Meta - What is Meta?

Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among other products and services.

What is metaverse?

The metaverse is a vision of what many in the computer industry believe is the next iteration of the internet: a single, shared, immersive, persistent, 3D virtual space where humans experience life in ways they could not in the physical world.

Some of the technologies that provide access to this virtual world, such as virtual reality (VR) headsets and augmented reality (AR) glasses, are evolving quickly; other critical components of the metaverse, such as adequate bandwidth or interoperability standards, are probably years off or might never materialize.

Virtual world:

Imagine a virtual world where billions of people live, work, shop, learn and interact with each other -- all from the comfort of their couches in the physical world.

In this world, the computer screens we use today to connect to a worldwide web of information have become portals to a 3D virtual realm that's palpable -- like real life, only bigger and better. Digital facsimiles of ourselves, or avatars, move freely from one experience to another, taking our identities and our money with us.

Two technologies considered important to the development and growth of the metaverse are virtual reality and augmented reality:

Virtual reality: it is a simulated 3D environment that enables users to interact with a virtual surrounding in a way that approximates reality as perceived through our senses. It is now accessible by VR devices.

Augmented reality: it is less immersive than VR. It adds digital overlays on top of the real world via a lens of some type. Users can still interact with their real-world environment. The game Pokémon Go is an early example of AR. 

Importance to Metaverse:

The Metaverse is not only an emerging new technology that's part of today's hype cycle.

Businesses can find opportunities for virtual events.

Doubtless, when most people hear the term “metaverse,” they probably envision some sort of futuristic digital world where a person can be anyone or anything they want. That, of course, is thanks in part to science fiction — particularly the likes of shows like Battlestar Galactica’s Caprica prequel and movies or movies like Ready Player One — but the metaverse, as a concept, is so much more than that.