
This new Time Magazine cover is so utterly wrong that it's a perfect example of a problem that's been festering for the last three years: Mainstream media stories about the Metaverse which are prominently (often exclusively) illustrated with images of people in VR headsets.
There's so many other interesting and original ways to illustrate a story about global leaders about to "Meet the Metaverse" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But unless the point is to ridicule India's Prime Minister and others for being totally clueless about the Metaverse -- not only wearing HMDs, but highly outdated ones at that -- this is the exact wrong way to do that.
There's at three key reasons why:
The vast majority of people who use metaverse platforms do not access them through VR.
There's at least 520 million active users in platforms which fit the broad definition of a metaverse platform. The overwhelming majority do so through smartphones. Only about 8-10 million of them do so primarily in VR, mostly in Rec Room and VRChat, and mostly through Meta's Quest 2.
Which brings up an important corollary: With a total install base of about 20-25 million, most premium VR headset owners do not use a metaverse platform.
Wait, an editor might ask -- is there even a "definition of a metaverse platform"?
Yes, if you go by Snow Crash, the actual book which coined and painstakingly described it in great detail, and has been a direct reference for people who have been building something like it for the last three decades.
Which takes us to the next point:
Who's Afraid of Second Life's Data Gathering Bonnie Bots? (Comment of the Week)
There's been lots of interesting conversation and debate spurred by my post on BonnieBots, the new website tracking genuine Second Life activity. While Bonnie's bots don't violate any Linden Lab policy that I'm aware of, the sheer amount of information that both her avatar and web-based bots are able to collect and surface on the site has generated much surprise and controversy (including in comments here).
Reader Kate Nova argues that much of the pushback is based on a very understandable distrust of surveillance provoked by very real abuses by the Internet giants:
Some concern has been raised that Bonnie's bots also pull data from user profiles available in search, but Kate argues this is not the intrusion some say it is -- and that overall, the site is incredibly valuable:
Continue reading "Who's Afraid of Second Life's Data Gathering Bonnie Bots? (Comment of the Week)" »
Posted on Monday, January 23, 2023 at 01:55 PM in Comment of the Week, Economics of SL, Social Structures, Social Upheaval | Permalink | Comments (11)
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