Metaverse Books. With a new, less impressive title: “Building the Spatial Internet.” Matthew Ball, formerly the global head of strategy at Amazon Studios and who wrote “The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything” in 2022, is re-releasing the book. The book’s title will remain “The Metaverse,” but the phrasing implying that the metaverse would transform everything will be replaced with the spatial internet bit. Two years later, the revolution had passed or was still on the horizon. In any case, the most recent edition of the book will be released on July 23.
Metaverse Hype
Nilay Patel, the Verge chief editor and the Decoder podcast host, talked with Ball. After Facebook changed its name to an adjective, the metaverse gained a lot of buzz, but none of it has materialized. The editor questioned him about it.
In response, Ball brought attention to the fact that the metaverse industry is still alive and well. According to him, everything is still going according to plan, and there probably won’t be a single instant when the metaverse and conventional customers align perfectly.
Although there may be a shift in focus, Ball might follow Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg’s lead and wait for things to happen. A mere twenty percent cut to Meta’s metaverse budget followed widening funding for Reality Labs (formerly Oculus). At first glance, these seem like indicators that the growing metaverse is in trouble. On closer inspection, though, all that is revealed is the usual US IT sector cycle of prototype, hype, iterate, and repeat.
Artificial Intelligence
One example is the surge in claims that generative AI was just hype leading up to the release of GPT-3. Since then, the focus of the debate has changed from the applicability of chatbots to the question of when they will surpass human intelligence.
Consumers may be reaching a tipping point as they become weary of hearing about how the metaverse will change everything, especially because the industry is still in the pre-GPT-2 phase of hardware development. In the future, though, that may change with improved headsets, eyeglasses, and goggles.
One example is Meta, which is expected to release many pieces of supposedly state-of-the-art hardware in the next few years. Among other encouraging indicators, there has been talk that Google is attempting to acquire a controlling interest in Meta while stealing the Ray-Ban agreement from them. Google has once again been associated with Magic Leap despite the failure of their previous cooperation.
By any measure, the metaverse has accomplished much relatively quickly. Even once the hoopla has worn off, there is room for a metaverse revolution, according to this. On the other hand, warranties do not exist in the technological realm, at least in the titles of Metaverse Books.
