While the concept of a metaverse has been around for decades, the term "metaverse" was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel "Snow Crash," where he defines the metaverse as a virtual reality space where users interact with each other in digitally created virtual environments.
In Interconnected Realities, the head of Trend and Innovation Scouting at Nokia, Leslie Shannon, offers a bullish take on the Metaverse, describing the independent platforms that currently exist and imagines how these disparate realms will ultimately be stitched together to permanently transform our personal and business lives.
“The Metaverse is important,” she states, “not because we’re all going to become avatars in a digital shopping mall or own a digital version of our homes on a digital planet somewhere, but because a significant paradigm shift is about to occur in how humans and computers interact with each other, and the Metaverse sits at the heart of this change.”