• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.81-91
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• 2021

Recently, discussions on Metaverse, which represents the transcendent world, have been dominant for some time. Cases related to the Metaverse are introduced through various media and are continuously attracting attention as the next generation of the Internet. This study reviews the business model and the ecosystem overview, focusing on service cases related to the Metaverse. The widely used business models include content production and sales, media brokerage fee, and marketing fee. The Metaverse ecosystem is formed around games, with major players in game production, authoring tool & support SW, intelligent cloud service, and game platform expected to lead the market. Results show that a strategy to secure the leadership of the Metaverse, such as the business model expansion conditions, a strategy to foster a game-oriented Metaverse ecosystem, and technology development for the realization of the ultra-realistic Metaverse, is necessary.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.51-63
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• 2022

Metaverse provides a simulated environment where a large number of users can participate in various activities. In order for Metaverse to be sustainable, it is necessary to study ethics that can be applied to a Metaverse service platform. In this paper, Metaverse ethics and the rules for applying to the platform are explored. And, in order to judge the ethicality of avatar actions in social Metaverse, the identity, interaction, and relationship of an avatar are investigated. Then, an action-based audit approach to avatar interactions (e.g., dialogues, gestures, facial expressions) is introduced in two cases that an avatar enters a digital world and that an avatar requests the auditing to subjects, e.g., avatars controlled by human users, artificial intelligence (AI) avatars (e.g., as conversational bots), and virtual objects. Pseudocodes for performing the two cases in a system are presented and they are examined based on the description of the avatars' actions.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.703-717
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• 2022

Metaverse provides a simulated environment that can produce various values while conducting economic, social, and cultural activities in a digital society where the virtual and real worlds are connected. In this paper, the direction of technological progress is predicted by analyzing the characteristics of Metaverse services and their businesses. Technologies and latest researches for the realization of the Metaverse service platform are also explored. In addition, Metaverse Ethics to construct a sustainable Metaverse and Metaverse UX to increase users' service participation are also discussed. Moreover, the R&D promotion strategy for Metaverse services are presented.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.303-321
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• 2023

Metaverse shopping has emerged as a new phenomenon in social commerce. This study aims to investigate the user experience of metaverse stores shopping based on the S-O-R model. The results of the study show that telepresence, entertainment, personalized recommendation, and social interaction have significant positive effects on flow experience and satisfaction in metaverse shopping. Additionally, satisfaction and flow experience are shown to have significant positive effects on user intentions. This study provides valuable implications for the design and management of metaverse stores to improve user experience and increase user intention.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.341-359
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• 2023

The metaverse applies various technological means such as digital twin modeling, 3D rendering, and holographic imaging, which can provide an immersive tourism service experience. However, since the development of the metaverse is still in its infancy, there is relatively little research on digital tourism from the perspective of the metaverse. This research empirically studies the factors that promote the participation behavior of users on the metaverse platform for digital cultural tourism. Our results show that users' internal motivations for learning and entertainment and the functions provided by metaverse, which are sensory stimulation and social interaction lead to the intention to participate in cultural tourism on metaverse with the mediating effects of immersion experience and perceived pleasure.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.189-217
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• 2023

The metaverse is a virtual world where individuals engage in social, economic, and cultural activities using avatars, which represent an alternate version of oneself within the virtual realm. While the metaverse has garnered global attention recently, research exploring the identity manifested through avatars within the metaverse remains limited. This study investigates the influence of four IT artifact characteristics related to avatar usage in the metaverse-avatar representation, avatar copresence, avatar profiling, and avatar-space interaction-on perceived avatar identity verification. A survey was conducted with 196 experienced users of the Zepeto platform, and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The analysis results indicate that the use of IT artifacts enabling avatar representation, avatar copresence, and avatar-space interaction has a positive impact on perceived avatar identity verification. This achieved self-verification indirectly influences the satisfaction and subsequent intention to continue using the metaverse. This study contributes to the academic field by empirically verifying the metaverse technological factors that influence the projected identity onto avatars within the metaverse. Furthermore, it is expected to provide effective guidelines for metaverse platform companies in designing and implementing the metaverse.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.207-228
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• 2023

After COVID-19, organizations have widely adopted platforms such as zoom or developed their proprietary online real-time systems for remote work, with recent forays into incorporating the metaverse for meetings and publicity. While ongoing studies investigate the impact of avatar customization, expansive virtual environments, and past virtual experiences on participant satisfaction within virtual reality or metaverse settings, the utilization of the metaverse as a dedicated workspace is still an evolving area. There exists a notable gap in research concerning the factors influencing the performance of the metaverse as a workspace, particularly in non-immersive work-type metaverses. Unlike studies focusing on immersive virtual reality or metaverses emphasizing immersion and presence, the majority of contemporary work-oriented metaverses tend to be non-immersive. As such, understanding the factors that contribute to the success of these existing non-immersive metaverses becomes crucial. Hence, this paper aims to empirically analyze the factors impacting personal outcomes in the non-immersive metaverse workspace and derive implications from the results. To achieve this, the study adopts the Embodied Social Presence (ESP) model as a theoretical foundation, modifying and proposing a research model tailored to the non-immersive metaverse workspace. The findings validate that the impact of presence on task engagement and task involvement exhibits a moderating effect based on the metaverse platform used. Following interviews with participants engaged in non-immersive metaverse workplaces (specifically Gather Town and Ifland), a survey was conducted to gather comprehensive insights.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.353-376
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• 2023

The global pandemic and the development of virtual and augmented reality technologies have led a metaverse boom that enables a lot of interactions in virtual worlds, and is being utilized in various fields such as business, government, and education etc. Despite the growing interest in the metaverse, its scope and definition are still unclear and the concept is still evolving, making it challenging to establish its governance. Governmental entities are also investing intensively in public metaverses to make public value and promote social welfare, but they are underutilized due to lack of systematic governance. Therefore, in this study, we propose a public metaverse governance framework and identify the relative importance of the factors. Furthermore, since a public metaverse should be accessible to anyone who wants to use, we explore the factors of shadow work and examine the ways to minimize it. Based on the socio-technical system theory, we derived public metaverse governance factors from previous literature and topic modeling and then generate a framework with 23 factors through expert interviews. We then tested relative priority of the factors using the analytic hierarchical process (AHP) from the experts. As a result, the top five overall rankings are: 'roles and responsibilities', 'standardization/modularization', 'collaboration and communication', 'law and policies', and 'availability/accessibility'. The academic implications of this study are that it provides a comprehensive framework for public metaverse governance, and then the practical implications include suggesting prioritized considerations for metaverse operations in the public sector.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.540-547
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• 2022

Online education is a major trend in the future education change and the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the process. Online education has become an important part of the modern education system because of its stability and continuity. However, the disadvantages of traditional online education can reduce users' experience, thus upgrading online education is the key to future education. Metaverse, as a new platform for online education, redefines the occurrence space of online education, changes the teaching mode and learning and evaluation methods of online education, and shows its development potential. This research analyzed the characteristics of Metaverse and its technological development status, and then proposed an intelligent online education environment construction scheme based focused on Metaverse of art education.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.149-170
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• 2023

This study analyzed the factors influencing users' intention to use the Metaverse by applying the extended technology acceptance model. In other words, the factors affecting users' intention to use the Metaverse were defined as technical characteristics (telepresence, interoperability, seamlessness, concurrence, and economy flow) and personal characteristics (social influence and perceived enjoyment) from the perspective of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among men and women of various ages ranging from teenagers to 60s, and the data collected from 327 participants were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Smart PLS 4.0. The results showed that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, which are antecedents of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model, influence the intention to use Metaverse, and perceived ease of use influences perceived usefulness. Telepresence, interoperability and economy flow were found to have a positive effect on perceived usefulness, and interoperability, seamlessness and concurrence were found to have a positive effect on perceived ease of use. In addition, social influence and perceived enjoyment had a positive effect on intention to use the Metaverse. This study is significant in that it empirically analyzed the factors of users' acceptance of the Metaverse, which is attracting attention as a new platform that will bring significant changes to our daily lives and platform consumption environments.