Metaverse: Year One. Mark Zuckerberg’s video keynote on Meta (October 2021) in the context of previous and prospective studies on metaverses

Abstract

Metaverse is a term broadly used to refer to digital virtual worlds that have coexisted with other terms such as virtual reality, virtual worlds, or some types of cyberspaces. Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, published a video keynote in October 2021 that may have consolidated the term metaverse for this incoming and expanding industry, which affects many spheres of human life, from entertaining to health, advertising, or business. This article aims to review Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement, which depicts the main building blocks to create a metaverse, as well as to put it into context with some concepts regarding other aspects of metaverses, such as the origin of the term, the attributes that it should have, some of the attempted definitions of the term, the previous technological evolution necessary to reach its current point and its landmarks, what it is needed to advance in building metaverses, what cannot be considered a metaverse, and companies in different countries that have the potential to launch a metaverse.