Dr. Mark van Rijmenam explains the metaverse as physical and digital worlds merging two ways: physical moving into digital through VR and digital overlaying the physical through AR. He thinks AR will have bigger impact than VR, and calls the metaverse an endless opportunity for organizations and creators.
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So my shortest definition of the metaverse is where the physical and digital worlds are converging into a so called digital experience, augmenting both the virtual worlds and the physical worlds. But let's unpack that a bit because there's a lot of information in that short sentence. So, first of all, where the physical moves into the digital world. So this is all about virtual reality. Virtual reality, where you can have a complete, novel, immersive experience, whether that's in 2D on your desktop or in 3D in virtual reality. It's a virtual experience where you can connect with each other. It is possible to take the physical world into this virtual world. And I'll get back to that in a little bit. But if you look at, for example, digital twins, which are exact replicas of products or machines or factories, you can take them inside the virtual world so you can interact with that physical world inside a virtual world. The second part is where the digital moves into the physical world. And you might have seen, you might remember this time a couple of years ago, with Pokemon Go being a big hype around the world, that was the first time that augmented reality truly took off. Well, a lot of people at the moment think that the metaverse equals virtual reality. I think that in the end, augmented reality will be a far bigger impact on society than virtual reality. After all, you can't really walk with a bulky headset on your head if you go out into the street. While it's very much possible to wear sleek glasses that give an additional layer onto reality. And that's the interesting thing about augmented reality, you can add almost infinite layers on top of the physical reality to gain new experiences, to get new information, or to have a totally different experience. And when these two, both the physical and the digital world are converging, we get this digital environment. I know it's not the most beautiful word, but it sort of really explains quite well what it means. And this digital world happens to be an endless blue ocean for organizations, for consumers, for artists, creators, as well as society as a whole.
