Metaversed

Chapter 3The Race Has Begun

You remember, it's the chance to build cathedrals, entire cities, things that never existed. Things that couldn't exist in the real world.

—Dom Cobb in Inception

One of the most exciting parts of working in emerging technologies is building a vision of the future. We might live and work with present technology, but each project takes us to what might be, what could be. It's all part of a bigger goal, and we can shape what's coming next. Those working in the emerging technology industry know that everyone in their company, everyone in their industry, is playing a part. Some companies may be huge successes, some might have made the wrong bets, but we're all needed pieces in the puzzle and the only constant in our roles is change.

No one knows this better than the biggest tech players: companies with billions of dollars at their disposal that can make bigger bets and make an increasingly bigger impact. So, when most of these behemoths get behind a similar vision, you know there is a massive social and economic change on the horizon.

But with the creation of any new markets and related platforms comes a turf war. Some companies have even started to name, to custom-brand, the next tech stage in a way that allows them to claim ownership. The most obvious is Facebook's switch to Meta. It caused a big stir, and many called out the company as they appropriated the prefix of the term for themselves.¹ It was almost like the company formerly known as Facebook ...