The metaverse is a virtual world in which users, businesses, and digital platforms can exist and interact. It's not one platform, but rather a collection of platforms that have merged our physical and digital worlds. Think of the metaverse as an extension of our current reality.

There are three main elements that make up the metaverse:

The social graph - The social graph is the network of relationships between people, brands and organizations on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Our current social graph exists within the boundaries of physical space, which limits how far we can reach beyond our real-world networks on a single platform.

Real-time data feeds - Data feeds are the real-time streams of information we see every time we open a news app or scroll through our Twitter feed. We're already used to consuming real-time data feeds about new events happening all around us in our physical reality, but we haven't yet merged them with those from digital platforms.

Augmented Reality (AR) - Augmented reality technology has been around for years in some form or another, but now that it's available on smartphones, it's more accessible than ever before — especially with the release of Pokémon Go!

Which companies are involved in the metaverse?

A variety of companies are investing in the metaverse such as Meta (formerly Facebook), McDonalds, Microsoft, Google, Nvdia and Shopify with plenty more joining all the time.

In the past year alone, Visa launched a platform for creating digital collectibles and NFTs called Visa Collectibles on Facebook’s Oculus VR platform, while Adidas created its own VR shopping experience called Adidas XR1.

The concept is gaining traction in the real world because of how successful it is at drawing in users. Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $3 billion back in 2014 and has since invested heavily in making it into an immersive social platform. The company now boasts more than 1 billion monthly active users across its portfolio of apps including Instagram and WhatsApp.

So, how does the metaverse fit into the realm of social media?

In October of 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that social media titan Facebook would be rebranding to Meta. With the addition of a new content and experience layer over the existing FB infrastructure, Meta is an entirely new platform and could be the future of social media.

Meta is like having a VR app without wearing goggles. It's just a new way to experience your world, but with a whole community of people in it with you. In fact, it looks a lot like Netflix Party – but for all your other apps. You can chat and watch videos together, but soon you'll be able to do so much more than that.

Users can also create their own experiences. In beta testing now, people are building games inside of Meta (think Fortnite), as well as virtual meeting spaces like bars and restaurants where users can interact with one another in a virtual space as if they were there for real – which is especially important during the pandemic when people are craving real human connection!

So, is the metaverse the future of social media?

Well, we don't 100% know. The answer is still a bit up in the air...

On one hand, it could be argued that the metaverse is a new social media frontier, and one that’s only just being pioneered.

And on the other hand, with it being such a new development, it’s actually the next few years that will determine its staying power.

That being said, however, many of the world's largest companies are investing heavily in the metaverse.

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