.