Given enough time, technology imagined in science fiction will eventually become science fact. We've witnessed it time and time again. These phenomena are a mix of incredible visionaries and storytellers literally imagining the future, but also of creators and technologists being inspired by the science-fiction entertainment of their youth.

Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon mentions a light-propelled spacecraft nearly four decades before flight was achieved and just shy of a century before the first spacecraft left our atmosphere. In 2010, Japan's IKAROS spacecraft was the first to successfully demonstrate a propulsion method called solar sails that use radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors to propel the spacecraft.

Throughout the early 1900s, Edward Stratemeyer dazzled young readers with the tales of Tom Swift—a teenage inventor who routinely had to stave off evildoers from stealing his inventions. One such story published in 1911 was Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, which featured a stun-gun-like invention Swift wielded throughout the story. When former NASA engineer Jack Cover invented the first stun gun in 1970, he aptly named it TSER after the “Tom Swift Electric Rifle.” The A was later added to help the invention roll off the tongue. After all, “taser” does sound better than “tser.”

Following the 1964 World's Fair, Isaac Asimov wrote an article for The New York Times predicting what inventions would be on display in 50 years. One of his prescient takes was the idea of “robot-brain cars,” which would be capable of self-driving. Today, Tesla is worth nearly a trillion dollars by market cap, largely building its brand and cult following with its innovations in self-driving car technology.

In 2002, the precrime unit imagined in the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Minority Report showed us a future when predictive analytics might allow our police force to stop crimes before they happened. Today, Palantir's Gotham software is an AI-powered operating system for making sense of large swaths of data, helping (mostly) government agencies make better decisions. Although Palantir was named from a different story, namely, the “seeing stone” in The Lord of the Rings, Palantir is far and above the leader in predictive analytics and the only company we'd currently bet on to bring the idea of a precrime unit to life.

And then there's Star Trek, a show featuring countless technologies that they envisioned ahead of their time, giving brainiacs and science-fiction nerds enough mental fodder to invent for decades, possibly centuries, to come. There's the Replicator, which could materialize almost any object out of thin air. Today, 3D printers can create everything from jewelry to food to houses. The PADD, or Personal Access Display Device, featured in the 1980s iteration of Star Trek utilized a smooth, touch-screen interface that bears a strong resemblance to the tablet computers of today. There's Star Trek's medical tricorder, which inspired a $10 million USD competition called the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE to push this Star Trek device into existence. We cannot forget about the Communicator, which not only showcased a mobile communication device but also looked like the flip phones we eventually would all carry around in our pockets for a period of time. While the cell phone's inventor, Martin Cooper, publicly credits Dick Tracy's wrist radio as the inspiration, it's widely shared that it was actually Captain James T. Kirk's use of the Communicator that inspired the Motorola cell phone unit to create the device.

What most of these science-fiction predictions all had in common was that the futuristic technology was a byline in the story. These visionary devices enabled the characters to act in uncanny ways, but the characters didn't gawk at how impressive the technology was. No different than how we take smartphones and Amazon's overnight delivery for granted, the devices were an afterthought, an assumption, for the characters. Ultimately, the devices didn't change the characters. They still acted in familiar human ways. However, the technology always changed the environment in which these characters operated.

That brings us to the Metaverse.

From Snow Crash to Meta

Like the aforementioned technologies, the Metaverse also traces its roots back to a novelist. Neal Stephenson, in his book Snow Crash, envisions a number of technologies ahead of their time including mobile computing, virtual reality, wireless Internet, digital currency, smartphones, and augmented-reality headsets. But it's the book's setting, the Metaverse, that takes the cake as his most prescient vision.

The Metaverse in Snow Crash offers society an escape from a dystopian world overrun by corporate mafias and extreme class inequalities. Users access the Metaverse through personal virtual reality goggles or public ports and present themselves as avatars. Class systems manifest around avatars, where public port users have noticeably lower-quality avatars (which is oddly familiar to the current situation with profile-picture NFTs—namely, Bored Apes and CryptoPunks, which designate a higher digital class).

Stephenson's Metaverse is a single hundred-meter-wide road called the Street, which extends for 65,536 km around the circumference of a featureless, perfectly spherical planet. Users can spend their encrypted electronic currency at shops, amusement parks, offices, and a variety of other virtual businesses. They can also purchase virtual estates from the real estate overlord, Global Multimedia Protocol Group.

The book's main character, Hiro Protagonist, leads a drab physical existence in a shipping container, but in the Metaverse, he owns high-end real estate that he purchased before the Metaverse became popular. However, Hiro doesn't concern himself with enjoying the Metaverse's economies. Rather, the plot revolves around his mission to stop a computer virus called Snow Crash that causes Metaverse users to suffer real-world brain damage.

Aside from the numerous examples of Neal Stephenson being a sort of technology Nostradamus, his work on Snow Crash can count two objective claims to fame. One, he coined the term Metaverse. Two, he popularized the Hindu concept of “avatar” for describing digital representation. But in addition to the objective wins, it's the subjective impact of his novel that continues to influence people today.

The designer of Google Earth, Avi Bar-Zeev, stated that Stephenson's ideas in Snow Crash largely inspired him to create Google's mapping technology. Two decades after his book was published, Neal Stephenson became the chief futurist at Magic Leap, one of the leading companies creating augmented reality headsets. But perhaps his largest influence will be on Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook.

For starters, Meta takes its name from the term that Stephenson created. But the influence runs much deeper. One former Facebook data scientist, Dean Eckles, wrote on his blog in 2014 that “at least for a time, product managers at Facebook were required to read Snow Crash as part of their internal training.” Of course, 2014 was also the year that Facebook purchased Oculus and its proprietary virtual reality headset technology. So it's clear that “the Zuck” was preparing his employees for this company-wide shift to the Metaverse for quite some time.

Oh, and by the way, they aren't calling them employees anymore. Now, they're called Metamates.

Meta is going headfirst into this Metaverse vision. They've changed their internal values from past sayings like “Be bold” and “Focus on impact” to Metaverse-minded values like “Live in the future,” “Build awesome things,” and “Focus on long-term impact.” Additionally, they've announced plans to hire 10,000 high-skilled workers in the EU over the next five years to help build this successor to the Internet. Lastly, in 2021 they committed more than $10B USD to their Metaverse division, Facebook Reality Labs, which they expect to continue investing $10B USD into, at the minimum, for the next several years.

But what exactly is Meta's vision for building the Metaverse?

At the core of Meta's plans are the Oculus VR headsets. While Meta shares the common vision that accessing the Metaverse won't rely on VR headsets, it's clearly a major part of their plans to own the hardware on which the Metaverse is largely experienced. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon mentioned in November 2021 that Meta had already sold 10 million Oculus Quest 2 headsets. Since the devices run on Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 chipset, it's a figure that we believe to be true.

Still, the Oculus hardware is just one part of their plan. The real Metaverse-building will take place on Horizon Worlds. This is their social VR experience that allows users to explore public Worlds created by the community, in addition to offering tools for anyone to build their own Worlds and deploy their experiences to the public. Since Horizon Worlds was unveiled to all Quest users in the United States and Canada back in December 2021, the company reports that its monthly user base has grown by a factor of 10x to 300,000 people experiencing and building on the Horizon Worlds platform.

The website XR Today outlines the key functionalities when users enter Build Mode on Horizon Worlds.

• Code blocks: Code blocks are a collection of ready-to-use code snippets and scripts that allow you to define automated events in VR. For example, users can trigger an event to take place when they first enter a VR world.
• Gizmos: Gizmos are prebuilt object and avatar properties that users can associate with the different elements of a VR world. Users have a Spawn Point gizmo to control where they first land or “spawn,” a Text gizmo to superimpose text on VR objects, a Portal gizmo to define spots where they can teleport, and much more.
• Sounds: Meta Horizon Worlds includes three types of prebuilt sound effects—event-specific effects, background sounds, and music. Creators can define specific properties to customize the sound experience such as the pitch and the distance at which a sound will be heard.
• VR physics: Physics effects in Meta Horizon Worlds allow users to create objects that behave like real-world items. These features let you define gravity, object density, bounciness, friction, the ability to grab objects, and other such naturalized interactions. You can also select materials with physics properties like hardwood, ice, and others.
• Animation effects: Using the tools in Meta Horizon Worlds, you can make an object move around and record the movement as a custom animation. The animation effects can be slowed down, accelerated, and controlled in other ways.

Although there are hundreds of third-party VR apps on the Oculus platform, Meta wants people to build the Metaverse through their Horizon Worlds platform. They want people to experience live events like concerts and conferences on Horizon Venues. And they want people to collaborate professionally in dedicated workspaces on Horizon Workrooms.

Ultimately, Meta's vision is to create the next great communication tool. They're building the Spatial Internet—a successor to today's digital experiences where we are fully immersed in our entertainment, digitally present with our work teams, and “phygitally” next to the people we spend time with online.

The idea that the Metaverse will take over the current iteration of the Internet is a belief shared by many. This bold vision is gaining steam because sales of mobile phones have plateaued and total addressable market (TAM) has been reached. New iPhone releases have become predictable. That's why Apple has been working on an XR device for years. We haven't had a revolutionary app come out in a while because app innovation is dead. That's why creators are now opting to build NFT-based projects, blockchain apps, and DAOs (more on that later in the “Changes to Digital Identity” section). Lastly, our social communication channels are widely believed to be corrupted. That's why Facebook is now Meta and focusing on the Metaverse as the new social communication tool.

We are ready for the next big consumer tech product as devices that fit in your palm aren't providing that novel experience anymore. However, these XR devices that sit on your face and give you access to this promising place called the Metaverse are offering up something completely new.

Before we get into describing all of the nuances that the Metaverse may offer, we would like to leave you with one prefacing statement from Neal Stephenson, whose ideation of this place called the Metaverse sparked the hype for all of this.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Stephenson summed up his prescient storytelling that is now seen as tech gospel as “just me making shit up.” Innovation comes from human tenacity aiming to turn dreams into realities. Science-fiction writing, on the other hand, isn't limited by rules or engineering boundaries. It is a forbearer for the future of what humans can only dream of until technology catches up.

We want to remind you that the Metaverse is a fictional concept written in a book from 1992. Before the Internet bubble was even a fear in the hearts of Silicon Valley. Before consumer-grade virtual reality headsets were anywhere in sight. Before the movie Avatar showed us just how realistic computer graphics could be. Even before social media and texting dominated our attention.

Even though the Metaverse is a fictional place imagined long before our current consumer tech obsessions, the idea has manifested into real progress. The term Metaverse owns real estate in the heads of every single technologist, future-thinker, and CNBC-watcher who wants to understand how to capitalize on the next phase of the Internet.

While the Metaverse is far from a finished destination, there are thousands of people building it every second of every day. Regardless of how we label the creation of the Metaverse or Spatial Internet, there are innovations happening that we simply cannot call Internet companies because they are so different from anything we're used to seeing. From scarce digital assets to decentralized autonomous organizations to Web3 identities, these are all tech concepts that don't fit into a normal Internet bucket.

Meta's vision of the Metaverse is significant and not to be ignored. But as we address throughout this chapter, the answer to the question of “what is the Metaverse” is a fiction that we all are writing as we go along.

Defining the Metaverse

The Metaverse is the buzzword of 2022 in the same way that NFT was the buzzword of 2021. Facebook changed its entire brand to Meta and is defining the Metaverse as a VR world with social and professional experiences accessed through Oculus headsets. Microsoft followed suit with a more professional-focused vision of the Metaverse, one that starts with the ability to change your video feed to an animated avatar of yourself in Microsoft Teams. And on the off-chance that you're deep into NFTs, then you've probably invested in some NFT projects that promise a Metaverse gaming experience in the future.

Clearly, something is happening “in the Metaverse,” and many people have no idea what it is or what it is supposed to be. The definitions seem all over the place. The use cases are vague. And who in the world wants to live life through a VR headset?

Let me clear the air and first tell you what the Metaverse is not.

The Metaverse is not a single technology. It's not just a place we'll visit in VR. It's not something that can be created and claimed by the next Bezos or Gates.

In fact, the Metaverse is about as boundless and unownable as the Internet, if not more so. Sure, there are entities that have contributed more to the Internet than others. Of course, there are innovations that steered the course of the Internet and influenced the experience of the Web. But we didn't wake up one day with the Internet we see now. It was an ever-evolving thing.

In that sense, the Metaverse is not a destination. The Metaverse is a movement—a movement toward the digital-first livelihood we've slowly been adopting year over year, app by app. The Metaverse becomes more real every time we replace a physical habit with a digital equivalent. We, the digital citizens of the Internet, are manifesting the Metaverse by trading time in meatspace (the physical world) for time online.

I'm particularly drawn to how Shaan Puri described the Metaverse on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP/status/1454151237650112512). Puri said that “the Metaverse is the moment in time where our digital life is worth more to us than our physical life.” Puri pointed out that for the past 20 years our work, social life, recreation, sense of identity, and practically every aspect of our lives has become increasingly digital. He points out that people are trading in their Rolex watches and skinny jeans for Bored Apes and Fortnite skins. More kids are playing Fortnite than both football and basketball combined. In another 10–20 years, we will be existing more in the Metaverse than the physical world. According to Puri, “Our attention has been sucked from physical to digital. And where attention goes, energy flows.”

While Shaan's description is a little conceptual for my taste, he is absolutely right that the Metaverse is a metaphorical digital ecosystem that grows and becomes more real every day. Furthermore, it becomes more important to us with every single technology that makes digital life more appealing than its physical counterpart.

There are many digital behaviors that have become nearly ubiquitous in their usage. We find love through apps like Tinder. We file our taxes online with TurboTax. We follow the opinions of complete strangers when choosing our next meal on Yelp. We ask for answers to all of our questions on Quora and blogs. We trust our most precious pictorial memories to be secured by digital giants.

The Internet's foundation is the relationship between creator and community. At every turn, this relationship is what drives its growth. It dictates how, where, and on what we choose to spend our time. The idea of the Metaverse extends beyond this simple view of the Internet to the belief that digital life will continue to outpace physical life.

So how does one prepare for the Metaverse?

Ultimately, being ready for the Metaverse comes down to being ready for the next major changes to the Web. These changes iterate on where we are today but will eventually be the de facto experience in the future.

The Metaverse Represents the Next Digital Shifts

By now, I hope I've made it abundantly clear that we are already living in a fragmented and basic version of the Metaverse. Think of it as a continuum, where on one end is an encapsulation of life without the Internet and on the other end is the Metaverse. These arrows stretch to infinity in both directions. As a society, we're pushing the collective needle toward the Metaverse side—one where we're more connected and reliant on digital escapes, digital solutions, and digital communities.

The invention of Google, which brought us a better way of parsing through digitized information, pushed the needle toward the Metaverse. The invention of Facebook, which invited us all to digitize our identities, pushed the needle toward the Metaverse. By contrast, the rising popularity of digital detoxes, programs that ask us to put down the tech and find better lifestyle practices, pulls the needle away from the Metaverse. On the other hand, apps like Calm, which digitize the experience of meditating and coping with our tech-stressed lives, in a subtle way pushes us more toward the Metaverse.

See what I'm getting at? The Metaverse is a culmination of many applications of technology. There is no one single thing that makes the Metaverse the Metaverse. It's a build-up of technology that makes digital life more appealing, more convenient, more effective, or better in some way.

Therefore, I'd like to outline three major changes happening to the Internet that will advance us many steps on the continuum toward the Metaverse.

• Identity: A change to how we're identified on the Internet and thus how we experience the Web
• Value: A change to how we perceive the value of digital assets
• Immersion: A change to how we are immersed in Internet experiences from community to entertainment to services

These tectonic shifts have been happening for some time but are finally finding some traction in the popular discourse. It's not to say you are behind the times if you haven't already been thinking about them. In fact, you're right on time, maybe even a little ahead by picking up this book.

Understanding these three major shifts, whether as a business owner, a creator, or a consumer, puts you in a position of power, one where you may be able to reap the rewards of these changes before others do.

Preparing for the Metaverse

We're moving toward a more decentralized Internet, one where cookies and tracking pixels are made obsolete by a better form of digital identity management. Big changes are happening to the Web, and you need to be prepared.

The newest buzzword to capture the imaginations of creators and businesses is the concept of “the Metaverse.” And everyone seems to be scrambling to define it, strategize for it, and create their own version of the Metaverse. But the problem remains that nobody truly knows what the Metaverse will be.

In the late 1990s everyone thought that the Internet's biggest businesses would be built on premium domains like Pets.com or Computer.com. We later found out that the true Internet giants would be built by enabling information sharing and through building bridges for niche social communities to form. Ultimately the name didn't matter if your brand and your community were strong.

Today, Starbucks' mobile app processes more than 70 million transactions per month, more than most banking apps combined. Who could've predicted that a couple of decades ago?

In all actuality, what we believe the Metaverse will be is probably not what we'll come to experience. That's just a reality of Internet innovation. The best thing you can do is to stay abreast of the changes happening to the Web. Web3 and blockchain wallets. Buying and selling digital files through NFT protocols. Designing immersive experiences atop existing games and virtual worlds. These are the main changes happening to the Internet today.

The upcoming chapters will help you better understand these tectonic shifts. We'll highlight a wide array of creators at all levels who are building the next major changes to experiencing the Web. We'll outline how innovators are thinking about the next iteration of the Internet. We'll make it clear where the gray areas, the gaps, the unknowns exist—so that you can think about how to fill them in.

Every time we replace a behavior with a digital service or experience, we make the Metaverse more real. As a decision-maker, or as someone who has invested considerable time in digital, you need to foresee how digital life is changing for consumers, businesses, and creators alike. After all, our future depends on it.