By Denis Sheehan, Publisher, H&C News: Hospitality Metaverse: NFT’s explained…
If like me, all things metaverse have grabbed your attention, maybe also like me unravelling exactly what the metaverse is, how it works, and what potential it offers the hospitality and catering industry intrigues you.
It is certainly complex, and it is also certain to become a significant part of the internet, some are predicting it will become ‘the’ internet, a 3D version of it, that will enable new unique experiences, hence in part the potential for hospitality and catering.
In the interest of being precise: The world wide web, or web for short, are the pages you see when you’re at a device and you’re online. But the internet is the network of connected computers that the web works on, the roads that connect towns, cities, counties, and continents.
To date our world wide web journey’s on the internet have largely been 2D, but 3D has been growing, a transition that may seem hard to grasp now, but similar to many other iterations of the internet, it will unfold to become the norm. Just like email or twitter, almost everyone will adopt and use metaverses.
You may be asking what is the metaverse, although the question really is what are the most visited metaverses. I have researched extensively and an absolute definition adopted universally has proved elusive. In the broadest possible terms, a metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds that uses Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality to build social connections. Metaverses are enabled and powered by a digital economy, which includes a wide range of crypto currencies and the blockchain.
Trading digital assets, products and services is already widespread. You can buy a piece of digital real estate, and you can sell tickets to your digital event. Digital events of course translate perfectly into hospitality and catering.
Trading is largely done through NFT’s. If you are now wondering what an NFT is, rather than trawling the results of countless searches… the video below by Johnny Harris, a filmmaker and journalist sets out many of the basics. Including not just what NFT stands for literally, but what it means. It is American, it is quirky, but it does offer clarity, it takes nearly 18 minutes to complete watching, but if you want some insight it is well worth the time investment.
Hospitality Metaverse: Could virtual hospitality really be a thing?
