The Metaverse isn’t a Certainty, but Certainly PR Pros Should Explore It

We received an email with this subject line: “Marketing EXPERT Says The Time is NOW to Invest in METAVERSE Marketing” (capitalizations are the writer’s).

“The metaverse will absolutely be the next frontier for advertising and e-commerce (our emphases throughout). The question is not if, but when people will adopt it. Larger companies should invest in creating virtual experiences in the metaverse today, so that they can be first to market when the technology is more widely adopted.”

The email is typical of the absolutism and hubbub associated with the metaverse. But this email writer is not alone. For example, Gartner believes “the metaverse will impact every business that consumers interact with every day.” Spending on VR and AR, two of the metaverse's major technologies, is estimated to jump from $12 billion in 2020 to $72.8 billion in 2024.
Metaverse versus Meta
True, Mark Zuckerberg is bullish on the metaverse, has renamed Facebook Meta and claims it’s now “a metaverse company.”

On the other hand, Zuckerberg also said recently it will be at least 15 years before the metaverse is fully realized. At the moment, Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse-building unit, is bleeding billions of dollars (see table).