“The metaverse is coming, and it will change everything.” It’s a statement nearly everybody can agree upon, including the largest of tech giants. Yet, despite this fact, most people don’t really understand what the metaverse is or why it’s important.

In short, the metaverse is an entirely new media format--one that is likely to consume everybody’s free time, much the same way that social media has.

Every time a new technology emerges, it re-shuffles the cards and changes the game. Similarly, those who do not adapt to this new reality will be left behind.

For the large tech giants, the metaverse is not merely a possible future outcome; it is a requirement for their survival.

Especially for Facebook, the metaverse will unlock a whole new experience of virtual social worlds where users transact and utilize NFTs to confer social currency and wealth, rather than luxury handbags or sneakers. Instead of their real-world hobbies, they will gather in the metaverse to discuss their hobbies there. But Facebook, is based on a real life social network, which is why they are starting to panic.

The greatest of Facebook’s attributes is its ability to evolve and adapt quickly-- like how they acquired both WhatsApp and Instagram before they achieved peak popularity. But this time, Facebook cannot just buy a metaverse to survive, so it has to build its own.

I predict that the metaverse is where everyone will interact in the coming years. It will consume everything just like TikTok has.

Metaverses are made up of three components: infrastructure, economy and contents. For most of us, we can understand the metaverse as the sum of its contents.

Let me take TikTok as an example to explain this how the contents will be the substance of the metaverse:

In the case of TikTok, Infrastructure meant the platform, the 4G / 5G cellular and mobile devices that enable the ability for short videos to be shared from person to person. And, also these devices included high-resolution cameras. These become the indispensable INFRASTRUCTURE which enabled the new TikTok paradigm

An economy needs a system, a circle to share value. In TikTok’s economic system, it’s quite easy: user/consumers spend their attention and watch advertisements. Advertisers pay for the attention, creators benefit from the advertising spend, so TikTok is a fully operational and self-sustaining economy. More users = more advertisers = more creators and then the flywheel keeps spinning.

So, what lures the end-user? The answer is content; every short video either you like or dislike, either because it’s funny or inscrutably weird forms the basis of content. And that content is what is attracting and retaining users.

It’s important that every metaverse industry player understands from the user standpoint that the metaverse is all about content. It is a world where content is shared, in a global open competitive market. And that content and its quality is the most important thing.

The metaverse is a game-changer, just like TikTok. In TikTok, most of the older giants failed to compete; they were too slow to embrace the new media format. This will also happen in the metaverse.

My parting advice is both for the people inside and outside this industry. The metaverse will create prosperity for content creators, and it will definitelyshuffle the cards and incubate new opportunities. The big question is exactly how this change will occur and what it will look like.

But what I am absolutely certain of is that it will dramatically change the market.

Special thanks to Janine Yorio from Republic Realm.