The metaverse has been one of the hottest buzzwords among investors. But what is the metaverse? And is it a real opportunity, or just the latest flavor of the month? That’s a hard question to answer.

Recently, a group of technology company executives were asked what the metaverse was. They had vastly different responses that show that there is no single definition.

Right now, the metaverse can be thought of as the next generation of the internet. For many, that future means persistent digital worlds that users can enter and interact with using an avatar.

Today that is playing out (no pun intended) in the gaming sector. The very popular World of Warcraft allows players to come and go from the digital space. And while they’re “inside the game” they can interact with each other and even engage in commerce.

While the metaverse is still largely undefined, there are great investment opportunities to take advantage of the Internet of the future.  Beyond META and NVIDIA, there are several small public companies working on inventing the metaverse and the next iterations of the Internet.

MarketBeat analyst Thomas Hughes discusses these companies in this in-depth report.