What Is Metaverse?—A Definition Based on Qualitative Meta-Synthesis

Abstract

The term Metaverse has received much attention in various industries, in society, and, increasingly, in scientific communities. This creates demand for a comprehensive and broadly accepted definition of the subject, which is well grounded in research. At the same time, the Metaverse is rather a vision under evolution than an examinable phenomenon. Therefore, this study applied an adapted version of the meta-synthesis method to analyze the existing literature and distill a proposal for a Metaverse definition. The adapted method takes the nature of the subject into account by weighing younger publications with many citations over older, less influential documents. Initially, 47 publications were fed into the process, of which 24 were left after the primary analysis. As a result of the analysis, the following definition is proposed: “The Metaverse is an interconnected web of ubiquitous virtual worlds partly overlapping with and enhancing the physical world. These virtual worlds enable users represented by avatars to connect and interact with each other, to experience and consume user-generated content in an immersive, scalable, synchronous and persistent environment. An economic system provides incentives for contributing to the Metaverse.” The meta-synthesis method ensures a systematic and reproducible approach while at the same time preserving the original voice and notion of the analyzed literature in order to create new knowledge based on the existing literature; thus the proposed Metaverse definition might serve as a helpful foundation for future research.

Full text

Citation: Weinberger, M. What Is
Metaverse?—A Definition Based on
Qualitative Meta-Synthesis. Future
Internet 2022,14, 310. https://
doi.org/10.3390/fi14110310
Academic Editors: Diego Vergara and
JoséGómez-Galán
Received: 7 October 2022
Accepted: 26 October 2022
Published: 28 October 2022
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affil-
iations.
Copyright: © 2022 by the author.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
future internet
Article
What Is Metaverse?—A Definition Based on Qualitative
Meta-Synthesis
Markus Weinberger
Faculty Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Aalen University of Applied Science, 73430 Aalen, Germany;
markus.weinberger@hs-aalen.de
Abstract:
The term Metaverse has received much attention in various industries, in society, and,
increasingly, in scientific communities. This creates demand for a comprehensive and broadly
accepted definition of the subject, which is well grounded in research. At the same time, the
Metaverse is rather a vision under evolution than an examinable phenomenon. Therefore, this study
applied an adapted version of the meta-synthesis method to analyze the existing literature and distill
a proposal for a Metaverse definition. The adapted method takes the nature of the subject into
account by weighing younger publications with many citations over older, less influential documents.
Initially, 47 publications were fed into the process, of which 24 were left after the primary analysis. As
a result of the analysis, the following definition is proposed: “The Metaverse is an interconnected web
of ubiquitous virtual worlds partly overlapping with and enhancing the physical world. These virtual
worlds enable users represented by avatars to connect and interact with each other, to experience and
consume user-generated content in an immersive, scalable, synchronous and persistent environment.
An economic system provides incentives for contributing to the Metaverse.” The meta-synthesis
method ensures a systematic and reproducible approach while at the same time preserving the
original voice and notion of the analyzed literature in order to create new knowledge based on the
existing literature; thus the proposed Metaverse definition might serve as a helpful foundation for
future research.
Keywords: metaverse; virtual world; definition; meta-synthesis; literature survey
1. Introduction
Since Neal Stephenson coined the term Metaverse in his novel Snow Crash [
1
], the
idea of the next iteration of the internet [
2
] has received increasing attention. Google
Trends showed significantly increasing interest in the term since the end of 2021, when
Facebook rebranded to Meta [
3
], as can be seen in Figure 1. Likewise, the number of
scientific publications related to the Metaverse soared. Analyzing the publications listed
in the Web of Science database that include the term “Metaverse” in any field reveals this
steep increase. In 2020, six, and in 2021, 32 publications were listed, whereas from January
to August 2022, 158 documents were found.
Despite the huge interest and of its first appearance in fiction some 30 years ago, the
Metaverse is still considered to be in its infancy. As Matthew Ball, a prominent Metaverse
thinker stated: “
. . .
it is too early to know exactly what a “day in the life” might look
and feel like, when the Metaverse arrives.” Along these lines, he emphasized the need
to focus on the technologies and features comprising the Metaverse [
4
]. The Metaverse
is often described as the next iteration of the internet after the fixed-line internet of the
1990s, the social net of the 2000s, and the mobile internet [
2
]. It is not a replacement of
the aforementioned but the extension of them to a ubiquitous, persistent, and immersive
digital layer adding to our physical world.
Future Internet 2022,14, 310. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi14110310 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 2 of 16
Future Internet 2022, 14, 310 2 of 15
Retail is already entering the Metaverse. Hoping to create new levels of shopping
experiences, various fashion brands opened stores in virtual worlds [5]. The entertainment
industry is experimenting with concerts in the Metaverse [6], and industrial companies
are building virtual production lines to simulate physical plants. These digital twins are
industry’s take on the Metaverse [7].
Despite the aforementioned description of the Metaverse, a commonly accepted sci-
entific definition is currently not available. It is difficult to define future phenomena, and
to many practitioners, it might seem meaningless to put effort into a clear and concise
definition. However, as the body of knowledge related to the Metaverse is growing
quickly and the discussions in scientific communities deepen, a broadly accepted defini-
tion is crucial to foster communication between scientists working on a shared topic [8].
Figure 1. Search volume for “Metaverse” over time (own diagram based on data from Google
Trends retrieved 18 August 2022).
This article proposes a definition for the term Metaverse, which could serve as a basis
for scientific endeavors exploring this new realm. Recently, various definitions have been
presented in scientific and non-scientific publications. This study aims at including both
in one common approach. Most probably, this definition will be outdated after a while.
Nevertheless, for the time being, it will have a positive effect.
In order to tie the named definition to the state of science, a survey of scientific pub-
lications from the Web of Science and Google Scholar has been conducted. The results
from this survey were then fed into a consolidation process applying an adapted qualita-
tive meta-synthesis method [9].
This paper presents the applied meta-synthesis method in Section 2. The intermedi-
ate results from the first process steps are explicated in detail in Section 3 before the results
are explained and tied to the underlying literature in Section 4. Finally, the discussion is
included in Section 5.
2. Adapted Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Method
The meta-synthesis method aims to combine the qualitative results from several
studies in a manner that is systematic and reproducible. It uncovers new knowledge in-
stead of just reviewing the existing literature [9].
The meta-synthesis method comprises the following process steps [9]:
1. Conducting the primary search: Identify sources, e.g., articles or papers, to be in-
cluded in the study.
2. Primary Analysis: Determine the documents fitting the research scope.
Figure 1.
Search volume for “Metaverse” over time (own diagram based on data from Google Trends
retrieved 18 August 2022).
Retail is already entering the Metaverse. Hoping to create new levels of shopping
experiences, various fashion brands opened stores in virtual worlds [
5
]. The entertainment
industry is experimenting with concerts in the Metaverse [
6
], and industrial companies
are building virtual production lines to simulate physical plants. These digital twins are
industry’s take on the Metaverse [7].
Despite the aforementioned description of the Metaverse, a commonly accepted sci-
entific definition is currently not available. It is difficult to define future phenomena, and
to many practitioners, it might seem meaningless to put effort into a clear and concise
definition. However, as the body of knowledge related to the Metaverse is growing quickly
and the discussions in scientific communities deepen, a broadly accepted definition is
crucial to foster communication between scientists working on a shared topic [8].
This article proposes a definition for the term Metaverse, which could serve as a basis
for scientific endeavors exploring this new realm. Recently, various definitions have been
presented in scientific and non-scientific publications. This study aims at including both
in one common approach. Most probably, this definition will be outdated after a while.
Nevertheless, for the time being, it will have a positive effect.
In order to tie the named definition to the state of science, a survey of scientific
publications from the Web of Science and Google Scholar has been conducted. The results
from this survey were then fed into a consolidation process applying an adapted qualitative
meta-synthesis method [9].
This paper presents the applied meta-synthesis method in Section 2. The intermediate
results from the first process steps are explicated in detail in Section 3before the results
are explained and tied to the underlying literature in Section 4. Finally, the discussion is
included in Section 5.
2. Adapted Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Method
The meta-synthesis method aims to combine the qualitative results from several
studies in a manner that is systematic and reproducible. It uncovers new knowledge
instead of just reviewing the existing literature [9].
The meta-synthesis method comprises the following process steps [9]:
1.
Conducting the primary search: Identify sources, e.g., articles or papers, to be included
in the study.
2. Primary Analysis: Determine the documents fitting the research scope.
3.
Coding “Within case analysis”: Identify the themes or topics exemplifying the main
ideas.

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 3 of 16
4.
Synthesis “Cross case analysis”: Identify the commonalities in themes and topics
across the various documents.
5.
Presenting results: The presentation of the results should have a rather narrative style,
not just present quantitative data.
In this study, the method outlined above has been adapted by introducing an addi-
tional step after step 3. The vision of the Metaverse and its understanding have evolved
since the term first appeared in the literature in the 1990s. Because the subject of this
research is a vision for the future rather than being defined by natural law, it is reasonable
to take the time of the publication of the individual literature sources into account. Fur-
thermore, the analyzed sources do not seem to all have the same influence on the scientific
discussion on the Metaverse. Thus, it is reasonable to adapt the qualitative meta-synthesis
method and introduce a weighting factor. Further details on the calculation of this weight
will be presented in Section 3.
3. Intermediate Results
This chapter is organized along the process steps explained in Section 2, except for the
last step, “Presenting results”, which can be found in Section 4. The results of each process
step are presented and explained.
3.1. Primary Search—Data Collection
For the identification of the sources to be included in the study, Noah [
9
] recommends
including additional sources of articles and papers as soon as data saturation on one
database is reached. This should not be limited to academic journals.
The publications included in this study were found on the Web of Science (retrieved
on 18 August 2022) and Google Scholar (retrieved on 12 July 2022). In both databases,
“metaverse definition” was used as a search term without any additional filters. This
provided a large number of results in Google Scholar. The first 40 results of this search
were included for the next step of the analysis, as saturation seemed to be reached with this
number of results. This was further confirmed by the observation that the overall weight
calculated in Section 3.3 decreases significantly for higher search results. While the first
five results in Google Scholar [
10
–
14
] have a combined weight of 55.2, the same value for
search results No. 36 to 40 [
15
–
19
] is only eight. The search on the Web of Science provided
a total of nine results, four of which were also comprised in the Google Scholar results.
In addition, two non-academic publications authored by influential Metaverse thinkers—
Matthew Ball and John Coogan—were included. This is in line with the aim of the meta-
synthesis method to provide comprehensive results [
9
]. An overview of the 47 publications
covered in this survey is presented in Table 1.
Table 1.
List of publications initially included in the qualitative meta-synthesis. For Google Scholar
the sequence reflects the respective search result rank.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication Source Reason for
Exclusion
[10]
Nevelsteen, Kim J. L.
Virtual world, defined from a
technological perspective and
applied to video games,
mixed reality, and the
Metaverse
2018 Google Scholar,
Web of Science
[11]Mystakidis,
Stylianos Metaverse 2022 Google Scholar

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 4 of 16
Table 1. Cont.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication Source Reason for
Exclusion
[12] Narin, Nida Gökçe A Content Analysis of the
Metaverse Articles 2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[13] Kim, Jooyoung Advertising in the Metaverse:
Research Agenda 2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[14]Hwang, Gwo-Jen;
Chien, Shu-Yun
Definition, roles, and potential
research issues of the
metaverse in education: An
artificial intelligence
perspective
2022 Google Scholar
[20]
Duan, Haihan; Li,
Jiaye; Fan, Sizheng;
Lin, Zhonghao; Wu,
Xiao; Cai, Wie
Metaverse for social good: A
university campus prototype 2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[21]Park, Sang-Min;
Kim, Young-Gab
A Metaverse: Taxonomy,
Components, Applications,
and Open Challenges
2022 Google Scholar,
Web of Science
No own definition
included
[22]
Dionisio, John David
N.; III, William G.
Burns; Gilbert,
Richard
3D Virtual worlds and the
metaverse 2013 Google Scholar
[23]
Davis, Alanah;
Murphy, John;
Owens, Dawn;
Khazanchi, Deepak;
Zigurs, Ilze
Avatars, People, and Virtual
Worlds: Foundations for
Research in Metaverses
2009 Google Scholar
[24]
Cheng, Ruizhi; Wu,
Nan; Chen,
Songqing; Han, Bo
Will Metaverse be NextG
Internet? Vision, Hype, and
Reality
2022 Google Scholar
[25]
Hollensen, Svend;
Kotler, Philip;
Opresnik, Marc
Oliver
Metaverse—the new
marketing universe 2022 Google Scholar
[26]
Kye, Bokyung; Han,
Nara; Kim, Eunji;
Park, Yeonjeong; Jo,
Soyoung
Educational applications of
metaverse: possibilities and
limitations
2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[27]Song, Stephen W.;
Chung, Dong-Hun
Explication and rational
conceptualization of
metaverse
2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[28] Kozinets, Robert V.
Immersive netnography: a
novel method for service
experience research in virtual
reality, augmented reality and
metaverse contexts
2022 Google Scholar,
Web of Science
[29]
Lim, Wei Yang
Bryan; Xiong, Zehui;
Niyato, Dusit; Cao,
Xianbin; Miao,
Chunyan; Sun,
Sumei; Yang, Qiang
Realizing the Metaverse with
Edge Intelligence: A Match
Made in Heaven
2022 Google Scholar

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 5 of 16
Table 1. Cont.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication Source Reason for
Exclusion
[30]
Shen, Bingqing; Tan,
Weiming; Guo,
Jingzhi; Zhao,
Linshuang; Qin,
Peng
How to Promote User
Purchase in Metaverse? A
Systematic Literature Review
on Consumer Behavior
Research and Virtual
Commerce Application
Design
2021 Google Scholar
[31]
Akour, Iman A.;
Al-Maroof, Rana
Saeed; Alfaisal,
Raghad; Salloum,
Said A
A conceptual framework for
determining metaverse
adoption in higher
institutions of gulf area: An
empirical study using hybrid
SEM-ANN approach
2022 Google Scholar
[32]van der Merwe,
David Frederick
The metaverse as virtual
heterotopia 2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[33]
Mozumder, Md
Ariful Islam;
Sheeraz,
Muhammad
Mohsan; Athar, Ali;
Aich, Satyabrata;
Kim, Hee-Cheol
Overview: Technology
Roadmap of the Future Trend
of Metaverse based on IoT,
Blockchain, AI Technique, and
Medical Domain Metaverse
Activity
2022 Google Scholar
[34]
Kraus, Sascha;
Kanbach, Dominik
K.; Krysta, Peter M.;
Steinhoff, Maurice
M.; Tomini, Nino
Facebook and the creation of
the metaverse: radical
business model innovation or
incremental transformation
2022 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[35]
Ning, Huansheng;
Wang, Hang; Lin,
Yujia; Wang, Wenxi;
Dhelim, Sahraoui;
Farha, Fadi et al.
A Survey on Metaverse: the
State-of-the-art, Technologies,
Applications, and Challenges
2021 Google Scholar
[36] Damar, Muhammet
Metaverse Shape of Your Life
for Future: A bibliometric
snapshot
2021 Google Scholar
[37] Jeon, Joo-Eon
The Effects of User
Experience-Based Design
Innovativeness on
User-Metaverse Platform
Channel Relationships in
South Korea
2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[38] Vidal-Tomás, David
The new crypto niche: NFTs,
play-to-earn, and metaverse
tokens
2022 Google Scholar
[39]Lee, Un-Kon; Kim,
Hyekyung
UTAUT in Metaverse: An
“Ifland” Case 2022 Google Scholar,
Web of Science
No own definition
included
[40] Collins, Chris Looking to the future: Higher
education in the Metaverse 2008 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[41]
Han, Yue; Niyato,
Dusit; Leung, Cyril;
Miao, Chunyan;
Kim, Dong
A Dynamic Resource
Allocation Framework for
Synchronizing Metaverse
with IoT Service and Data
2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 6 of 16
Table 1. Cont.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication Source Reason for
Exclusion
[42]
Pamucar, Dragan;
Deveci, Muhammet;
Gokasar, Ilgin;
Tavana, Madjid;
Köppen, Mario
A metaverse assessment
model for sustainable
transportation using ordinal
priority approach and
Aczel-Alsina norms
2022 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[43]
Lee, Lik-Hang;
Braud, Tristan; Zhou,
Pengyuan; Wang,
Lin; Xu, Dianlei; Lin,
Zijun et al.
All One Needs to Know about
Metaverse: A Complete
Survey on Technological
Singularity, Virtual Ecosystem,
and Research Agenda
2021 Google Scholar
[44]Lombardi, Julian;
Lombardi, Marilyn
Opening the Metaverse. In:
Online Worlds: Convergence
of the Real and the Virtual
2010 Google Scholar Book Chapter not
accessible
[45]Wiederhold, Brenda
K.
Ready (or Not) Player One:
Initial Musings on the
Metaverse
2022 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[46] Shin, Donghee
The actualization of meta
affordances: Conceptualizing
affordance actualization in the
metaverse games
2022 Google Scholar Book Chapter not
accessible
[47]Fang, Zhixin; Cai,
Libai; Wang, Gang
MetaHuman Creator The
starting point of the metaverse
2021 Google Scholar
[48]Baía Reis, António;
Ashmore, Mark
From video streaming to
virtual reality worlds: an
academic, reflective, and
creative study on live theatre
and performance in the
metaverse
2022 Google Scholar Paper not
accessible
[49]
Wang, Yuntao; Su,
Zhou; Zhang, Ning;
Liu, Dongxiao; Xing,
Rui; Luan, Tom H.;
Shen, Xuemin
A Survey on Metaverse:
Fundamentals, Security, and
Privacy
2022 Google Scholar
[19]Chen, Donghua;
Zhang, Runtong
Exploring Research Trends of
Emerging Technologies in
Health Metaverse
2022 Google Scholar
[18]
Tlili, Ahmed; Huang,
Ronghuai; Shehata,
Boulus; Liu, Dejian;
Zhao, Jialu;
Metwally, Ahmed
Hosny Saleh et al.
Is Metaverse in education a
blessing or a curse: a
combined content and
bibliometric analysis
2022 Google Scholar
[17]
Seidel, Stefan;
Berente, Nicholas;
Nickerson, Jeffrey;
Yepes, Gregory
Designing the Metaverse 2022 Google Scholar
[16]Sriram, Gopala
Krishna
A Comprehensive Survey on
Metaverse 2022 Google Scholar No own definition
included
[15]
Gokmi, Kim; Jeon, Ju
Hyun
A Study on the Copyright
Survey for Design Protection
in Metaverse Period
2021 Google Scholar No own definition
included

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 7 of 16
Table 1. Cont.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication Source Reason for
Exclusion
[50] Ayiter, Elif
Spatial poetics, place,
non-place and storyworlds:
Intimate spaces for metaverse
avatars
2019 Web of Science
[51]
Deveci, Muhammet;
Pamucar, Dragan;
Gokasar, Ilgin;
Koppen, Mario;
Gupta, Brij B.
Personal Mobility in
Metaverse With Autonomous
Vehicles Using Q-Rung
Orthopair Fuzzy Sets Based
OPA-RAFSI Model
2022 Web of Science No own definition
included
[52]
Rauschnabel, Philipp
A.; Babin, Barry J.;
tom Dieck, M.
Claudia; Krey, Nina;
Jung, Timothy
What is augmented reality
marketing? Its definition,
complexity, and future
2022 Web of Science No own definition
included
[53]
Rauschnabel, Philipp
A.; Felix, Reto;
Hinsch, Chris;
Shahab, Hamza; Alt,
Florian
What is XR? Towards a
Framework for Augmented
and Virtual Reality
2022 Web of Science No own definition
included
[54]
Moon, Jaewoong;
Kim, Subin; Song,
Jaeseung; Kim,
Kyungshin
Study on Machine Learning
Techniques for Malware
Classification and Detection
2021 Web of Science No own definition
included
[4] Ball, Matthew The Metaverse: And How it
Will Revolutionize Everything
2022 Additionally
selected source
[55] Coogan, John You Don’t Know the
Metaverse . . . 2021 Additionally
selected source
For all of the publications included in further analysis, the number of citations, as seen
in Google Scholar, was recorded. For the book authored by Matthew Ball and published in
July 2022, citations were already recorded in Google Scholar. This information was retrieved
on 26 August 2022. For John Coogans YouTube video, no actual citation information is
available. In order to represent the influence of this publication, the number of subscribers
to John Coogans YouTube channel (198,000 as of 26 August 2022) and the number of views
of the respective video (378,012 as of 26 August 2022) were considered. Taking these figures
into account, a virtual number of citations of 10 was estimated and added to the dataset.
3.2. Primary Analysis
The texts were carefully read to determine whether significant definitions for the term
Metaverse were included in the publications. This was considered the case if the document
included a self-contained definition of the term Metaverse that was not just a full citation of
another source. The publications without an included Metaverse definition were excluded
from the further analysis process. For example, in the case of a metastudy, just presenting
definitions from other publications no own definition was recorded in this process step.
This led to the exclusion of such metastudies. However, in such cases, many publications
presented in the respective metastudies are included in this survey as original sources.
In total, 23 documents were excluded from further analysis, leaving 24 documents in the
process. The details can be seen in Table 1.

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 8 of 16
3.3. Weighing
The characteristic of the research topic required adapting the meta-synthesis method
with an additional step. This has already been discussed in Section 2.
In order to take the time since publication and the impact of a document on the
scientific discussion into account, a weight was calculated for each document. For the
weight (W), Formula (1) was applied. While nis the total number of citations, in the
denominator, the time between the year of the study at hand (2022) and the year of
the respective publication (y) is calculated. One is added to avoid division by zero for
publications dating from 2022
W=n
2022 −y+1(1)
The result of the weighing is presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Results after weighing the documents included for further analysis.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication
No of
Citations Weight
[43]
Lee, Lik-Hang; Braud,
Tristan; Zhou, Pengyuan;
Wang, Lin; Xu, Dianlei;
Lin, Zijun et al.
All One Needs to Know about
Metaverse: A Complete Survey
on Technological Singularity,
Virtual Ecosystem, and Research
Agenda
2021 104 52
[11] Mystakidis, Stylianos Metaverse 2022 34 34
[23]
Davis, Alanah; Murphy,
John; Owens, Dawn;
Khazanchi, Deepak;
Zigurs, Ilze
Avatars, People, and Virtual
Worlds: Foundations for Research
in Metaverses
2009 371 26.5
[22]
Dionisio, John David N.;
III, William G. Burns;
Gilbert, Richard
3D Virtual worlds and the
metaverse 2013 235 23.5
[35]
Ning, Huansheng; Wang,
Hang; Lin, Yujia; Wang,
Wenxi; Dhelim, Sahraoui;
Farha, Fadi et al.
A Survey on Metaverse: the
State-of-the-art, Technologies,
Applications, and Challenges
2021 43 21.5
[29]
Lim, Wei Yang Bryan;
Xiong, Zehui; Niyato,
Dusit; Cao, Xianbin; Miao,
Chunyan; Sun, Sumei;
Yang, Qiang
Realizing the Metaverse with
Edge Intelligence: A Match Made
in Heaven
2022 18 18
[25]
Hollensen, Svend; Kotler,
Philip; Opresnik, Marc
Oliver
Metaverse–the new marketing
universe 2022 17 17
[28] Kozinets, Robert V.
Immersive netnography: a novel
method for service experience
research in virtual reality,
augmented reality and metaverse
contexts
2022 13 13
[14]Hwang, Gwo-Jen; Chien,
Shu-Yun
Definition, roles, and potential
research issues of the metaverse
in education: An artificial
intelligence perspective
2022 12 12
[36] Damar, Muhammet Metaverse Shape of Your Life for
Future: A bibliometric snapshot 2021 24 12

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 9 of 16
Table 2. Cont.
Reference Authors Title Year of
Publication
No of
Citations Weight
[49]
Wang, Yuntao; Su, Zhou;
Zhang, Ning; Liu,
Dongxiao; Xing, Rui;
Luan, Tom H.; Shen,
Xuemin
A Survey on Metaverse:
Fundamentals, Security, and
Privacy
2022 11 11
[10] Nevelsteen, Kim J. L.
Virtual world, defined from a
technological perspective and
applied to video games, mixed
reality, and the Metaverse
2018 46 9.2
[30]
Shen, Bingqing; Tan,
Weiming; Guo, Jingzhi;
Zhao, Linshuang; Qin,
Peng
How to Promote User Purchase in
Metaverse? A Systematic
Literature Review on Consumer
Behavior Research and Virtual
Commerce Application Design
2021 18 9
[38] Vidal-Tomás, David
The new crypto niche: NFTs,
play-to-earn, and metaverse
tokens
2022 8 8
[4] Ball, Matthew The Metaverse: And How it Will
Revolutionize Everything 2022 8 8
[31]
Akour, Iman A.;
Al-Maroof, Rana Saeed;
Alfaisal, Raghad; Salloum,
Said A
A conceptual framework for
determining metaverse adoption
in higher institutions of gulf area:
An empirical study using hybrid
SEM-ANN approach
2022 6 6
[33]
Mozumder, Md Ariful
Islam; Sheeraz,
Muhammad Mohsan;
Athar, Ali; Aich,
Satyabrata; Kim,
Hee-Cheol
Overview: Technology Roadmap
of the Future Trend of Metaverse
based on IoT, Blockchain, AI
Technique, and Medical Domain
Metaverse Activity
2022 6 6
[24]Cheng, Ruizhi; Wu, Nan;
Chen, Songqing; Han, Bo
Will Metaverse be NextG
Internet? Vision, Hype, and
Reality
2022 5 5
[55] Coogan, John You Don´t Know the Metaverse
. . . 2021 10 5
[47]Fang, Zhixin; Cai, Libai;
Wang, Gang
MetaHuman Creator The starting
point of the metaverse 2021 8 4
[19]Chen, Donghua; Zhang,
Runtong
Exploring Research Trends of
Emerging Technologies in Health
Metaverse
2022 4 4
[17]
Seidel, Stefan; Berente,
Nicholas; Nickerson,
Jeffrey; Yepes, Gregory
Designing the Metaverse 2022 4 4
[50] Ayiter, Elif
Spatial poetics, place, non-place
and storyworlds: Intimate spaces
for metaverse avatars
2019 6 1.5
[18]
Tlili, Ahmed; Huang,
Ronghuai; Shehata,
Boulus; Liu, Dejian; Zhao,
Jialu; Metwally, Ahmed
Hosny Saleh et al.
Is Metaverse in education a
blessing or a curse: a combined
content and bibliometric analysis
2022 0 0

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 10 of 16
3.4. Coding
The Metaverse definitions were excerpted from the relevant publications. Only these
excerpts were compared in an iterative process. This led to a list of key topics, which can
be found in the left column “Key Topic” of Table 3.
Table 3. Results after clustering key topics and sorting for the cluster weight.
Key Topic Cumulated Weight Cluster Weight
3D virtual world 140.5
426.2
Virtual World—real-world metaphor/simulated
environment/computer-generated world/virtual
world/mirroring the physical world
155.2
Facilitated/enabled by XR, AR, VR—fully or
partly virtual 130.5
Immersive Internet 52
300
Immersive, Realism 228.5
Embodied internet (with the notion of being inside it)
19.5
Interaction
, communication, collaboration activity
214.7
265.2
Next-Gen social connection 12
New internet application 38.5
Scalability, multiuser, unlimited no of users 141 258.7
Unified/shared/shardless 117.7
Persistent 159.2
253.2
Perpetual 86
Continuity of data 8
Integrating/blending/blurring the virtual world
and real world 157.5
181.5
Virtually enhanced physical reality and space 6
Entire digital and virtual world 6
Recording lifelogging 12
Interoperability 97 180.5
Interconnected web 83.5
Several virtual worlds form the metaverse 172.2 172.2
Avatars/agents 127.7 127.7
Concurrent/live/synchronous/real-time 105.2 105.2
Economic system
67.5 78.5
Self-sustaining
Economic governance
Consistent value system 11
Ubiquity (accessibility everywhere and device
independently) 74 74
User-generated content 55.5
59.5
Various Events/Activities 4
Open-ended setting/digital culture 23.5
Mirror image of real world 21.5
49.7
Artificial space in parallel to physical
world—independent 8
Hyper spatiotemporal 20.2
3.5. Synthesis
The qualitative meta-synthesis method aims to leverage existing knowledge to “syn-
thethise and create new knowledge” [
9
]. Thus, the weight of each key topic was used as an
important indicator for dominant wording and the impact of specific key topics. However,

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 11 of 16
at the same time, intuition was applied for the clustering of similar topics. Further details
of the procedure are laid out in this chapter.
In the synthesis step of the analysis, the key topics, which resulted from the coding
step, were first clustered to find common elements. In order to identify the dominant
wording for these elements, the weight was taken into account. This meant that each key
topic earned the weight of all documents in which it appeared. These figures were summed
up for each key topic and labeled “Cumulated Weight”.
Table 3presents the results of the synthesis step. Key topics surrounded by a solid
line represent a cluster. This means that they represent very similar ideas, features, or
understanding of the Metaverse. In the column “Cumulated Weight”, for each key topic,
the sum of all weights is included. These weights originate from the source documents
in which the respective key topic appeared. Finally, the right column, “Cluster Weight”,
contains the sum of the key topic weights for each cluster. Table 3has been sorted to
decrease the “Cluster Weight”.
4. Results
The meta-synthesis method aims to keep the voice of the original text alive rather than
just calculating abstract data [
9
]. Following this approach, this chapter first presents two
comprehensive and up-to-date definitions from the sources included in this study in order
to provide a complete picture of the current status of the scientific discourse. Then the
results related to the found key topic clusters, as depicted in Table 3, are explained along
with characteristic example citations from impactful sources. Finally, a comprehensive
definition is distilled, taking the development over time into account.
4.1. Existing Definitions from Literature
The following definitions are cited from the documents that were included in this
study. They exemplify the current status of the scientific discourse.
The article published by Lee et al. in 2021 [
43
], despite being quite young, reached the
highest weight. It does not provide a dedicated Metaverse definition, but the following
fragments contribute to a closed picture of the authors’ view. In the abstract of their article,
they state, “At the core of the metaverse stands the vision of an immersive Internet as a
gigantic, unified, persistent, and shared realm.” Later they add: “In this paper, we consider
the metaverse as a virtual environment blending physical and digital, facilitated by the
convergence between the Internet and Web technologies, and Extended Reality (XR).”
Finally, they add the following aspects: “The metaverse should own perpetual, shared,
concurrent, and 3D virtual spaces that are concatenated into a perceived virtual universe.”
Ball’s book, published in July 2022, and his previously released so-called Metaverse
Primer have been well received and covered by many mainstream media, such as the
Financial Times [
56
] or the Washington Post [
57
]. Ball contributes the following definition:
“The Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D
virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively
unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of
data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments.” [4]
4.2. Analysis Results for Key Topic Clusters
In 2009 Davis et al. [
23
] wrote: “Metaverses are immersive three-dimensional virtual
worlds
. . .
” using the plural of the term Metaverse. However, later in the same article, they
write, “A specific instantiation of a metaverse is a virtual world, including what others refer
to as virtual spaces or virtual world environments.” [
23
] In their 2021 article, Lee et al. [
43
]
state that the Metaverse is “
. . .
characterised by perpetual, shared, concurrent, and 3D
virtual spaces concatenating into a perceived virtual universe.” This clearly emphasizes the
notion that there is only one Metaverse comprising many virtual worlds.
Many authors, such as Ball [
4
], Mystakidis [
11
], and Coogan [
55
], underline that these
virtual worlds need to be interconnected, making interoperability an important feature of

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 12 of 16
the Metaverse. Dionisio et al. [
22
] defined interoperability as “
. . .
the ability of distinct
systems or platforms to exchange information or interact with each other seamlessly and,
when possible, transparently. Interoperability also implies some type of consensus or
convention which then become standards when formalized.” Moreover, in the same article,
they come to the conclusion that “interoperability remains a key feature of virtual worlds
in its own right, because it is interoperability that puts the capital M in the Metaverse: just
as the singular capitalized Internet is borne of layered standards which allow disparate
heterogeneous networks and subnetworks to communicate with each other transparently.”
Regarding the nature of the Metaverse, Wang et al. [
49
] wrote in their 2022 article:
“Commonly, the metaverse is regarded as a fully immersive, hyper spatiotemporal, and
self-sustaining virtual shared space blending the ternary physical, human, and digital
worlds.” This clarifies that the Metaverse includes a variety of concepts ranging from
purely virtual worlds leveraging a real-world metaphor, as Davis et al. [
22
] framed it, to
others overlapping with or mirroring the physical world. For example, Ning et al. [
35
]
emphasize these aspects as they write: “It provides an immersive experience based on
augmented reality technology, generates a mirror image of the real world based on digital
twin technology, . . . ”.
Several documents included in this study comprise the aspect of ubiquity [
22
,
29
,
35
].
Dionisio et al. [
22
] draw from the understanding that the Metaverse “
. . .
operates in parallel
with the physical domain”. This leads to the idea of a virtual or digital layer overlaying
the physical world. To realize this, two aspects of ubiquity are required: “ubiquitous
availability and access, and ubiquitous persona and presence.” [
22
] While ubiquitous
availability relates to the specific requirements towards UI hardware, computing power,
and connectivity, does the idea of ubiquitous persona and presence lead to the notion
of persistent avatars representing users and their identity. This will be discussed in the
following paragraphs.
The idea that users are represented by avatars in the Metaverse can already be found
in Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash [
1
]. Many documents in this study explicitly mention
this aspect, when explaining the Metaverse [10,14,23–25,29,30,35,38,50].
The aspect of persistence is important, too, and it is not limited to avatars but many
other elements of virtual worlds, such as assets, content, or currencies [
4
,
22
]. While Ball,
in his 2022 book [
4
], explains: “Some virtual worlds are fully persistent, which means
everything that happens inside them is permanent.” Dionisio et al. [
22
] define: “It is
persistent. The virtual environment continues to operate even when a particular user is not
connected.” Furthermore, in his 2021 video, Coogan [
55
] states, referring to the Metaverse,
that persistence means “ . . . that it never resets, pauses or ends.”
Users are assumed to engage in the Metaverse in order to connect and interact with
other users. Hwang et al. [
14
], for example, write: “In the Metaverse space, people can
engage in social activities such as discussing an issue, collaborating on a project, play-
ing games, and learning from experiencing or solving some problems.” Shen et al.’s [
30
]
definition of a virtual world includes the following statement: “
. . .
allowing users repre-
sented as avatars to interact with other users and in-world content.” extending the scope to
in-world content.
As Coogan [
55
] says in his video referring to user-generated content: “This is basically
a requirement, since no single company could ever hope to produce enough variation in
their games to satisfy everyone. Roblox and Minecraft have been so successful, because
community members create engaging and unique experiences for each other.” Furthermore,
Ning et al. [
35
] state that a Metaverse should allow “
. . .
each user to produce content and
edit the world.”
Important factors motivating users to contribute to a virtual world are monetary in-
centives, which require an economic system. This aspect has completed the understanding
of the Metaverse only lately. All of the analyzed documents mentioning this aspect were
published in 2021 or later. For example, Wang et al. [
49
], in their 2022 article, defined: “The
Metaverse [
. . .
] is a computer-generated world with a consistent value system and an

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 13 of 16
independent economic system linked to the physical world.” And Coogan [
55
] makes a
prediction saying: “The Metaverse will have a fully functioning economy”.
Another important aspect for both users and content creators is that virtual worlds
and the Metaverse, as a whole, are immersive. This has been mentioned in more than
half of the source documents included for analysis in this study. Mystakidis [
11
] explains:
“Immersion determines the degree that the user feels that s/he is cognitively teleported to
an alternative, synthetic world.”. He distinguishes socio-psychological immersion, similar
to the feeling of being drawn into a movie or a thrilling book, and multimodal immersion,
created by technical means to feed sensory channels with optical, acoustic, touch, and
other signals.
Contributing least to this immersion are the two other requirements for the Metaverse
and the constituting virtual worlds: They must be scalable and real-time synchronous.
Ning et al. [
35
] define scalability as “The ability of the virtual social world to manage
computational power in such a way that a large number of users can interact socially in the
Metaverse without experiencing disconnections and interruptions in their immersive expe-
rience.” This includes aspects of handling very large numbers of users concurrently, coping
with a large number of very detailed and complex objects and avatar interactions [
22
].
Moreover, Shen et al. [
30
] state that virtual worlds are “environments, allowing users [
. . .
]
to interact with other users and in-world content in (nearly) realtime.”
4.3. Analysis Result and Definition
The meta-synthesis process provided clustered key topics with clustered weights,
providing an indication of the important topics to be considered in a new definition.
Reviewing the existing self-contained definitions from the sources included in this study,
as well as again reviewing the original sources related to specific key topics, as presented
in Section 4.2, led to a well-founded intuition to find the dominant terms for each topic.
These dominant terms are printed in bold font in Table 3. In line with Noah’s [
9
] approach
to “create new knowledge from existing knowledge”, these results were used to propose
the following definition for the term Metaverse for future use in scientific discussion:
The Metaverse is an interconnected web of ubiquitous virtual worlds partly over-
lapping with and enhancing the physical world. These virtual worlds enable users who
are represented by avatars to connect and interact with each other, and to experience and
consume user-generated content in an immersive, scalable, synchronous, and persistent
environment. An economic system provides incentives for contributing to the Metaverse.
5. Discussion
This study aimed to contribute a definition of the term Metaverse that is soundly
anchored in the existing body of knowledge. In order to reach this, an established research
method has been applied: the meta-synthesis method. Its strength lies in a systematic
and reproducible approach, which at the same time incorporates the original literature.
This ensures maintaining the voice of the original literature and its notion, thus leading to
the aforementioned anchoring. Based on this analysis, the process requires intuition and
creativity to create new knowledge: the Metaverse definition is presented in Section 4.3.
As the subject of study is still years from its full implementation, it is constantly
evolving, and the ideas and opinions amongst researchers and practitioners have been
subject to change, as can be seen from the results of this study. For example, the notion
of only one Metaverse comprising many virtual worlds has not been clearly phrased in
earlier documents. The importance of a complete economic system has been pointed out
only in recent publications. In order to cope with the characteristics of such a new topic,
the method has been adapted as the documents have been weighted.
Comparing the resulting definition presented in Section 4.3 to the existing definitions
by Lee [
43
] and Ball [
4
] cited in Section 4.1 shows, on the one hand, that the newly proposed
definition is in no contradiction to the existing, impactful literature. At the same time, it
becomes obvious that both definitions lack important aspects, which are present in other

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 14 of 16
sources, such as the notion of users being represented by avatars in the Metaverse or the
importance of an economic system.
As the Metaverse is not mature, the question might be asked whether it is reasonable
to try to define the phenomenon. On the other hand, researchers around the world are
exploring this interesting space. As can be seen from the analyzed documents, all of them
spend a lot of effort into explaining or even defining the term Metaverse for the scope of
their research. The results of this study can help to reduce this effort by proposing a unified
yet comprehensive definition.
From today
´
s perspective, the descriptions and definitions of the Metaverse might
seem blurry and provisional, and the application of the examples provided in Section 1
are very small first steps. However, the Metaverse can serve well as an indication of
where the internet will develop. These indications point towards a direction where users
have the notion of being surrounded by or immersed in a virtual layer that is ubiquitous
and persistent. The Metaverse provides huge opportunities and important challenges,
e.g., regarding privacy or user security, such as social media or mobile internet did some
20 years ago.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declare no conflict of interest.
References
1. Stephenson, N. Snow Crash; Bantam Paperback, Ed.; Bantam Books: New York, NY, USA, 1993; ISBN 055308853X.
2.
Ball, M. The Metaverse Primer: Framework for the Metaverse. Available online: https://www.matthewball.vc/all/
forwardtothemetaverseprimer (accessed on 18 August 2022).
3.
Zuckerberg, M. Founder’s Letter. 2021. Available online: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/ (accessed on
18 August 2022).
4.
Ball, M. The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, 1st ed.; Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W.
Norton & Company: New York, NY, USA, 2022; ISBN 1324092033.
5.
PVH. Tommy Hilfiger Joins the First-Ever Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week. Available online: https://www.pvh.com/
news/tommy-hilfiger-metaverse-fashion-week-2022 (accessed on 24 October 2022).
6.
Tassi, P. Fortnite’s Travis Scott Concert Was a Stunning Spectacle and a Glimpse at the Metaverse. Available online:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/04/23/fortnites-travis-scott-concert-was-a-stunning- spectacle-and-a-
glimpse-at-the-metaverse/ (accessed on 24 October 2022).
7.
Martin, S. What Is a Digital Twin?: A Digital Twin Is a Virtual Representation Synchronized with Physical Things, People or
Processes. Available online: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/12/14/what-is-a-digital-twin/ (accessed on 24 October 2022).
8.
Hodgson, G.M. Taxonomic definitions in social science, with firms, markets and institutions as case studies. J. Inst. Econ.
2019
,15,
207–233. [CrossRef]
9. Noah, P.D., Jr. A systematic approach to the qualitative meta-synthesis. IIS 2017,18, 196–205. [CrossRef]
10.
Nevelsteen, K.J.L. Virtual world, defined from a technological perspective and applied to video games, mixed reality, and the
Metaverse. Comput. Anim. Virtual Worlds 2018,29, e1752. [CrossRef]
11. Mystakidis, S. Metaverse. Encyclopedia 2022,2, 486–497. [CrossRef]
12. Narin, N.G. A Content Analysis of the Metaverse Articles. J. Metaverse 2021,1, 17–24.
13. Kim, J. Advertising in the Metaverse: Research Agenda. J. Interact. Advert. 2021,21, 141–144. [CrossRef]
14.
Hwang, G.-J.; Chien, S.-Y. Definition, roles, and potential research issues of the metaverse in education: An artificial intelligence
perspective. Comput. Educ. Artif. Intell. 2022,3, 100082. [CrossRef]
15.
Gokmi, K.; Jeon, J.H. A Study on the Copyright Survey for Design Protection in Metaverse Period. Int. J. Adv. Smart Converg.
2021,10, 181–186. [CrossRef]
16. Sriram, G.K. A Comprehensive Survey on Metaverse. Int. Res. J. Mod. Eng. Technol. Sci. 2022,4, 772–775.
17.
Seidel, S.; Berente, N.; Nickerson, J.; Yepes, G. Designing the Metaverse. In Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences, Maui, HI, USA, 4–7 January 2022.
18.
Tlili, A.; Huang, R.; Shehata, B.; Liu, D.; Zhao, J.; Metwally, A.H.S.; Wang, H.; Denden, M.; Bozkurt, A.; Lee, L.-H.; et al. Is
Metaverse in education a blessing or a curse: A combined content and bibliometric analysis. Smart Learn. Environ.
2022
,9, 24.
[CrossRef]
19.
Chen, D.; Zhang, R. Exploring Research Trends of Emerging Technologies in Health Metaverse: A Bibliometric Analysis. Available online:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3998068 (accessed on 24 August 2022).

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 15 of 16
20.
Duan, H.; Li, J.; Fan, S.; Lin, Z.; Wu, X.; Cai, W. Metaverse for social good: A university campus prototype. In Proceedings of the
29th ACM International Conference on Multimedia, New York, NY, USA, 20–24 October 2021; pp. 153–161.
21.
Park, S.-M.; Kim, Y.-G. A Metaverse: Taxonomy, Components, Applications, and Open Challenges. IEEE Access
2022
,10,
4209–4251. [CrossRef]
22.
Dionisio, J.D.N.; Burns, W.G., III; Gilbert, R. 3D Virtual worlds and the metaverse. ACM Comput. Surv.
2013
,45, 1–38. [CrossRef]
23.
Davis, A.; Murphy, J.; Owens, D.; Khazanchi, D.; Zigurs, I. Avatars, People, and Virtual Worlds: Foundations for Research in
Metaverses. JAIS 2009,10, 90–117. [CrossRef]
24.
Cheng, R.; Wu, N.; Chen, S.; Han, B. Will Metaverse be NextG Internet? Vision, Hype, and Reality. arXiv
2022
, arXiv:2201.12894.
[CrossRef]
25. Hollensen, S.; Kotler, P.; Opresnik, M.O. Metaverse–the new marketing universe. JBS,ahead-of-print. 2022. [CrossRef]
26.
Kye, B.; Han, N.; Kim, E.; Park, Y.; Jo, S. Educational applications of metaverse: Possibilities and limitations. J. Educ. Eval. Health
Prof. 2021,18, 32. [CrossRef]
27. Song, S.W.; Chung, D.-H. Explication and Rational Conceptualization of Metaverse. Informatiz. Policy 2021,28, 3–22. [CrossRef]
28.
Kozinets, R.V. Immersive netnography: A novel method for service experience research in virtual reality, augmented reality and
metaverse contexts. JOSM,ahead-of-print. 2022. [CrossRef]
29.
Lim, W.Y.B.; Xiong, Z.; Niyato, D.; Cao, X.; Miao, C.; Sun, S.; Yang, Q. Realizing the Metaverse with Edge Intelligence: A Match
Made in Heaven. arXiv 2022, arXiv:2201.01634. [CrossRef]
30.
Shen, B.; Tan, W.; Guo, J.; Zhao, L.; Qin, P. How to Promote User Purchase in Metaverse? A Systematic Literature Review on
Consumer Behavior Research and Virtual Commerce Application Design. Appl. Sci. 2021,11, 11087. [CrossRef]
31.
Akour, I.A.; Al-Maroof, R.S.; Alfaisal, R.; Salloum, S.A. A conceptual framework for determining metaverse adoption in higher
institutions of gulf area: An empirical study using hybrid SEM-ANN approach. Comput. Educ. Artif. Intell.
2022
,3, 100052.
[CrossRef]
32.
van der Merwe, D.F. The metaverse as virtual heterotopia. In Proceedings of the 3rd World Conference on Research in Social
Sciences, Vienna, Australia, 22–24 October 2021.
33.
Mozumder, M.A.I.; Sheeraz, M.M.; Athar, A.; Aich, S.; Kim, H.-C. Overview: Technology Roadmap of the Future Trend of
Metaverse based on IoT, Blockchain, AI Technique, and Medical Domain Metaverse Activity. In 2022 24th International Conference
on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT); IEEE: Piscatway, NJ, USA, 2022; pp. 256–261.
34.
Kraus, S.; Kanbach, D.K.; Krysta, P.M.; Steinhoff, M.M.; Tomini, N. Facebook and the creation of the metaverse: Radical business
model innovation or incremental transformation? IJEBR 2022,28, 52–77. [CrossRef]
35.
Ning, H.; Wang, H.; Lin, Y.; Wang, W.; Dhelim, S.; Farha, F.; Ding, J.; Daneshmand, M. A Survey on Metaverse: The State-of-the-art,
Technologies, Applications, and Challenges. arXiv 2021, arXiv:2111.09673.
36. Damar, M. Metaverse Shape of Your Life for Future: A bibliometric snapshot. J. Metaverse 2021,1, 1–8.
37.
Jeon, J.-E. The Effects of User Experience-Based Design Innovativeness on User-Metaverse Platform Channel Relationships in
South Korea. J. Distrib. Sci. 2021,19, 81–90. [CrossRef]
38.
Vidal-Tomás, D. The new crypto niche: NFTs, play-to-earn, and metaverse tokens. Financ. Res. Lett.
2022
,47, 102742. [CrossRef]
39. Lee, U.-K.; Kim, H. UTAUT in Metaverse: An “Ifland” Case. JTAER 2022,17, 613–635. [CrossRef]
40. Collins, C. Looking to the future: Higher education in the Metaverse. Educ. Rev. 2008,43, 51–63.
41.
Han, Y.; Niyato, D.; Leung, C.; Miao, C.; Kim, D. A Dynamic Resource Allocation Framework for Synchronizing Metaverse with
IoT Service and Data. arXiv 2021, arXiv:2111.00431.
42.
Pamucar, D.; Deveci, M.; Gokasar, I.; Tavana, M.; Köppen, M. A metaverse assessment model for sustainable transportation using
ordinal priority approach and Aczel-Alsina norms. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang 2022,182, 121778. [CrossRef]
43.
Lee, L.-H.; Braud, T.; Zhou, P.; Wang, L.; Xu, D.; Lin, Z.; Kumar, A.; Bermejo, C.; Hui, P. All One Needs to Know about Metaverse:
A Complete Survey on Technological Singularity, Virtual Ecosystem, and Research Agenda. arXiv 2021, arXiv:2110.05352.
44.
Lombardi, J.; Lombardi, M. Opening the Metaverse. In Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual; Springer: London,
UK, 2010; pp. 111–122.
45.
Wiederhold, B.K. Ready (or Not) Player One: Initial Musings on the Metaverse. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw.
2022
,25, 1–2.
[CrossRef]
46.
Shin, D. The actualization of meta affordances: Conceptualizing affordance actualization in the metaverse games. Comput. Hum.
Behav. 2022,133, 107292. [CrossRef]
47.
Fang, Z.; Cai, L.; Wang, G. MetaHuman Creator The starting point of the metaverse. In Proceedings of the 2021 International
Symposium on Computer Technology and Information Science (ISCTIS), Guilin, China, 4–6 June 2021; IEEE: Piscatway, NJ, USA,
2021; pp. 154–157.
48.
Baía Reis, A.; Ashmore, M. From video streaming to virtual reality worlds: An academic, reflective, and creative study on live
theatre and performance in the metaverse. Int. J. Perform. Arts Digit. Media 2022,18, 7–28. [CrossRef]
49.
Wang, Y.; Su, Z.; Zhang, N.; Liu, D.; Xing, R.; Luan, T.H.; Shen, X. A Survey on Metaverse: Fundamentals, Security, and Privacy.
arXiv 2022, arXiv:2203.02662. [CrossRef]
50.
Ayiter, E. Spatial poetics, place, non-place and storyworlds: Intimate spaces for metaverse avatars. Technoetic Arts
2019
,17,
155–169. [CrossRef]

Future Internet 2022,14, 310 16 of 16
51.
Deveci, M.; Pamucar, D.; Gokasar, I.; Koppen, M.; Gupta, B.B. Personal Mobility in Metaverse With Autonomous Vehicles Using
Q-Rung Orthopair Fuzzy Sets Based OPA-RAFSI Model. IEEE Trans. Intell. Transport. Syst. 2022, 1–10. [CrossRef]
52.
Rauschnabel, P.A.; Babin, B.J.; tom Dieck, M.C.; Krey, N.; Jung, T. What is augmented reality marketing? Its definition, complexity,
and future. J. Bus. Res. 2022,142, 1140–1150. [CrossRef]
53.
Rauschnabel, P.A.; Felix, R.; Hinsch, C.; Shahab, H.; Alt, F. What is XR? Towards a Framework for Augmented and Virtual Reality.
Comput. Hum. Behav. 2022,133, 107289. [CrossRef]
54.
Moon, J.; Kim, S.; Song, J.; Kim, K. Study on Machine Learning Techniques for Malware Classification and Detection. KSII TIIS
2021,15, 4308–4325. [CrossRef]
55.
Coogan, J. You Don
´
t Know the Metaverse
. . .
. 2021. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvZSdDC9rWo
(accessed on 24 August 2022).
56.
Thornhill, J. The Metaverse by Matthew Ball—A Glimpse of the Future. Financial Times [Online]. 14 July 2022. Available online:
https://www.ft.com/content/2258dda9-af91-46ba-b56b-08c790f1d47b (accessed on 2 October 2022).
57.
Liao, S. In ‘The Metaverse’, a Leading Evangelist Shies away from Prediction. The Washington Post [Online]. 18 July 2022. Available
online: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/18/metaverse-book-matthew-ball-interview/ (accessed on 2
October 2022).