Second Life officially appeared in 2003 as the first metaverse. Videogames such as Active Worlds and Fortnite have long used metaverse like components.

In fact, metaverse as a concept was drawn from the 1992 novel Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. It denoted a 3D virtual world with avatars of real human beings.

Today it is a mix of 3D world and immersive social connection, and is facilitated by advances in virtual and augmented reality (AR and VR) and mixed reality (MR).

Internet has limited ability to be truly immersive. Thus it is passe. Immersive experiences of metaverse will mix the real and non-real. Marketers and engineers would facilitate human transition into metaverse providing unprecedented UI and UX.

Metaverse will attract people to shop, travel, trade, play, and socialise in the virtual world. Brands will be embedded unobstrusively in the alternate world. There will be retailing of virtual goods to digital avatars. Thus there would be virtual brand revenue.

A full-fledged metaverse is still some distance away. The hardware must become economical. Opponents call it a passing fad. Proponents call it the future.