Get Ready for the Next Generation of the Internet, the ‘Metaverse’

real one. The technology isn't completely there yet, but big tech companies like Microsoft and Facebook are working hard towards that goal. Sarah Needleman, tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins us for what to expect from the metaverse and what it will take to get there. Thanks for joining us, Sarah. Let's talk about something pretty fun, the metaverse. Now, this is kind of a lot of people are really hyping

this up right now. They're saying it could be the next phase of the Internet, it could be bigger than the mobile revolution, and companies are really trying to kind of put everything together that we've been working for towards so far. Virtual reality, augmented reality, just kind of online gaming.

This would be the metaverse would be kind of all of that pushed into one and it would be basically, you know, kind of living, shopping, participating with others in kind of this online world is virtual world that think of Ready Player one, that movie if you've seen it, would be something very similar to that. But there's lots of companies that are putting a lot of time, effort and money into this. So Sarah, help us walk through

some of this. What are we looking at. Essentially, the metaverse is considered the next evolution of the Internet, and the difference between that and what we have today is we'll have a lot more people capable of congregating together online. Right now, there's a limit to how many people could

be in a single experience without things flowing down. Another aspect of the metaverses that will be able to create our own content that it will be for anyone, and it's really replicating the real world into the virtual will have a three D replicas that are very very realistic of the real world, and we'll be able to recreate history. For example, will have the Colosseum in Rome as it

was being built. We'll be able to go on the into space and and we'll be able to travel with us about anywhere and see virtual replicas of the real world and new versions or new things that we haven't thought of, or just the opportunities to experience things that aren't possible in the real world. And so the technology will evolve to the point where very very realistic, especially if we're using better hardware that we have today, and we could use our phones, we could use our laptops.

But imagine a future where everybody has a virtual reality headset and not these big clunky things you see today, but more like typical pair of eyeglasses or sunglasses, and uh, it will just be so much more immersive that you'll really feel as if you're sitting next to someone who's actually maybe hundreds of miles away, And I really feel as if you're walking on the moon, or if you're

in the desert. Maybe not the heat, but you certainly would would see things that would be replica of the real world, all that you couldn't just seen it with the staff of your fingers today, but in the metaverse you will be able to. Yeah, now, I mean, obviously the possibilities are pretty much endless. When you're veering off

into these types of things. But there's some real effort, as I mentioned, behind all of this big companies in video roadblocks Microsoft, Facebook is probably one of the biggest companies that is really going to put a lot of effort into this. I think Mark Zuckerberg himself said that people are going to start thinking of us more than a social media company and thinking of us as a metaverse company. Talk about this kind of company involvements and

how they're really pushing it. I mean Facebook just to now, it's the other day that they're planning to hire thousands of people to help it with development of the metaverse. So there's a lot of excitement around it. For this to happen, we need a lot of tools and resources to be able to create this metaverse. I described this this rebelica of the world in three dimensional knowledge, beautiful

glory and ways that we are that are creative. And so we're talking about a lot of technology that doesn't exists today certain terms of these speed, real time rendering, the quality of graphics. We're sort of there. We're getting there,

but we have a long way to go. And we also need to have the meniversity somewhat seamless, and that if you travel from one experience to another, that you could perhaps have the same avatar, Because we're going to see each other as avatars, which will be digital recreations. It may look just like we do in real life, or we might be cartoonish and have like a unicorn

or a mohawk or whatever. We can change our appearance, and there's got to be some sort of universal system where you can travel from point A to point B with some sort of consistency like we have today. When the web first create was created, we didn't have htmail right off the bas so thanks for a little bit discombubbled and h over time, we created h gmail and we had a more more universal experience from one website

to the other. It's basically the same kind of movements, and so we have to build something akin to that for the metaverse. We also have to think about the economics for buying digital assets. How do we secure that asset those kind of assets us where something like blockchain comes in, and we have to think about safety and privacy and so many other factors. All these companies are thinking about it, the ones you mentioned, and many others,

including many startups, and so it's getting there. But it's going to take time. Yeah, and you know, as you mentioned detailing kind of all the technology technological advancements that we really need for it, and that uniformity that we might need for it. I mean, it's going to be a big boon for the first company that hits it, and for the first company that hits it, right stepping into this marketplace and just kind of being the first

one is such a huge thing. So for sure, I mean that makes sense that Facebook is pushing hard for something like that, um, and then you know they have all the other Facebook stuff built into it. That social aspect is already built in. So yeah, definitely I could see kind of the rush to get there. You did kind of mentioned some of the the privacy and security issues that do need to be addressed. There's a kind

of this thing that we saw. I keep keep going back to the movie Ready Player one and kind of this thing where you know, people are starting to per her to live in these digital worlds and that's a real concern for psychologists and and a lot of people. And all you have to think of it right away is too young kids right now in technology digital natives,

right they're adopting the technology so much faster already. If this stuff really fleshes out, I mean, they're gonna be growing up in this new technology and maybe a lot of it maybe blended into the educational experience, and so it will be natural for them and even into the into the work experience, and it will apply to everything in our lives social work, school, etcetera. And there is

a concern especially if you're young minds to um. You know, young people, they develop their social skills, the real social skills in person at a very young age. And so if we start growing up or spending so much time online, there are concerns among mental health professionals that we could see problems in that area. And also we have to think about things like identity to like how do you know you're really talking to who you're talking to? You know,

secure financial transactions. There's so many factors. And to your point earlier about Facebook jumping in and getting a head start, it's often said that the metaverse will not be owned by any one single entity, and Mark Zuckerberg has said that too, But there was also a race to get in and and and be a part of it and be part of the plumbing that that builds it and uh so there is some sense of competition on that level. Okay, so it's not this metaverse thing is not just all

necessarily fun in games. There's real business aspects to this. You know, there's a lot of commerce that's going to be taking place on this everything from us things that the consumer wants, to businesses as well. You know when the experts you talked to, you said, every fortune one company is going to have a metaverse strategy. This is going to be a place where things like n f T s are gonna start just taking off completely. The business side of things are really going to take off.

We can't expect a lot of companies to have like a presence in the metaverse just like they have a presence online today, the difference being in One example I like to use is imagine if you're shopping for a camping tent right now, could look at it online. You may even be able to use a r to sort of picture in uh in your backyard for example, if you wanted to. But with the metaverse, theoretically you would

be able to physically stand inside it. You would look up, you would look down, left, right, you would see them as you're all around you. You You would know, if you're a very tall person, whether or not you fit in it, and how comfortable it might be, and how many you can fit, you get all your family in it. Um you'll look to each other's avatars, but you'll be in real size. It'll be just like you are in real life. And uh, if you raise your hand in real life,

your your avatar's arm would raise your hand. You would look left, look right, same thing. So this is where it really takes things up a couple of levels in terms of sophistication and immersiveness and for businesses, that presents uh and incredible opportunities. Probably once we haven't even thought of. And at least one of the people I spoke to you for the article talked about this idea of virtual pets. So this would be a business that doesn't necessarily quite

exist today. We we have sort of little iterations of that and the in roadblocks and some other small initiatives around n f teeth going back to go back to your tomages even exactly kind of like that, and that's where the blockcheain kind of technology the n f T

s are both around could make sense. I mean, it could be something we haven't even thought of that doesn't exist yet today in terms of securing digital assets and how you would make it so that you could breed a pet and would have an original quote unquote d n A in the metaverse world, and then you could potentially have racing and gambling on these races because I will have this, you know, original code that was created to be for your three headed unicorn with purple teeth

and sneakers on whatever. The possibilities are endless, but it's really exciting, and you can imagine the commerce perspective. There'll be many things to buy and lots of fun ways to shop, and lots of experiences the money on it really is pretty exciting to think how far we've gotten with technology and something like this metaverse is kind of that culmination of all of the past things that we've

been put together. Like I said, tomagotchis augmented reality, virtual rally, everything, you know, the whole Internet age kind of all put together one. It's pretty exciting to think about the very lofty goal. We'll see how quickly we can get there or these companies can get there, but just fun to think about the future that way. Sarah Needleman, tech reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us. It was a lot of fun controding me

my monscar Romors, and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. Today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every mondy through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.