Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Virtual Society

  • The Metaverse and the New Frontiers of Human Experience
  • By: Herman Narula
  • Narrated by: Herman Narula
  • Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (14 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Virtual Society

By: Herman Narula
Narrated by: Herman Narula
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Is the metaverse a brave new world? An immersive digital playground? The next generation of online gaming? Or just the latest manifestation of our human tendency to create other realities?

Herman Narula argues that it is all of these things. His vision of the metaverse, deeply rooted in history and psychology, looks to the Egyptians, whose conception of death inspired them to build the pyramids, to modern-day sports fans whose fantasy leagues are as competitive as the real thing, and finds that humanity has always sought to supplement our day-to-day lives with a rich diversity of alternative immersive experiences.

Rigorously researched, passionately argued, and written by a tech founder and creator of digital worlds, Virtual Society reveals why the metaverse offers a new universe of ideas that offers users unprecedented opportunities to create, explore and find meaning. It's an essential guide for anyone who wants to get beyond superficial headlines and understand the true shape of our virtual future.

©2022 Herman Narula (P)2022 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Metaverse cover art
The Social Singularity cover art
Full-Spectrum Thinking cover art
Expand cover art
The Metaverse cover art
How to Invest cover art
The Cryptopians cover art
The Rainforest cover art
$100M Offers cover art
Into the Metaverse cover art
Becoming Who We Need to Be cover art
Scary Smart cover art
The Toolbox cover art
The Hard Thing About Hard Things cover art
The Metaverse: A Professional Guide cover art
Share cover art

What listeners say about Virtual Society

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    12
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Typical technologist's opinion

An overly long blog post, much like Matthew Ball's book, which rambles and hypothesises in a really generic fashion.

Narula is clearly bored of running Improbable, a company that's 10 years old and pumped full of millions in VC money but returned nothing that the games industry hasn't achieved on its own merits, and is eyeing up brain-computer interfaces as his next direction.

What could you build with $700m? Definitely more than another MMO server instance that's for sure.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!