"The metaverse is a virtual space in which users move with the help of avatars and in which they can influence and use virtual artifacts. [...] A metaverse is a place where you can live out your imagination, for example by expanding your own identity, including in terms of gender and ethnicity, and in terms of worlds that depict the given or create something new. In this sense, it promotes empathy and creativity, which is studied by ethics, psychology and sociology. It offers a company the opportunity to try out its products in the virtual world and sell them first in virtual and then in physical form."
Source: Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, 2024
https:// wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de/definition/metaverse-123520
"The term became more widely known in 1992 through the science fiction novel Snow Crash by US author Neal Stephenson, in which the metaverse refers to a virtual reality-based successor to the Internet. On October 28, 2021, almost 30 years later, Marc Zuckerberg announced the renaming of Facebook to Meta with immediate effect, bringing the discussion around the term and related concepts such as web3 into the spotlight."
Source: Statista, 2022