What is the METAVERSE? The origin and meaning of Metaverse

 

THE MEANING

 

 

It is a compound word of 'Universe' meaning the real world and 'Meta' meaning 'processed, abstract', meaning a three-dimensional virtual world. Therefore, you can think of it as a three-dimensional virtual world where social, economic, and cultural activities like the real world take place.

 

The Metaverse world has been expressed in terms of virtual reality, but now the word Metaverse is mainly used as a term for an advanced concept. In other words Metaverse is a concept that has evolved a step further than virtual reality (VR, a cutting-edge technology that enables people to experience real-world experiences in a virtual world created by computers). It has the characteristic of being able to engage in social and cultural activities similar to reality.

 

In Metaverse, UGC (User Generated Content) created by users of the virtual world is a commodity and is distributed through virtual currency. As the popularity of Second Life, created by Linden Lab, an American IT venture company, has grown, interest in Metaverse is growing significantly.

 

 

 

 

 

THE ORIGIN

The Metaverse word first appeared in a novel by Neal Stephenson. The Metaverse is a concept that first appeared in 1992 when American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson mentioned it in his novel “Snow Crash”. In this novel, the Metaverse refers to a virtual world that can only be entered through an avatar. Then, in 2003, the 3D virtual reality-based 'Second Life' game released by Linden Lab became popular and the Metaverse became widely known.

 

Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson/ source : Naver image

 

Nowadays, it is widely used to describe the vision behind real work in a fully immersive three-dimensional virtual space. Different characters in the virtual space interact with the agents of software (as avatars), whether socially or economically, and use real-world metaphors, but there are no physical limitations.

 

Second Life game, Linden Lab / source : Naver image

 

Metaverse is drawing attention due to the development of information and communication technology following the commercialization of 5G and the acceleration of non-face-to-face trends due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, Metaverse started to spread in the context of the commercialization of 5G with high-speed, hyper-connectivity, and ultra-low latency and the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the world in 2020. In other words, along with the commercialization of 5G, technologies that can implement virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) have developed, and the non-face-to-face and online trend spreads due to the COVID-19 crisis, Metaverse is drawing attention.