Interconnected Realities: How the Metaverse Will Transform Our Relationship with Technology Forever

In her new book Interconnected Realities, author Leslie Shannon quotes one of her colleagues as saying “I’m not interested in putting on a helmet or goggles or whatever, and I’m not a gamer… honestly, I can’t see myself ever spending any time there.”Before reading Leslie Shannon’s new book about the Metaverse, Interconnected Realities, this pretty much summed up my view of the Metaverse as well – some vague interactive game-like world where Mark Zuckerberg has no legs.Despite the recent press about huge losses and cuts to metaverse development teams (it is estimated that Meta aka Facebook has spent more than $36 B developing the metaverse in recent years), the metaverse is still very much with us. Witness the recent announcement of the upcoming release of Apple’s Vision Pro AR/VR headset which is estimated to retail at almost $3,500. It has been reported that Apple is also working not only on the next more affordable version of the Vision Pro headset, which it positions as a “spatial computing device,” but also on Apple AR glasses and Apple AR contact lenses.One reason that I have not been particularly interested in the metaverse per se is because I have seen it mostly as an immersive video game like experience. Shannon clears this up right from the get-go by outlining a concise and readily understandable taxonomy of what the metaverse is and isn’t, what it can and can’t do, and the many “metaverse adjacent” interconnected realities that we currently experience or will experience. This is extremely helpful and informs the structure of the book making it logical, orderly and understandable even to those who have never really thought that deeply about any of this before. Oh, and she is an excellent writer – her style is personable, engaging, informative and often hilarious. Not only is she extremely well versed in the technicalities of her subject, her writing is also extensively informed by her own personal experiences as well as her passion and enthusiasm.The book is outstanding in its explication and exploration of the almost infinite use cases for the metaverse in all of its various forms. One particularly entertaining passage documents how the city of Wellington New Zealand used a “digital twin” of their city to locate “two intense concentrations of barf events” where citizens were most often prone to tossing their cookies on the streets during an evening out drinking copious amounts of beer. Through use of this digital twin, unique prescriptions for public policy emerged that surprisingly had nothing to do with directly with the beer drinking itself but rather the proximity of certain popular hamburger joints near bars. Read the book to find out why.If you want to know why Zuck has no legs in Meta’s Horizon Worlds despite spending billions on its development, this is the book for you (it’s more complicated than I thought.) While much attention has now shifted away from the metaverse to AI and ChatGPT, AI is something that will be incorporated into the metaverse (along with quantum computing and other innovаtions), not replace it. If you want insight into how the internet will reinvent itself, ignore Interconnected Realities at your own risk!

Interconnected Realities provides an accessible look at the emerging metaverse—what it is, what it can do, and how people will connect and interact with each other. I have read many books on the topic, but often excitement trumps objectivity or technical minutiae blur the big picture. Interconnected Realities is different.Leslie Shannon neatly sorts examples of metaverse-related applications into buckets and categories that guide the thinking—readers get a sense of what this new computing landscape represents and could achieve. Readers learn the ropes of technology and infrastructure needs by moving through entertaining and whimsical examples of games, use cases, and Shannon’s personal experiences.Shannon’s discussion makes understanding the technicalities of the metaverse fun. What could be a tedious run through technical and systems’ requirements instead is an intriguing look at examples that illustrate differences between AR and VR or integrated and immersive content, to name just a few examples.Shannon skillfully interweaves users’ stories and her personal anecdotes to provide readers with a lively fabric of what various metaverses are and could be—relating first-person experiences and emotions of people that have spent time in these new environments. Interconnected Realities manages to go beyond generalized descriptions. By listing and discussing a range of metaverse-related applications Shannon outlines purposes and opportunities of the various types of metaverses.Interconnected Realities is a great introduction for novices to the world of metaverses that makes it easy to understand why there has been such excitement about the topic in past years. Readers already familiar with this new computing environment will find that Interconnected Realities provides food for thought to contemplate future changes in social behavior and the societal fabric. Great read and fun examples that will make you think about the next decade and its potential.

Leslie’s book is an intriguing and fun dive into the multiple “Interconnected Realities”. The easy-to-understand examples and categorization helped me to build a holistic picture of where the industry is going and how it relates to other emerging technologies. I have worked with VR products for years and have been following Meta very closely. Therefore, I thought I should know “Metaverse” pretty well. I discovered that I knew only one part of the story and was way too VR centric on my thinking. Leslie helped me to see the broader trend of digital overlay on the physical world and importance of need for a technology to solve a problem for it to be successful.