This is a really stupid question, but ...

What's the Metaverse?

Everyone refers to it and how SL might turn into it and suchlike, but what IS it?

Lo, you awesome possum you, the term "metaverse" is drawn from Neal Stephenson's book, Snow Crash. It is the name of the virtual world in that novel, and is parallel to a futuristic Internetthing of sorts.

Reading Snow Crash may have to be a prerequisite for being in SL in the future. *grins* but until then, here are some helpful links -- they include spoilers though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(virtual_reality)

*hugz Lo and rolls off*

I am the Metaverse... You all exist only in my mind.. lol

Thank you Torley *hugs back*

Looks as though the very term "metaverse" is vague at best since everyone has a different idea of how it should be. Is it tied intrinsically to cyberpunk, meaning that a metaverse is simply the term for the futuristic version of the Internet in the cyberpunk stories?

Or is it something else? I went to metaverselab.org and they said this:

It goes by different names... to Gibsonians like in the book Neuromancer, it's called the Matrix. (And yeah, where have you heard that term before? )

A lot of the technical details and underlying structure are definitely left up to the reader's imagination. That's a good thing, because the a way to predict the future is to invent it, and here we are!

So yes, as of now, "metaverse" is quite a general term. It has been applied to several other previous online worlds influenced by Stephenson, including ActiveWorlds -- which I was never on, but the inspiration runs rampant throughout the world.

This is not unlike Star Trek inspiring a new wave of space explorers at NASA.

[SATIRE] A "metaverse" is a fictional marketing tool that some have falsely suggested is what SL will become when it grows up. It is commonly used to flame people on community chat forums.

Examples of past usage:
1. Dude, you are screwing up the "metaverse".

2. Yo, take your sh*t elsewhere, you do not fit in the mold of SL's "metaverse".

3. You people don't get it... SL is a "METAVERSE" and you must conform to my view of (fill in the blank).

4. Profit??? There is no profit in a Metaverse. Money is bad I tell ya... very bad.

It is analogous to utopian society and lives only in the minds of a few misguided delusional people. [/SATIRE]

A buzzword.

I would have thought that strictly speaking, a 'metaverse' would be a kind of multiverse containing all universes.

or would it be a multiverse *describing* all universes?

OMG LOL I love it!

There ARE no stupid questions


But I have run into inquisitive idiots



Not that I'm implying that you are one of those...

Forget I posted

What's the Metaverse?


Meta

beyond, transcending, encompassing
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Verse

poetry kind of poetry: a particular form of poetry
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


So the MetaVerse is really just transcending a particular form of poetry

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The usual fan take on the book is "It's fine cyberpunk, especially the part about the Deliverator; but I couldn't buy the Sumerian stuff in the middle, and the ending sucks."

Quote from: web "The Metaverse"

nvm

Roughly speaking the metaverse is something inbetween the internet as it is now and Second life (from the Snow Crash definition anyways).

The Metaverse as specifically as Snow Crash mentioned it would be as infinite as the net, but instead of actual text browsing you'd have avatars and websites would look like buildings. When you entered the building with your avatar you'd connect to that particular server the same way when you type www.secondlife.com in your browser. You could transfer files in business card sized notecards (one avatar would give it to another and it would be the same thing as giving someone a file in an instant messenger). Your avatar could be programmed from scratch or you could pre-buy pre-made avatars, and everything else that was used in this would have to be programmed from scratch.

So generally speaking, it's like a visually realistic form of the internet.