Metaverse was once a fringe concept. It is now being conceived as a network of 3D virtual worlds. Consumers too look forward to having a completely digital universe.

Metaverse is still away from being ready for day-to-day use. However, its components are already here. Corporates such as MS, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, Epic Games and Robolox and many more are tirelessly working to bring this virtual reality to life. All this will require AR headsets and gaming consoles, but also at the same time tremendous amount of software to work out the metaverse. Thus metaverse will largely be software.

It leads to the issue of the security of the key components of the metaverse. Security will have to be integrated to the fundamental process. There could be automated scanning. There has to be supply chain security.

Currently metaverse seems to be a hybrid of online collaboration experiences. At times, these are amplified into 3D, and projected to the physical world. Ultimately the aim is share immersive experiences with other people even when we are not together physically and do things together which we cannot do in the physical world.

There would be need for a code to support this virtual world, and a lot more software updates. These updates will require faster releases and continuous releases.

After the ban on TikTok in 2020, many startups here in India built short-form video platforms. TikTok attracted over 240 million active users in the country. It had 20 million active content creators who uploaded at least one video a month.

Indian versions built up their own user base of content creators. TakaTak attracted 9-12 million users. Moj commanded an audience of 10-15 million.

ShareChat launched Moj. MX player launched TakaTak. Glance has been funded by inMobi and Google. Glance acquired Roposo. Dailyhunt has launched Josh. There are big players such as Google Shorts and Facebook’s Reel.

In smaller towns, the user base of short-form video is bigger than that of YouTube. Roposo has 30 million active users.

Glance allows live commerce through which creators run their shopfronts. Roposo has 500 creators who live-stream commerce. Glance has acquired Shop 101, a tech company that helps it to do influencer-led and celebrity commerce. All short-form videos carry ads for monetisation. However, these attract only 1 percent of the total advertising revenues. As people spend more time to see these videos, these will bring in more advertising revenue.

News is aggregated by the Big Tech companies. More and more news is consumed online. The current system, therefore, becomes unfair to news publishers. Google and Facebook use their dominant position to get 70-80 per cent of advertising revenue which comes out of online news consumption. Mainstream news publishers incur a heavy cost and efforts in news gathering — they are the gatekeepers and fact checkers. They have to employ trained professionals to do so. Thus Big Tech makes them financially unviable.

This has led to actions in Australia which has passed a law last year that requires Big Tech to pay local media outlets fairly for linking their content in news feeds or search results. France too has implemented the EU’s updated copyright rules that require digital platforms to compensate news publishers for previews of news content. Facebook has been compelled to sign a deal with a French group that represents 300 French publishers.

India too needs some action against Big Tech. India must have independent and financially viable news media.

If news is not reliably produced, there is a plethora of fake content, half truths, manipulated content and hate mongering. It can lead to a chaotic situation. Big Tech does bring traffic to news publishers. Still, it works both ways. A lot of Google queries are news related. Therefore, Google too gets considerable traffic. Big Tech cannot enjoy a free ride. They should share online advertising revenues with news publishers equitably.

Indian authorities have moved the Competition Commission of India (CCI). It has ordered a proble against Google.

Social media, to begin with, was all about posting personal content for a closed network of friends on Facebook or Instagram. Users shared pictures which they had captured on WhatsApp. This is not true anymore.

Users love to be creators of content and snack on content produced by someone else. Social media 1.0 has to keep pace with the aspirations of the consumers. They have to change to hold on to traffic to maintain the advertising revenues. Facebooks, rechristened as Meta, faces hypercompetitive environment from well-funded startups.

In game streaming, short videos, content commerce, and groups, Meta is being challenged by the niche startups which are just a click away. It dissipates the audience of Facebook or Meta. Facebook has thus to move faster than the local rivals to retain and capture more market share.

WhatsApp Pay has not yet been established. Shops on Instagram awaits a launch. Gaming is taking just baby steps. It has powered Reels on Instagram. It has tied up with Reliance Jio and edtech unicorn Unacademy. Meta has not caught a wave after Instagram and WhatsApp. They should have entered the startup space a bit earlier.

Originally it was called web logs — a personalised online journal. Blogs are a means to publish and communicate to a web audience. A blog is a website where a person writes on anything that pleases him on a continuous basis and has an option to keep it open for others to read. New entries show up at the top. One can comment on these or link to them or send an email to the author of the blog. At an individual level, a blog is a personal diary. At another level, it can be collaborative space. In short, a blog is what its host wants it to be.