Three concepts for the metaverse: Between fading fashion and eternal style

Abstract

The metaverse is a speculative investment. It is expected to lure online shoppers and social media users into virtual environments, but its success is far from guaranteed. In 2021, Meta Platforms pledged billions to make the metaverse a reality. They founded the Metaverse Standards Forum in 2022, together with Microsoft, NVIDIA, and others. The same year, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, reacted to the dominance of American tech giants. He vowed to support an “European metaverse”. The European Commission later identified the metaverse as a key initiative. The Commissioner Thierry Breton presented Europe’s “threefold” categorisation of the metaverse: “people, technologies, and infrastructure”. By extension, this paper presents a review of academic literature and elaborates three commonly prioritsed concepts that are relevant to Breton’s categories. The metaverse’s common concepts are: avatars (people), XR (technlogies), and digital markets (infrastructure). Their discussion highlights potential suggestions for future research.