Why You Should Care About the Metaverse

An old idea is about to get a second life

Photo by Richard Horvath on Unsplash

I’m hanging out in a virtual universe. Not a metaverse, per se, but it is relatively immersive environment, one that has digital friends, activities, its own internal commerce system, and that lets me teleport from one experience to another.

It’s also a relatively august virtual social network, one that existed when Mark Zuckerberg was first cooking up The Facebook.

Second Life is not my social network of choice. It’s a virtual environment far removed from its heyday 15 years ago when companies like Circuit City were building virtual stores and auto-manufactures like Nissan were launching virtual showrooms and vending machines where you could buy digital versions of their real cars.

Second Life was supposed to be the metaverse. Instead, it became a niche, yet tenacious environment that’s existed quietly on the sidelines as more traditional social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok took over the world.

For a taste of a Metaverse, hop or fly over to Second Life. (Credit: Second Life)

We’re talking about the metaverse now because Zuckerberg intends to build it, to succeed where companies like…