Editor's note: The meta universe is the deep "intermediation" of human society. At present, the media is undergoing profound changes from physical media to relational media, and then to algorithmic media. The ultimate evolution of media in the future will be the "scene era", "meta universe", "heart world", and "meta universe" In the sense of dimension upgrading, it provides a future integration mode for the integration of all elements of Internet development.

On June 20, 2022, Zhiku No.150 (262 issues in total) and the new book sharing meeting of "Meta Universe and Future Media", Wei Cao Zhiku invited Yu Guoming, the distinguished professor of "Changjiang Scholar" from the Ministry of Education and the director of the academic committee of the School of Journalism and Communication of Beijing Normal University, to share "Meta Universe: Deep Media of Society". Peng Lan, professor of School of Journalism, Renmin University of China, Shen Hao, professor of Communication University of China, and Liu Xingliang, president of DCCI Internet Research Institute participated in the comments. The following is based on Liu Xingliang's speech.

Thank you for your wonderful sharing. Let me talk about three feelings.

First, what is the meta universe?
 

At the end of 2021, when a media interviewed me, he asked: "Mr. Liu, is the Metauniverse a new bottle of old wine?" Because he felt that everyone has put cloud computing, blockchain, the Internet of Things, AR/VR and other concepts into it, is it a new bottle of old wine? I am wrong. It is not the new bottle that contains the old wine, but the old bottle that contains the old wine. It was Zuckerberg who found such a bottle called Metauniverse in 1992 in the second-hand market, and then filled it with yellow rice wine, white wine, cocktails, rice wine, fruit wine, wine. So it is a story of old wine in old bottles.

I particularly agree with Professor Yu Guoming that the metauniverse is not a technology, nor an application, nor a scene. It may be a complex, or a Medici effect, which is an unexpected change brought about by a combination of technologies.

The Medici effect was in Florence, Italy, in the 15th century. Several families headed by Medici funded many artists, painters, writers, and architects. In a short period of time, they all concentrated in Florence, producing a variety of chemical reactions, and then came the Renaissance. I think the same is true of the metauniverse. Whether it is Facebook or Microsoft abroad, or Tencent or Byte Beat in China, they may have many technologies such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, blockchain, AR/VR, etc. It is a Medici effect to produce a technology combination within the company or within a specific range that brings about an unexpected change.

Second, what is the relationship between the metauniverse and Web3.0?
 

In my opinion, Web3.0 is a technology base, and the metauniverse is a way of life running on the technology base. From the perspective of media, I think we can use one word to describe Web 1.0 and 3.0 respectively. Web1.0 is Read (readable). Like the portal websites and electronic newspapers in those days, we can only look at them; Web2.0 is Write, and the mainstream applications used today are the products of the Web2.0 era; Web3.0 is Own.

For example, the earliest representative of the era of Web 2.0 is Sina Blog. Now Sina Blog is only visible to authors, and most of them are invisible. My Sina blog can no longer be accessed by everyone. There are two or three thousand articles in it, and there were forty or fifty million visitors before. All these data are gone and only exist in the past system. Does Sina blog belong to me or Sina? If it belongs to me, Sina will shut it down without my consent. For another example, does the circle of friends belong to me or WeChat? If the circle of friends belongs to me, will those advertisements in the circle of friends give me a share? This is the problem caused by our past media.

As a content creator, I think this one mu of land is mine, but the food I have worked hard to produce in this one mu of land does not belong to me. In addition to my role as the author, there are many participants. For example, I have posted an article, and others have praised and commented. Are these praises and comments valuable? Even comments may be more valuable than my articles, but so much content has given birth to many Internet giant platforms that are becoming larger and more profitable, but the author has no income from them.

Finally, in 1995, Bill Gates accepted David Interview with the Letterman talk show. At that time, he explained what the Internet was, but could not explain clearly. Whatever he said, David and the audience would laugh at him. What can the Internet do? Bill Gates said we can watch a baseball game online. Letterman said it was a radio? Bill Gates said that we can still keep it and look back. Letterman said it was a videotape? He always takes our existing things as examples, which he can't understand. So not only the early Internet, from 1995 to now, we actually have many ways, which were considered unreliable in the past, but in the end, they are changing our lives.

So why should we talk about the metauniverse?

I think we are actually talking about a change, about opportunities for the future of mankind. When the future comes, it may not be called the meta universe or web3.0, but it may be called the bird universe. It doesn't matter what the name is. What is important is that we should be keenly aware of such opportunities and future. When such a future happens, everyone can combine with their own work, study and life. Whoever combines well will probably get more opportunities.

Of course, there will be many problems in the process, but some problems seem to be problems now and may not be problems in the future. For example, teacher Peng Lan mentioned that it will occupy our "physiological bandwidth". Maybe there is such a concern today. In the future, when the virtual reality is combined, it will become an infrastructure. Like the air, it will not be able to independently obtain more worries.

What are we talking about when we talk about the metauniverse?

I think I should discuss more about such a changing trend and what the future may be like. I will say so first. Thank you.