Metaverse: "The" or "A", Capital or Lower Case: A Naming Convention Proposal

I wrote out a definition of the Metaverse recently taken directly from Snow Crash citations -- my futile attempt to address the slew of "No one knows what the Metaverse is or when it will exist!" media coverage. Now here's another abuse worth addressing that sets my avatar's teeth on edge, as recently seen in a tweet from Gartner*, a highly reputed analyst firm:

It is expected that a Metaverse will provide persistent, decentralized, collaborative and interoperable opportunities and business models that will enable organizations to extend digital business

There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. "A" Metaverse.

Here's my own naming convention, based again on Snow Crash, and on whatever expertise on this topic I can claim:

• The Metaverse ("the" with a capital M): The original vision depicted in Snow Crash. Also can be used for referring to the industry as a whole that’s attempting to develop a version of that vision.
• metaverse platform/startup/technology/etc. (lower case “m”): Refers to an individual startup, company, or platform within that ecosystem currently on the road to build the Metaverse, or an important component to it. 

On that distinction, I think "a metaverse" can be used for brevity's sake -- just as long it's clear that that's referring to a specific metaverse platform. (And not how Gartner just used it above!)

So for example, the Metaverse for:

This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street, too, and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction, they can see him, just as he's seeing them.. Your avatar can look any way you want it to, up to the limitations of your equipment. If you're ugly, you can make your avatar beautiful. If you've just gotten out of bed, your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these. [from the Original Text]

And "a metaverse platform" or "a metaverse" for short, as in:

Last month, by the way, Improbable spun out a metaverse technology network called M2... [from the last post here]

When does a specific metaverse platform like ROBLOX, VRChat, or another get to be called "the Metaverse", with all the hard-won accolades of "the" and capital "M"? That's up for debate, but I say it should first definitely have all the features of the definition here, up to and including 15 million concurrent users and Ng's Metaverse-drivable van.

Until then... how about no "the Metaverse" and definitely no "a Metaverse", OK? 

*Remember in 2017 when Gartner forecast mainstream adoption of VR by, well, now? Good times.

Comments

[Luther Weymann]

When a company provides a sky, land, water, and avatar framework and then tells the users, “Okay, there it is, now you guys build it,” that defines “The Metaverse.” That’s real life. We got sky, land, water, and a food source, and humans took it from there. That’s our real-life metaverse.

[Joey1058]

Upper and lower case arguments are possibly as old as time itself:
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/19/172391249/universe-or-universe-it-all-depends-on-the-multiverse

[Adeon]

Stop trying to give Metaverse a distinct meaning. You're no more right than anyone else. It's a buzzword.

Better to let this one go and talk about actually interesting things surrounding virtual worlds and VR, than argue about semantics of a dead word.

[Ninatchka Markova]

I have always referred to Second Life as 'metaverse' knowing full well there are other metaverse want-a-be's. Even when I was a publisher in SL and coined my readers as 'metaversians' - right or wrong, trivial or not, it is only with recent real-world application for the new digital NFTs and currency craze that we question, whether our virtual world [SL], is, in fact a 'metaverse'. I declare "WE ARE METAVERSE PRIME!" giggles and goes back to checking her bitcoin :( *sighs*

[Chris]

Thank you! I've been trying to explain this to people as well. Personally, I believe a true "Metaverse" will be decentralized in the same way that the Internet is decentralized. Right now, it's more of a hodgepodge of specific technologies.