The world and future of Metaverse

In the last few years, the way we collaborate has changed drastically. Due to the pandemic, millions of people were forced to work from home using online tools such as Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Meets, Zoom, or Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Teams. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explains that 70% of their global staff indicate that they like the flexibility of working from home, but also 70% say that they want to have a human connection; there’s no substitute for physical presence! Satya advocates a hybrid solution where online collaboration can be an additional tool to maintain the connection between people. He mentioned examples of innovations such as automated translation in video calls but also the huge opportunity of ‘The Metaverse’. A term that everybody has likely heard in the last few months, but what is it, and what can it offer us?

Metaverse

The metaverse is a very high-level concept; it comes in many shapes and sizes. It can be used for a multitude of things, from gaming to spending social time together to collaborating on work and projects. The concept that is similar in all these worlds is people coming together to work, play, socialize or relax. The way we currently do this ,however, is still rather primitive. We have to interact with the technology first, before we can meet people on the other side. Up to now, screens, keyboards, and mice are still largely dominant, especially while using electronic equipment for work. However, these methods of interaction are over 40 years old. Since then, the only real innovation has been about 20 years ago; touchscreens. Touchscreens were introduced in the first decade of this millennium when the first iPhone created the first pleasantly usable touch screen device. This raises the question, what is the next step in evolution? How can we interact more efficiently with our devices to have a more seamless collaboration experience, and do what really matters, like hanging out with friends or getting work done (instead of struggling with technology). The metaverse will enable us to interact with our devices in a way that feels more natural and is more in sync with how humans are used to move around since the dawn of time.

Standardization

As more immersive worlds are being built, the question arises of how to move between them. The current state of the world is that many of the present worlds that call themselves metaverses do store certain data/items on a blockchain; however this data is often not usable outside of that specific world. While some worlds are trying to share and work together, interoperability between worlds is sadly not the current reality. As most projects are focused on themselves, minimal effort goes into interoperability.

How can we solve this problem? The answer lies within standardization. If everyone would adopt a general standard and adhere to it, we do not have to know what structure other worlds are using. As long as we implement that standard, we know the data and items are usable in any other place that is also implementing that same standard. Currently, there are so many standards that we can’t really call them standards anymore. Also, most of them revolve only around ownership, like NFT’s. The NFT standard only looks at who owns it, and how to transfer the ownership (not at how it should look like in a metaverse an d what attributes the NFT has).

At Work X, we aim to tackle this problem and go beyond normal NFT’s towards personal data. We are developing a standard which will make it possible to own and use your skills, achievements and other personal data in a large variation of metaverse worlds. The worlds we integrate in our ‘Hall of Worlds’ will adopt industry standards and has to be completely open.

Hall of Worlds

Work X introduces a Hall of Worlds; an open platform that allows people to collaborate and/or socialize in different metaverse worlds. People can travel between different worlds and for example jump from their work environment into a social environment on friday after work. We can imagine that people want to wear or ‘equip’ the accomplishments that are relevant for a specific setting. Much like a wardrobe it is only logical that you are able to change between different sets of showcased skills and achievements for specific purposes. Are you working? Your colleagues might not be that interested in your gaming achievements; it might be better to not have it plastered all over your presentation of yourself.

Work X wants to make it easy to quickly switch between sets of achievements that are applicable for a certain scenario. In order to do this we introduce a place that is between worlds where you can view, organize and create sets of achievements. On the Internet of Jobs, service providers and customers can choose a world that suits the job and collaborate in an interactive way. If you want to hire multiple freelancers and explain the scope of the project, it might be helpful to dive into a 3D boardroom like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Horizons. If you’re hiring an architect for a house renovation you could jump into a google earth playground and show your house while you discuss the requirements.