Metaverse Interview

Strong believer that some of the most important aspects of the Metaverse are not new.  Here an interview. 

Matthew Ball on the metaverse: We've never seen a shift this enormous     In Protocol

The leading metaverse theorist shares his thoughts on the sudden rise of the concept, its utility for the enterprise and what we still get wrong about the metaverse.

“Read Matthew Ball.”

Talk to anyone in AR, VR or immersive entertainment about the metaverse, and they’ll sooner or later drop his name. Ball’s work has been hailed by Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Sweeney and Reed Hastings, just to name a few of his better-known fans, and his work has been called a must-read for anyone who wants to know about the next big thing.

The former Amazon Video executive-turned-VC began writing essays about the metaverse in early 2019. He has since become the leading theorist for the next version of the internet. His book, “The Metaverse And How It Will Revolutionize Everything,” is coming out this month, and Ball sat down with Protocol this week for a chat about all things metaverse..... 

When you published your first essay about the metaverse in early 2019, it was still a pretty obscure concept. Two years later, Facebook changed its name to Meta, and everyone was talking about the metaverse. Did this pace of change surprise you?

Yes and no. I have never experienced a buzzword become as dominant as rapidly as the metaverse did. Seven of the 11 largest companies on earth have either renamed themselves, made the largest acquisitions in Big Tech history, reorganized or prepped their largest and most significant product launches in decades around this field. I think that's unprecedented. We've never seen a shift this enormous

But the overall transition of investments and corporate strategy doesn't surprise me. When I started writing the piece based on my experiences in Fortnite and Roblox in 2018, you could feel that transformation happening. We know that in 2018, [Facebook gaming executive] Jason Rubin wrote an internal memo saying that the metaverse was theirs to lose. We know that in 2015, [Facebook] looked at buying Unity.  .... '