The Metaverse Wins Christmas

Meta Platforms Inc FB was on the top of the list of most popular apps in Apple Inc's AAPL App Store on Christmas Day with its Oculus VR app, showing that its virtual reality headset was one of the most popular technology gifts over the holidays.  Although these rankings aren't a perfect measure, they give a good snapshot of how popular a given app is at a moment in time and offer a peek into technology trends as folks activate all the new gadgets they received for Christmas.

Meta has the opportunity to show customers how far its vision can go as CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will commit more than $10 billion to build this new virtual universe that he believes will become the standard for not only social networking but also gaming, working and possibly even living the way things are headed.

Metaverse Isn't Only Meta's

Gaming company Roblox RBLX which made its bet on the metaverse years before we even heard the word cross Zuckerberg's lips, went public in March at a nearly $40 billion valuation. Nvidia Corporation NVDA and Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD are also in the game as both companies sell chips that will power it.

China's First Metaverse Event

Baidu Inc BIDU hosted its annual developers' event on Monday in the virtual event venue of its metaverse app called XiRang it launched in November. CEO Robin Li spoke about his vision for AI over the next decade. The critics evaluated the event as a horrible experience as they had to resort to a traditional video stream to finish watching the show.

But, as Li stated, China is going all-in on the metaverse as the Shanghai city department released Thursday its five-year development plan, which included encouraging metaverse use in public services and business offices, among others. China's biggest city is getting serious about the metaverse as Tencent Holdings Limited TCEHY President Martin Lau said in the November earnings call that he expects the Chinese government will support the development of metaverse technologies.

A Global Conversation

Alibaba Group Holding Offerings BABA has a webpage to promote its metaverse cloud offerings. Earlier this month, Microsoft MSFT co-founder Bill Gates said he expects that in two or three years, most virtual meetings will move to the metaverse. The Boeing Company BA also announced this month it plans to build its next airplane in the metaverse. Nike NKE bought a virtual shoe company that makes NFTs in order to step into the Metaverse with its own range of digital kickers.

For Now, It Is Still Just a Buzzword

The metaverse is still nothing more than a buzzword in the global tech and investment community. Although the whole world is speaking about it, it is still only a concept in its infancy. Even Meta's VR headsets are not capable to enable Zuckerberg's ultimate vision for the metaverse, but they are giving us a taste of what's possible and tackling our imagination. Moreover, it seems that everyone is getting metaverse ready so 2022 should be packed with metaverse developments.

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