• The Gartner research shows that 30 percent of organizations in the world will have products in the Metaverse by 2026.
• Facebook’s entry into the Metaverse has further added fuel to the fire which will potentially make the Metaverse a multi-billion dollar industry in a few years.

Metaverse has been the new topic of discussion recently and analysts believe it to be the next major revolution in online social interactions. On Monday, February 7, technology research and consulting company Gartner recently published a report that noted that nearly 25 percent of people will spend an hour every day in the Metaverse by 2026.

This could be for a range of activities like education, social, work, shopping, and entertainment. Gartner noted that brands have already started building the infrastructure that will allow users to replicate their lives digitally.

But Gartner Vice President Marty Resnick said that there’s a growing demand for virtual, interactive, and three-dimensional experiences. But Resnick doesn’t see it as a one-party game. Instead, the Gartner executive believes that brands will have to collaborate in order to unify the Metaverse.

He further added that 30 percent of the organizations in the world will have products in the Metaverse. The Gartner executive explained:

From attending virtual classrooms to buying digital land and constructing virtual homes, these activities are currently being conducted in separate environments. Eventually, they will take place in a single environment – the metaverse – with multiple destinations across technologies and experiences.

Market analysts bullish on Metaverse

Social media giant Facebook is now taking its next big bet in the world of Metaverse. The company has gone as far as to rebrand itself to Meta. Facebook’s entry into Metaverse has changed the perspective of how market leaders in the industry can see the space progressing.

The rate of Metaverse users has grown by 10x from the start of 2020 to June 2021. A Grayscale report in November 2021 showed that the total valuation in the Metaverse industry can easily hit trillion dollars in a few years.

Metaverse projects in the crypto space are also gaining solid traction recently. This includes the likes of Decentraland and Sandbox. Terra Virtua co-founder and CEO Jawad Ashraf believes Metaverse will change the way we interact in virtual environments. Ashraf believes that it will be a top spot for social occasions, gaming events, concerts, and more. He added:

It may be too early to predict exactly what the metaverse will become, but what we do know is it will open up completely new experiences and enhance our lives.

Metaverse has ‘never worked’ in the past

While there’s been a lot of enthusiasm surrounding the Metaverse, there are a few contrary views as well. Phil Libin, the former boss at Evernote isn’t so confident about the future of Metaverse. Speaking to Business Insider, Libin said that he has tried out a few virtual environments like Horizon Workrooms, Meta’s VR meeting software, and wasn’t impressed.

Speaking about the Metaverse, the executive said: “It’s an old idea. It’s uncreative, it’s been tried many, many times over the past four decades and it’s never worked”.

This could mean that Meta has big stakes at play. The company has already witnessed a staggering 25% of its valuation eroding in a single day last week. This could possibly be a make-or-break moment for Mark Zuckerberg.