Electronics giant Samsung announced that its upcoming Unpacked event, to be aired this Wednesday, will be accessible in both virtual reality and actual reality. Metaverse-minded fans can watch the event at 837X, a recreation of Samsung’s flagship New York City store location, recreated within virtual reality platform Decentraland. What makes Samsung’s

In the early 1990’s SciFi fans were introduced to a concept called the Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s book SnowCrash. In the book this described a future virtual reality beyond the universe that was populated by user-controlled avatars as well as AI and bots.

Now decades later the age of the Metaverse is upon us. Most every major IT firm is rolling out a Metaverse strategy. Facebook is focusing their entire company on the concept. And retail is moving at full speed to support.

This post captures insights into this new world in ways meant to help leaders understand what is most relevant to your strategic planning. We provide an operational definition of the Metaverse, a description of the current market of metaverse players, and a list of recommendations for how this information should inform your business strategy.