The particular vision of the Metaverse as expressed in this novel originated from idle discussion between me and Jaime (Captain Bandwidth) Taffe...The words "avatar" (in the sense used here) and "Metaverse" are my inventions, which I came up with when I decided that existing words (such as "virtual reality") were simply too awkward to use...after the first publication of "Snow Crash", I learned that the term "avatar" has actually been in use for a number of years as part of a virtual reality system called "Habitat"...in addition to avatars, "Habitat" includes many of the basic features of the Metaverse as described in this book.
=== Neal Stephenson ===Uporabo izraza "Avatar", v pomenu internetnega virtualnega telesa, je populariziral Neal Stephenson v svojem kiberpank romanu "Snow Crash" (1992).