For those old enough to remember the 1990’s you may remember bold predictions like this

proving it is very hard to predict the future, if you gamble correctly on the big ticket things you’ve an opportunity of a career as a futurologist, but you’ve as much chance of being a quotable example of a luddite forever!

This was a topic of a twitter conversation the other week after a post during ILTACON22

So here goes, in print my thoughts. I think we are possibly on the cusp of the next wave of an interface into a virtual world, I also think we’re at the Netscape Navigator 1.0 stage of the journey and will have a few bumps along the way before a) the technology improves and b) the majority start to get it and embrace it. I’m not sure the “Amazon” of this new world has emerged yet, but if anyone has any share tips on that one this time round let me know in the comments 🙂

There are a few early adopters and firms looking to try things out and kudos too them, as collectively I’m sure we’ll all learn a lot about what works and doesn’t. Examples:

Artificial Law – law firms in the metaverse

German law firm opens office in the metaverse

Major law firm buys property in the metaverse and opens virtual office

Some will go for the AOL model (facebook metaverse), others will go their own way. But I’m quite fascinated by the metaverse, it’s early day but I think there is something in this one!

You may ask, what are my credentials as a futurologist? Well I did spot the potential of Amazon shortly after launch in the UK in October 1998, with my first order in November

Then I did have a web2.0 idea before web2,.0 became a thing, I just was too limited as a developer to realise the idea, the only language I knew at the time was ASP (see book order above!). My idea was essentially a Foursquare/TripAdvisor type platform for nights out. I even registered a domain name at the time:

So on this one as the saying goes “trust me I’m a Doctor”😉