thomas.wieberneit@aheadcrm.co.nz
The Return of the Undead – Do they go B2B or B2C?

The Return of the Undead – Do they go B2B or B2C?

In the first part of this article, I explained why there is no metaverse (yet), although the idea is around for quite some years. Despite the current hype, it is just a re-emerging topic. Foundational technologies like VR are around since as long as the 50s although VR really entered our minds only in the 90s. The Virtual Reality Modeling Language VRML got standardized in 1994 and its successor X3D in 2004. Half Life with the first highly immersive world was released in 1998. I went into some definition and laid out a framework for a kind of an architecture that can support whatever this idea evolves into, with some emphasis on common standards and some governance. These are necessary, because the metaverse is nothing more than a platform of platforms, which means that at the end of the day it is a kind of a protocol.  Or else we will see a collection of (competing) multiverses. I closed with some questions that need to be answered. Why does it need a metaverse, if at all?What are meaningful use cases?Who will rule? Startups? Existing players? Governments? So, let’s dig into it. Why metaverse? Now that the definition work is out of the way, one of the main questions is what the value that a person or organization can expect from being involved in or using “metaverse” is. After all, it is real money that is spent, whereas the whole concept of metaverse is digital and virtual. That raises several interesting questions like: Where is the link between the physical and the digital world, if any? Where is the problem that cannot be solved without the or be...