The Metaverse Roadmap is the working vision for where it’s all headed.

The Roadmap tries to unravel the future by looking at two continua against which there is uncertainty: focus of identity and focus of technology. Uncertain because, well, to cut through the futurist clutter “who the hell knows”.

“To construct our scenario set we selected two key continua that are likely to influence the ways in which the Metaverse unfolds: the spectrum of technologies and applications ranging from augmentation to simulation; and the spectrum ranging from intimate (identity-focused) to external (world-focused).”

So the road map gives four scenarios seen in the picture below.

Personal bias against the external.

OK, so, personal bias – I tried MySpace and don’t really care if other people share the same interests as I do. I tried Facebook and still use it, but don’t really want my friends to know that my current status is “brushing teeth” or “staring aimlessly at Facebook and poking people”. So I don’t think the world-focused lifelogging side of things is for me.

And augmented reality – well, I had a Palm and threw it out. I’d rather wander aimlessly looking for a restaurant than Google my iPhone. I have no interest in receiving coupons on my cell phone as I walk through the mall – my In Box is filled with enough spam why let it follow me around? I can barely remember where I am half the time let alone where I might want to go, so geospatial positioning and information shadows at my dry cleaners won’t help. And computer chips underwear I buy at Wal-Mart hardly strikes me as a great idea.

I’ll stick to internal, solitary explorations in Virtual Worlds thank you very much. Although, hold on – seems to me that the scenarios are useful for predicting possible futures, but the reality will be some sort of amorphous frightening and inspiring blob in the middle, so I’ll keep an eye on those other nasty external parts of the future as well.

Image: Keso on Flickr