The Metaverse. Building the Spatial Internet - Matthew Ball

From the leading theorist of the Metaverse comes the eagerly anticipated, revised and updated account of the next internet: what the Metaverse is, what it will take to build it, and what it means for all of us.

A Hudson Booksellers, Amazon, Guardian, Financial Times, Economist, and ByteDance Toutiao Best Book of the Year

In this substantially revised and updated edition of his internationally best-selling book, pioneering theorist and entrepreneur Matthew Ball goes beyond the hype cycle to present a definitive account of the future of the internet. The Metaverse, according to Ball’s industry-shaping definition, is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences and underpin much of the physical world.

As Ball recounts, the Metaverse is a thirty-year-old term, and the core ideas and technologies behind it have been in development for nearly a century. Only recently, however, did this fantastical concept begin to leap from the pages of science fiction and depths of national research labs to the forefront of consumer technology, industrial engineering, healthcare, education, dating, and more.

From the history of video games and virtual reality to “proto-metaverses” such as Second Life, Fortnite, and Roblox to Generative AI and the groundbreaking films and television series of the Walt Disney Company, Ball points out that the Metaverse is alr
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