What exactly is this metaverse? At the SXSW trade show in Austin, Texas, people are looking for an answer – and they’re finding out that it’s impossible to say for sure.
More than forty talks deal with the metaverse at the digital and media trade show South by Southwest (SXSW). But asking around the audience, many still don’t quite know what the metaverse is supposed to be: “I think it’s a digital landscape you can immerse yourself in, with avatars and stuff – but other than that, no idea,” says event manager Carole. Game designer Connor works in virtual reality, but is skeptical: “I haven’t seen it yet, it sounds like a buzzword. I need more background on why it should have meaning for us,” he says. “We have a great planet – to recreate more of these experiences we have in real life on the Internet – I’m not ready for that.”
Catherine Wilhelm
ARD studio Los Angeles
Zuckerberg has a close eye on business
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, is ready for the metaverse. Just a few months ago, he renamed his company Meta to signal: This is the future. At SXSW, he made a virtual appearance on fairly short notice and once again laid out his vision of the metaverse. “I believe the metaverse is the next chapter of the Internet. What defines it is that you feel really close to other people or in a different place,” Zuckerberg explained, also clarifying, “Meta is not building the metaverse in the process, we’re building the technologies for it – we’re contributing to bring it to life.”
Among other things, the Facebook founder talks about developing virtual reality glasses that could be used to make real eye contact. It’s all about interactions – less about the gaming aspect, Zuckerberg emphasizes with regard to gaming worlds like Minecraft or Fortnite. But above all, Zuckerberg is talking about new business models: people moving around in digital space as avatars could, for example, purchase various items of clothing and use them everywhere in the form of so-called non-fungible tokens – NFTs for short.
Experts see data protection risks
Amy Webb, whose lectures at the trade show have cult status, is concerned with our future, sketching out scenarios; the metaverse is also an integral part of this. Her analyses show that it will consist of virtual spaces and wearable technology – such as smart glasses. In addition, she says, everything will become more “sensual”: “We will be able to move with gestures, and some will wear devices that spray scents. Instead of keyboards, we will use our bodies,” Webb predicts. “The metaverse is part of Web3, the third revolution in our digital infrastructure. It also means we’ll be exposing more data about ourselves, and there will be more ways to access that data on unthinkable scales.”
That’s why it’s critical to talk about data security and privacy, Webb said. She wasn’t alone in warning that profiteering and fraud will also play a role in the metaverse. Economics professor and podcast host Scott Galloway spoke at SXSW about how he believes Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse will fail. Instead, he sees another company ahead in this race: “It’s Apple. With their app store, they have the closest thing to a metaverse. I also don’t think it will be visual like in video games, but auditory: the headphones we use every day to talk on the phone or listen to their podcasts: That creates a level of intimacy. That drives the metaverse more than the visual.”
Conclusion: the metaverse is also a term at South by Southwest that everyone can define for themselves – but of which more will be heard in the future.
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