The United States Meta Platform Co., Ltd., the original Facebook company, announced on the 9th that the company's virtual reality application "Horizon World" was officially opened to people over the age of 18 in the United States and Canada. This is also the most iconic metaverse product launched by Meta at present. It is understood that Horizon World is Meta's social/work platform for users to create content and interactions in the metaverse.
The concept of the metacosm is like a tornado that has swept through the entire technology circle and triggered a series of chain reactions in the capital market. Even many unrelated merchants have come to rub the heat of the meta-universe in an attempt to get a piece of the pie. Why did the metaverse suddenly burst into flames? What does it have to do with us? How should we view it?
"Speculation fever" scraped into the metacosm
27.4 million buy a virtual land
Recently, on the virtual reality platform "sandbox", a piece of digital land knocked out by program code sold for 4.3 million US dollars, about 27.4 million yuan. The buyer claimed to be a real estate company in the "metacosmic" world.
A week ago, another piece of metaverseal virtual land was sold for only 56% of the "sandbox" piece of land. The trading price almost doubled in a matter of days.
In China, when the vast majority of people still do not know what the "meta-universe" is, some people have already earned the first pot of gold with this new concept. Some training projects related to metaverse are sought after on the online course platform.
Screenshots of the background of the "Meta-Universe First Lesson" system show that only ten days after the training program was launched, the number of paid users reached 2673, and the cumulative income was nearly 1.6 million yuan. At present, many courses of the same type have occupied the home page of major online course platforms.
It is understandable that the online course instructors are selling the concept of rubbing the heat, but tourist attractions that seem to be unrelated to the "meta-universe" have also started the idea. Recently, Zhangjiajie Scenic Area officially announced the establishment of the first meta-universe research center in the national scenic spot. However, netizens did not buy it, and questioned whether the scenic spot did not have the qualifications and strength to do "meta-universe" research. In this regard, the head of the center admitted that the institution does have the intention of rubbing the heat of the "meta-universe".
Recently, the concept of the "metacosm" has exploded. The data shows that as of now, the total number of trademark applications with "metacosm" in the name has exceeded 7700. Before September 22, the number of companies participating in the application was only about 130, and a month later, the number increased to about 400. Up to now, the number of companies participating in the application has increased to more than 1,000.
Recently, well-known domestic enterprises in various fields have joined the ranks of applying for meta-universe-related trademarks: Tencent, iQiyi, Ideal Automobile and other companies issued applications in September; in October, Huanrui Century, NetEase and other companies; in November, Xiaopeng Automobile, Weilai Automobile and other companies also began to "enter" the ranks of applications. During this period, even Honey Snow Ice City, which sells milk tea, and Shuanghui, which sells ham, did not miss this wave of applications, especially SAIC Motor Group applied for the registration of nearly 100 trademarks containing the words "Cheyuan Universe" in one go.
Former Cosmic Archaeology
There are a thousand metaversities in the eyes of a thousand people
In fact, the concept of "metaverse" is not born out of nowhere, this statement has appeared as early as the last century, and some companies have already begun related research and development, but why is the "metacosm" suddenly popular all over the world this year?
In 1992, the term "metaverse" first appeared in the science fiction novel Avalanche, in which people lived in a virtual space parallel to the real world through special equipment in the form of "virtual twins", a conceptual scene called "metaverse" by the author. Today, 29 years later, there is a more concrete understanding of the "metacosm".
He Baohong, director of the Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data of the Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology: The metacosm itself is not a technology, but a concept, which needs to integrate different new technologies, such as 5G, 6G, artificial intelligence, big data, etc., and emphasizes the integration of virtual and real. There are a thousand metaversities in the eyes of a thousand people, and its conceptual connotation will become richer and clearer with the development of different technologies and the integration of each other.
While people are still trying to understand and digest this concept, some technology companies have already begun to explore the field of metaversics. In March this year, As the first start-up to write a "metacosm" into the prospectus, Robles landed on the New York Stock Exchange, and its stock price rose by more than 54% on the first day, and its market value exceeded $40 billion, which is 10 times the valuation of a year ago. This became a landmark event in which the concept of the "metacosm" exploded this year.
On November 23, Robles' stock price ushered in this year's high, touching a price of $141.6 per share, a 219% increase from the issue price, and the market value exceeded $70 billion, about 444 billion yuan.
Soon, the tech giants, who have more advantages in technology and money, relayed to become important participants in the "metacosm". In October, Zuckerberg, the founder of the American social media company Facebook, announced that he would directly rename the company meta, which means "meta" of "meta universe".
In November, Microsoft released the immersive online office platform "Grid", marking another tech giant's entry into the metacosm.
Ark Investment Group expects that from 2021 to 2025, the global meta-universe market will double to 390 billion US dollars, about 2.4 trillion yuan; PwC believes that by 2030, the global meta-universe market will reach 1.5 trillion US dollars, about 9.5 trillion yuan.
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The metaverse has mixed reviews
Along with the surging boom of the metaverse, the voices of doubt about it have gradually increased. Is the metaverse an opportunity or a trap? Is it the wind outlet or the tiger's mouth? Is it the sea of stars of the Internet, or the high-tech spiritual opium? How exactly should we view the metacosm? Today, there are mixed reviews of this.
Liang Jianzhang, co-founder of Ctrip Group: The metacosm is becoming more and more able to simulate and distort the truth, can create all kinds of fun at low cost, and can even replace family and love, which will create problems, which will bring various risks.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he is not interested in the buzzword "metaverse" and prefers to see the current trend as a development of augmented reality (AR) technology.
In April this year, chip giant Nvidia CEO Huang Jenxun made a speech, and it was not until a few months later that people officially learned through NVIDIA that the speaker was not Huang Jenxun himself, but his virtual avatar, and NVIDIA already had powerful image processing technology. Nvidia is using this technology to create metaverse scenarios that can completely replicate the operation of real-world factories to empower industrial manufacturing.
Song Jiaji, president of Guosheng Securities Blockchain Research Institute: The popularity of the meta-universe essentially reflects the progress and development of basic science and technology. In the long run, it will be an improvement in production efficiency and social operation efficiency. It will create an incremental social value in the future.
What exactly can the metaverse bring us? At present, this answer is still in the stage of competing imagination. However, just when the concept of metaversity is booming and everyone is talking about its future, many people have begun to quietly withdraw from this market.
According to the data, since October, at least 17 of the 85 stocks in the Wandeyuan universe sector have been reduced by shareholders and executives, with a total amount of more than 1.2 billion yuan.
He Baohong, director of the Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data of the Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology: At present, whether it is from hardware or software, relevant ethical laws and regulations, we are still far from many ideas of the metacosmection. But I think that the realization of the metaverse is a process, and we will continue to achieve phased results, which I think is worth looking forward to.
Edit | paragraphs of Du Bo
Proofreading | He Xiaotao
Article source: CCTV Finance