What is the "meta universe" of the recent fire?

If you want to ask what is the hottest concept at the moment, it must be [Meta Universe].

How popular is Metaverse and how important is it to the Internet industry? One thing can be learned from a recent interview with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In an interview with The Verge, the person at the helm of the world’s largest social platform said: He hopes to build Facebook into a meta-universe company in the next five years, and, in order to welcome the arrival of the meta-universe era, Facebook is also Recently changed the company's name to Meta. The popularity of the meta-universe concept is also reflected in the fact that the speeches about the meta-universe on ChinaJoy this year are frequently reported in the newspapers, and even the chip giant Nvidia can't help but "snap the hot spots", and so on.

So the question is, what exactly is the meta universe? What impact will it have on our current industry?

1. What is the meta universe

Metaverse in English is Metaverse, Meta means "transcendence" and "yuan", and verse means "universe". The concept of meta universe first appeared in Neil Stephenson’s science fiction novel "Avalanche" in 1992. The novel depicts a virtual digital world parallel to the real world. In this virtual digital world, people use digital avatars to control and interact with each other. Compete to improve one's position.

Although most people know the source after reading the article of Metaverse, there are really few people who have read the original work. I guess they don't understand the connotation of the book.

Compared with the dullness of the secretary, the sci-fi movie "Player One" directed by Spielberg in 2018 is considered to be the most in line with the "meta universe" form described in "Avalanche". In the movie, after the male protagonist wears a VR helmet, You can instantly enter another extremely realistic virtual game world designed by yourself-"Oasis".

In the scene of the movie "Number One Player", people can switch their identities anytime and anywhere, freely shuttle between the physical world and the digital world, and learn, work, make friends, shop, travel, etc. in the "meta universe" formed by virtual space and time nodes. . Meta universe, a virtual world built on the blockchain, is a decentralized platform that allows players to enjoy ownership and autonomy.

Wikipedia's description of the meta-universe is: a 3D virtual space with the characteristics of link perception and sharing based on the future Internet, which presents the characteristics of convergence and physical persistence through virtual augmented physical reality.

However, compared with the definition of Wikipedia, I think Professor Zhu Jiaming’s description of the metaverse is more specific: [Metaverse] absorbs the information revolution (5G/6G), the Internet revolution (web3.0), and the artificial intelligence revolution. As well as VR, AR, MR, especially the achievements of the virtual reality technology revolution including game engines, it has shown humans the possibility of building a holographic digital world parallel to the traditional physical world; it has triggered information science, quantum science, mathematics and life The interaction of science has changed the scientific paradigm; it has promoted the breakthrough of traditional philosophy, sociology and even the human science system; it has included all digital technologies, including the achievements of blockchain technology; it has enriched the digital economy transformation model, and integrated DeFi, IPFS, and NFT And other digital financial achievements.

2. The attributes of the meta universe

If Metaverse still exists in novels and movies, Roblox, known as the first stock of Metaverse, successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March this year, it seems that this virtual world is moving towards reality. As everyone understands, the foundation of the meta-universe is based on the game system, so it is not surprising that the first landing of the meta-universe is also related to the game.

Since the meta-universe is reflected in the game, let us take a look at the eight key features of the meta-universe in the game, namely Identity, Friends, Immersive, Low Friction, Variety (Diversity), Anywhere, Economy, Civility.

The attributes are explained as follows:

• Identity : Possess a virtual identity, regardless of whether it is related to a real identity.
• : Having friends in the metaverse, you can socialize, whether you know them in reality or not.
• Immersion : Being able to be immersed in the meta-universe experience, ignoring everything else.
• Low latency : Everything in the meta-universe happens synchronously, without asynchrony or delay.
• Diversified : Metaverse provides a variety of rich content, including gameplay, props, and art materials.
• Anywhere : You can use any device to log in to the meta universe and immerse yourself in it anytime, anywhere.
• Economic System : Like any complex large-scale game, the metaverse should have its own economic system.
• Civilization : The meta universe should be a virtual civilization.

3. The value chain of Meta universe

In addition to the pursuit of capital, why the concept of meta-universe can explode this year is also because meta-universe has its own value chain and attracts Internet companies to enter this track to shape and define meta-universe with their own methods and understanding.

Although the concept of the meta universe is still very vague, it does not prevent the meta universe from becoming a good story. After Roblox went public in March, its market value reached 40 billion U.S. dollars, a 10-fold increase from its valuation of 4 billion U.S. dollars a year ago. According to the global revenue ranking of popular games released by App Annie, Roblox continued to win the championship in July. In China, MeteApp, which claims to be a meta-universe world of all ages, received a US$100 million Series C financing led by SIG Hainer Asia Capital after Roblox went public. ByteDance has made a strategic investment of nearly RMB 100 million in the game engine developer and "Chinese version of Roblox" code Qiankun.

Let's take a look at the value chain of the meta universe. The value chain of the meta universe is mainly to seek achievable technological experience. Therefore, starting from this value chain, the value chain of Metaverse includes seven levels: Experience; Discovery; Creator economy; Spatial Computing; Decentralizition ; Human Interface (Human Interface); Infrastructure (Infrastructure).

• content and experience : In the Internet, digital content occupies a major position. In the meta-universe, the proportion of digital behaviors will be greatly increased, so that users can try various real-time experiences. At present, the business of this layer of companies stays more at the game level, because the current hardware is still in a relatively early stage, such as VR equipment has not yet been widely popularized. When hardware equipment gradually matures and becomes popular, a large number of companies will digitize various offline behaviors and provide a rich experience, which will include but not limited to: travel, education, sports competitions, concerts, and so on.
• Discovery and link : In the meta-universe, the amount of content and experience is unprecedented and will grow exponentially. This means that for everyone, there is a problem: how to find valuable and interesting content and experiences. Companies that are capable of solving this problem tend to become a packaging/distribution platform for content and experience.
• Hardware : Compared with the Internet and mobile Internet, an important feature of Metaverse is the immersive experience, which means that we need a new generation of information interaction equipment. At present, the devices that can best meet this condition are AR/VR smart glasses, and the computing platform behind them. It is worth mentioning that Oculus Quest2, owned by Facebook, may be able to become an important product in the history of Metaverse.
  
• operating system : In addition to the hardware of AR/VR itself, a complete XR operating system is still required. At present, most VR hardware devices are based on Android systems, but this may not be the final answer. The XR operating system will be very different from the mobile phone operating system, which will be reflected in multiple aspects such as interaction mode, application mode, content distribution, hardware form, and experience.
• Infrastructure : A single technological revolution cannot bring about changes in the times. Similarly, the next generation of the Internet also requires adequate infrastructure, such as VR/AR, 5G, AI, decentralization and other technologies that we are familiar with.

To sum up, the core value of Metaverse lies in that it will become a super-large digital community with the ultimate immersive experience, rich content ecology, super-temporal social system, and virtual-real interaction economic system that can mirror the real human social civilization.

4. The impact of Metaverse on the industry

From the perspective of the value of Metaverse and the current technological situation, the impact of Metaverse on the current industry is reflected in the pan-entertainment industry, especially the game industry is expected to become the earliest scene under the concept of Metaverse.

At present, a series of immersive scene experiences based on the game core have appeared on the market. For example, the famous American singer Travis Scott held a virtual concert in the game "Fortnite", and 12.3 million gamers around the world became the audience of the virtual concert; the University of California, Berkeley recreated the campus in "Minecraft", and graduates used virtual images online The scene participated in the graduation ceremony; ACAI, the top AI academic conference, held a 20-year seminar on Nintendo's "Animal Crossing Friends". The speakers played PPT in the game and gave speeches. All were landing scenes.

Roblox, the online game creation community, has become a recognized meta-universe prototype at this stage because of the game freedom and user activity brought by the phenomenon-level content creation ecology. With the deepening of the market's understanding of the metaverse, the greater significance of the game to the metaverse lies in the provision of a way of displaying, which is the underlying logic of the metaverse to build a virtual world. At the same time, the enthusiasm of the meta-universe concept has also attracted countless game manufacturers.

And another scene that is easy to land is the social field. Facebook (now changed to Meta) CEO Zuckerberg said a few days ago that Facebook has set up a team dedicated to the development of Metaverse, and said that in the next five years, it will change from a social company to a Metaverse company. In fact, virtual social networking is also changing the way people socialize, becoming a new direction for social development in the future.

In the consumer field, with the advent of Metaverse, users' consumer experience may usher in a new wave of interactive experience upgrades. At present, Xinyang has realized to provide users with the service of AR detection of face shape, and calculate the makeup, hairstyle and skin care products suitable for each user by scanning the face of the mobile phone. The AR virtual shoe-trying function of Dewu App allows users to select their favorite shoe type and color and try them on AR to see the effect of the shoe on the foot. Driven by technologies such as AR, VR, wearable devices, and tactile sensing, more immersive consumption may become the norm. It is not limited to basic consumption such as buying clothes and shoes. AR house decoration, remote inspections, and even simulated tourist attractions will become possible.

It can be seen that AR and VR wearable virtual devices are inseparable from the meta universe. Regarding the current status of AR and VR wearable virtual devices, you can refer to talk about this non-existent "meta universe" .