New World Notes

Can Meta Solve the "Metaverse for Work / Education" Challenge That Second Life Couldn't? (Comments of the Week)

Good conversation over Philip Rosedale's pretty surprising comments last week, positing that the Metaverse may "never be for everybody", and that in any case, Meta/Facebook definitely shouldn't succeed at making the Metaverse. (Well, knowing Philip, that last point isn't all that surprising.)

"What a journey," Alex D observes, then surveys the current state of things with an expert eye:

One thing is clear from decades of VR and virtual world product innovation (failures and successes): you can't make people use/buy something unless it solves real 'jobs to be done.' No matter how much we love the connections that are unique to virtual worlds, or the immersion<>empathy correlation, the platform doesn't solve all problems for everyone. It's shocking that Facebook is bucking decades of Silicon Valley new product development wisdom with a top-down PR push.

When Philip says "I hope they don't [succeed]" I read that as a statement about creativity and freedom, almost a throwback to the original vision of a beloved public utility, open, ubiquitous, one that supported unlimited expression and connection. If Facebook's metaverse becomes ubiquitous, what does that say about what the Internet has become and who controls our experiences on it?

Worth keeping in mind that IBM devoted tremendous resources trying to solve the "jobs to be done" challenge in Second Life, even building a whole corporate campus that thousands of employees held regular meetings in, but gave up on it after a few years. (Though that virtual labor protest on IBM's campus was fun.)

Kaylee West, longtime Metaverse advocate for education, one of the thousands of educators who used (and still use) Second Life as an education platform, echoes this "jobs to be done" challenge with a campus point of view:

Top 5 Posts Last Week Including: The Problem With Hyping a Virtual Real Estate "Boom" & HBO Features an SL Land Baron

• Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2021年11月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan
• Dear Media: Stop Hyping A Virtual Real Estate "Boom" In Blockchain Worlds With Few Users & Little Growth
• Mainframe May Make A Metaverse While You're Looking The Other Way
• Watch: Second Life Land Baron Who Hates Evicting Tenants Featured On HBO's How To With John Wilson
• Philip Rosedale: The Metaverse Isn't For "Everybody" & Meta Shouldn't Succeed At Making It

Friday Fashion Ideas for Male Avatars from Whitlock Guy Style

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Whitlock Guy Style is a streamlined blog by Luis Whitlock [luchofull Resident]. I was drawn to the post “It was a good day” because he looks so chill, and not just because he’s using the snowback left by snowplowing as a footrest. That expression is so exposed and open, it makes me think of cats or dogs rolling on their backs with their paws up in the air. His pants are cool, too, with the stripes, which not incidentally are echoed in the jacket which is some great styling. There are additional details on the décor in the post. amándote

• Hoodie: [COMPLEX] MARRACASH  JACKET  TMD  MAINSTORE
• Pants: -Imagine- Badraw Pants  MAN CAVE  MAINSTORE
• Sneakers: GUTCHI - OldSchool Jony 94  TMD  MAINSTORE

For another emotionally expressive look, click here:

Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2021年11月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan

Sanny Yoshikawa が、New World Notesのなかから、毎月おすすめのバーチャルワールドニュースを日本語で紹介します。Sanny Yoshikawa covers the monthly virtual world

highlights from New World Notes for virtual Japan.

 

 

Dear Media: Stop Hyping a Virtual Real Estate "Boom" in Blockchain Worlds With Few Users & Little Growth

Above: Decentraland's dynamic world map. The red dots represent the few actual users in-world

Decentraland is a very interesting experiment in blockchain-based virtual world creation that I've been following for four years. And while there's a lot that's noteworthy about it, there's one thing it still sorely lacks: A mass market of actual users. According to co-founder Ari Meilich, who I chatted with last week, Decentraland currently has:

• About 300,000 monthly active users
• 18,000 daily active users
• A maximum concurrency of 2,500.  

By virtual world standards, these numbers suggest a very niche virtual world. (By contrast, for instance, Second Life currently has about 500,000 MAU and a max CCU of about 40,000.) Despite that relative paucity, Decentraland is actually much larger than other blockchain-based virtual worlds like The Sandbox, which currently has only 30,000 monthly active users.

None of this, however, would be apparent to readers of breathless hype pieces about a supposed virtual real estate boom in blockchain-based virtual worlds -- like this recent story in the New York Times:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: The Vividly Detailed Photos of Mr. Panda Banana

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Panda Bandana is someone I thought I had featured in the past so when I saw this picture “1945”. I almost passed it by even though when I first looked at it, I thought it captured the ennui of the back-to-the-office trend. A lot of people liked working from home and aren’t thrilled to be back in the office sans cats. Then I looked more closely and, well, he is not your average desk jockey. For one, there are two bundles of cash, there is a passport, camera and lens, some office supplies, phone and computer cords, and miscellany that just do not spell out office worker. I would think photojournalist, but there’s too much cash. Any ideas what occupation explains that desktop?

For more glimpses into his Second Life, click here:

Mainframe May Make a Metaverse While You're Looking the Other Way

Mainframe Industries recently announced funding for making a massive cloud-native MMO, but the word "Metaverse" is conspicuously absent from that news... even though it sure looks like they're building a Metaverse kind of experience:

Mainframe Industries, the startup behind the first cloud-native massively multiplayer online game, today announced it has raised $23 million in new funding led by Andreessen Horowitz... “We’re creating a persistent living world that people will call their home for years and hopefully decades,” Thor Gunnarsson, co-founder and chief executive of Mainframe, told SiliconANGLE.

"We’re not working on a VR product and Metaverse as being discussed implies VR to a lot of people, so didn’t want to lead people into thinking we’re in the VR space," Sulka Haro, design director of Mainframe, tells me now. "We’re definitely in the business of building a world millions will want to live in for years, if that is what Metaverse is about."

Haro was a lead designer on Habbo Hotel, a hugely popular virtual world platform last decade, and his team includes vets from CCP, Ubisoft, Remedy, and Blizzard Entertainment. This strong background in game development may give Mainframe an advantage over say Improbable, which also had ambitions to create massive single-shard MMO worlds, but has fallen short so far:

Watch: Second Life Land Baron Who Hates Evicting Tenants Featured on HBO's How To With John Wilson

How To with John Wilson is an acclaimed and quirky quasi-documentary comedy series on HBO -- think a handheld video version of This American Life, but even more nasally -- where John explores New York, attempting to accomplish various everyday tasks. (Not always an easy or non-ridiculous goal, since this is after all New York). In the first episode of Season 2 which recently premiered, we find John trying to buy a house in New York, opening up the zany hellscape that is real estate in that merciless metropolis.

Which is why John also pays a visit to a New York-based landlord also named John -- who as it happens, manages real estate in an even more expensive and wacky market: Second Life:

Luminous Christmas / Winter Images in Second Life by Vita Camino

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Vita Camino’s “Cozy Festive Windows” are exactly that. Despite the snow hanging off the eaves and dusting on the sidewalk, this picture feels warm and welcoming. A few Christmas lights and decorations add the festive air. I love the houses nestled so close together, giving it the feeling of other times and other places. You can visit yourself because she thoughtfully provides a SLurl [teleport here.]

For more lovely landscapes, click here:

Expensive Virtual Items for Worlds With Few Users: Pricey NFT "Metaverse" Sales Give Me Serious Entropia Universe Déjà Vu

Remember Entropia Universe, a niche MMO launched in 2003 where players can buy and sell in-game items for real cash? You'd only really read about it when there was a breathless report about another record Entropia Universe sale -- like this one, from 2010:

How much would you pay for a string of ones and zeroes? How about a string of ones and zeroes that grossed you $200,000 a year? Jon “Neverdie” Jacobs made history by selling virtual property for a reported total of $635,000. Club Neverdie is a virtual asteroid in the online game Entropia. 

... but despite all that money being spent on virtual items in Entropia, hardly anyone seemed to actually be playing Entropia -- then, or now. (Entropia currently counts less than 100,000 players, according to MMO Populations.)

That very same thing seems to be happening again, with a new NFT/Metaverse spin. For instance, most recently:

Today's Flickr Pick: Lush Virtual World Kawaii of All Kinds by Hunkaa

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Hunkaa’s untitled picture could be named “Starlight with Bunnies.” I love the dreamy quality. I see the bunny on the left is sleeping, maybe it is the bunny’s dream. It is very kawaii, adorably cute. I love it. Hunkaa is a microblogger, providing credits in her picture descriptions. 

For more kawaii pics, click here:

Philip Rosedale: The Metaverse Isn't for "Everybody" & Meta Shouldn't Succeed at Making It

Here's a new interview on Axios with Philip and veteran game industry journalist Stephen Totilo, with some bombshell quotes like these:

• Of the metaverse, he says: “I think what we've learned — and somewhat with some sadness, given the work that I've done, I would have to agree — is that it's not for everybody, and maybe it's never for everybody.”
• And of Meta’s chances of succeeding with their new metaverse project: “Well, I hope they don't.”

He goes into detail on both points further in the interview, including his thoughts on why the Metaverse is never for everybody -- which I concur with, but only to a certain extent:

SL's Sleek New Search UI Receives Mixed Reader Response

Some like the new search UI... but some not so much. Here's reader David D.'s take:

It feels good, but only Linden Lab will be able to tell whether it really helps or not. In my field of higher education, there is a want to make lots of pretty videos and web pages because people equate user experience with knowledge access and will help with developing competence. There are studies that say that the look and feel have nothing to do ultimately with the learning. Usability (and universal design), information results, and presentation are all different things, and while they *can* impact one another, you can have a crap design with all the right bits of info which people are just fine consuming, and you can have really pretty things that still have terrible text output. And, even if you have both, if the engine doesn't let people get what they want, it can be as advanced and clean as it wants; it is still a crappy search engine.

The UX is good and is more attractive. Now put some substance behind the change and you'll have good universal design.

 Responding to my comment that it looks prettier, longtime third party viewer developer Henri Beauchamp demurs:

Top 3 Posts Last Week, Including a New Search UI for Second Life & a New Pro-Quality World in VRChat

• Play In VRChat: Magic Heist, Community-Made, Pro-Quality Game Ride
• Are You Thankful For Second Life's Sleek New Search User Interface?
• Classic Movie Posters Recreated With Second Life Screenshots

Budget-Conscious Fashion Ideas from Fabulously Free in SL

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Move Over Turkeys, I got Sparkle just made me smile and feel happy. I love the exuberance. I love how she places herself against the backdrop so it looks like her hand is radiating rainbows of color. And it’s free! It’s featured at Fabulously Free in SL, which has guided the free/budget conscious SL shopper for over a decade. This post is from Creola Deledda whose post radiates excitement and joy. 

• Dress – Georg Bellic Design Leela Pink Dream Dress (Free Gift at The Black Friday Bazaar/Group is Free to Join)

Gorgeous & Hilarious Tributes to Thanksgiving by the Second Life Community

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Adam Cayden very cleverly paid playful homage to “The Last Supper” with this Thanksgiving photo, “The Last Tab.” As in Da Vinci’s original, the host is surrounded by twelve friends. In the original, they are disputing and debating the allegation that one will betray him. In this homage, they seem to be discussing their share of the bill. This was posted in October to celebrate Canada’s Thanksgiving on the Tenth. I wanted to celebrate today’s holiday, but it’s good to remember that there are several other countries that also celebrate Thanksgiving or a similar harvest festival.

For more Thanksgiving celebrations in Second Life, click here:

Play in VRChat: Magic Heist, Community-Made, Pro-Quality Game Ride

Click here to experience Magic Heist in VRChat, a new community-made game world/ride that seems ideal for exploring over the Thanksgiving holidays. Co-developed by acclaimed VRC creators Fins, CyanLaser, and Lakuza, it is, to judge by the highly-polished trailer (watch above), pretty much indistinguishable in quality to a big budget console game for the family. Much of that has to do with the fact that Fins paid out of pocket to hire professional voice actors and license the soundtrack (the biggest part of the budget).

While it may look like a game built over a year, the team built Magic Heist in just about a month, Lakuza tells me, racing to finish it by deadline for the Raindance Film Festival contest:

Today's Flickr Pick: Wildly Varied, Always Wonderful World of Wren Alcyone

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Wren Alcyone [branwenalcyone] takes amazing profile pics and fun Look-Of-The-Day snaps. I love “Valkyrie” though it differs from my mental image of the mythological women who escort those chosen from the battlefield dead to go to Valhalla to prepare for Ragnarok. However, what slain hero would turn down her invitation? 

For more pictures from the wild side, click here:

Are You Thankful for Second Life's Sleek New Search User Interface?

I just gave this a quick spin (watch above):

Today we’re excited to announce that we’ve updated the look of our inworld and web-side Search feature to bring it more in line with the look and feel of our viewer and the direction that that rest of our web properties will be going... Our goal was to clean up the interface and provide a more streamlined and user friendly Search feature that maintained all the functionality that we’ve all come to expect and rely upon. Helpful tool tips will guide you in getting the most functionality out of your searches, and will update as we add more options for more sophisticated searches.

The user interface is definitely prettier! As for the user experience... well, you can watch above and make your own judgements. I ran it on a gamer laptop that plays the new AAA Deathloop game beautifully and with very little performance issues. Worth bearing in mind that Google came to dominate the search engine market back in olden times (by which I mean 2000) not because it was pretty but because it was ruthlessly streamlined to give the user relevant results as quickly as possible.

Classic Movie Posters Recreated With Second Life Screenshots

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

A few weeks ago, we asked folks to recreate a movie poster in Second Life. I thought I would share the results. Suzie Anderton chose Jaws for her #SLMovieTribute and definitely captures the menace of the original film’s poster. The waters of the Linden Ocean are dangerous! 

For more movie posters including a fun twist on a favorite Kubrick film, click here:

Second Life, The Limits of OpenGL, and the Alchemy Viewer (Comment of the Week)

"Won't be going to Fortnite if there's no custom [avatars]," writes Juliette Jones in a post on that topic, "but frankly SL's performance issues cannot be 'solved' without expending an immense amount of money on Linden Lab's part to transfer Second Life completely off of OpenGL framework."

Here's why, as she sees it:

OpenGL has a lot of difficulty using GPU resources effectively since it was originally made as a competitor to Microsoft's DirectX programming which relied on GPU. At the time, CPUs were far more powerful than most graphics cards and especially moreso than the onboard graphics of that generation's motherboards. OpenGL was built to run on those systems. No one was sure dedicated graphics cards would take off the way they did.

As a stopgap solution for Second Life users, Juliette suggests trying the Alchemy viewer over the highly popular Firestorm:

Top 5 Posts Last Week, Including: The Little-Known But Massive, Potential Metaverse & A Longtime SLer's Case for Fortnite Creative

• Free Fire: The Little-Known, Potential Metaverse Already Played By 1 In 10 People In The Entire World
• Rising Indie Musician Keith Rankin Illustrates Latest Album Cover With Images By Acclaimed Second Life Artist Whiskey Monday
• Fact Check: Neither Qualcomm Or Facebook Claim The Quest 2 Has A 10M Unit Install Base (Yet)
• Guest Post: Why A Longtime Roleplayer Left Second Life For Fortnite Creative
• Neal Stephenson Speculates New Metaverse Hype Partially Driven By Turf Protection

Yoonabae Brings South Korean Style to Second Life Fashion Blogs

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Yoonabae” is a style blog by Yoona Kwon [YoonaBe in-world] and features story-telling pictures created with flair and confidence. Seoul Vibes #208, her most recent post, takes the school uniform that is so much a feature of the Lolita and Kawaii styles to a more sober and realistic place. It tells a story in a classroom. This is not a sexualized school uniform, but real school with real lessons and I love it. I checked out Toksik’s school uniform which is modest enough for today though not for my school where the shortest allowable length was the width of your hand above the knee. The school decor is on point. 

• toksik elite outfit
• kopfkino school days - classroom skybox, desks, chairs, clutter, shelves, posters

For a more stylish look, click here:

Free Fire: The Little-Known, Potential Metaverse Already Played by 1 in 10 People in the Entire World

Free Fire is a cross platform online battle royale game which on the surface, is largely dismissed by the Western game industry as yet another knockoff of PUBG and Fortnite. But AR/VR investor Julie Young has been looking much closer for well over a year (months before the current Metaverse buzz reached fever pitch), when she observed that the game, from Garena -- a game studio/publisher owned by massive Singapore-based conglomerate Sea Limited -- has the early makings of a metaverse:

In Brazil, they partnered with DJ Alok for a live set in Free Fire. In Colombia, they held an event where two of the country’s biggest soccer players hosted a live tournament for charity. These are perfect examples of Sea’s incredible agility and execution. But on a more philosophical level, they demonstrate that Garena could actually become more than just a very profitable gaming platform - perhaps Free Fire, down the road, will become a new type of platform altogether.

... and based on current user numbers, Free Fire is already well positioned to be The Metaverse, if it wants to become that. As she tweeted yesterday, reporting recent user numbers: "Free Fire has 700 million quarterly active users concentrated largely in some of the highest growth regions in the world (or as @nachkari pointed out today, 10% of the world plays the game quarterly."

Yes, nearly 1 in 10 of everyone across the entire earth already play Free Fire. And for purists who scoff at the idea of the Metaverse emerging from a casual combat game, it's worth remembering that Neal Stephenson's original Metaverse also had a heavy combat game component. 

I chatted with Julie a bit about Free Fire last night, and from that, my sense is that the platform is very much moving in the Fortnite Creative direction that Epic is taking, adding monetization mechanics for user creators. And the thing is, Free Fire has some considerable advantages against Epic -- namely eyeballs:

Risking Indie Musician Keith Rankin Illustrates Latest Album Cover With Images by Acclaimed Second Life Artist Whiskey Monday

Faith in Persona is a pretty banging experimental pop album with a top-rated track from rising indie artist Keith Rankin aka Giant Claw, and if the album cover seems familiar, there's a very good reason for that: It's drawn directly from works by beloved Second Life-based artist Whiskey Monday (with her full permission of course).

"He just saw my stuff on Flickr and asked if he could use it," Whiskey tells me. "He had no idea this kind of art existed in SL."

He certainly found the right artist. Here's how Rankin announced it on his Instagram, plus a compare/contrast with Whiskey's original images: