New World Notes

Founding Linden Hunter Walk: When Launching Second Life, "We Over-Indexed on the Community" Versus Broadly Appealing Content

“Coming for the Content, Staying for the Community” Started With Video Games (Or Maybe Religion?) But Will Define Media This Decade [new blog post] https://t.co/cDfzgnidyc

— 👨🏻‍💻☕️ (@hunterwalk) October 19, 2020

Here's a really interesting new blog post by founding Linden Lab team member Hunter Walk, who helped drive a lot of the early decisions around the launch of Second Life, including the very naming of Second Life. (More on that here.) After leaving the Lab, Hunter went on to become a bigwig at YouTube/Google and is now a renowned Silicon Valley VC. From the vantage of those experiences, he believes “Come for the content, stay for the community” is the principle that will drive successful online platforms.

But notably, he believes Second Life didn't get that sequencing right:

Working on the virtual world Second Life at the time I had the proverbial “front row seat” to what online interaction could look like down in the future. It was, or rather is, a fully user-constructed shared virtual world. Think Minecraft but like 100x less successful! Although to be fair, (i) Second Life is still around and profitable and (ii) many of the design choices we made were quite influential on later products. Anyhow, we over-indexed on the community and left the content largely up to the inhabitants which was only appealing to a limited number of passionate users (about half a million). I spent about three years as part of that team and the notion of “staying for the community” lodged itself deep in my cranial matter. 

In other words, Linden Lab should have created more content that would draw in a mass audience, rather than leaving that up to the SL creator community.

But what does he think SL's content focus should have been?

Gumroad Online Marketplace "Another Peg in Place for the Metaverse"

I mentioned how there's a growing real cash economy for VRChat-based content on Gumroad, an online marketplace for digital content, and reader Joey1058 explored the site deeper, then came back with this brief report:

I took a look at Gumroad. This site is awesome. It's not tied specifically to a particular VR world. This means that somewhere up the road, creators can expand their line for any world they see fit to sell to. One more peg in place for the metaverse!

Quite possibly! In all honesty I didn't know much about the site before this, but it claims that nearly 72,000 creators are selling content on the platform; according to SimilarWeb, Gumroad gets over 12 million monthly visits in recent months, which is quite decent. My pal Leigh Alexander sells her fiction on Gumroad and has this endorsement on the homepage, which is good enough for me.

Also to Joey's point, the content for sale on Gumroad isn't locked to any specific virtual world. (It even has some Second Life-related items for sale.) I don't know if Gumroad will ultimately become the main commerce site for the Metaverse (single or plural), but I think he's right that some kind of independent marketplace like this will be key to making it viable.

Top 6 Posts from Last Week Including a VR Study That Seems to Reduce Sadism, The Emerging Real Money Economy of VRChat & A New Twist to the Eternal "Is Second Life a Game?" Debate

• Study: Men Who Experience VR-Based Sexual Harassment From Woman's Point Of View Exhibit Less Sadism In Subsequent VR Shock Test
• Among Us Inspires Full VR, Horror-Themed Version Of Hit Game In VRChat
• As Virtual World Grows, Real Cash Marketplace For VRChat Content Emerges
• Artist Transforms Second Life Screenshots Into Epic Cinematic Action Stills
• Saying "Second Life Is Not A Game" Is An Excuse For Not Demanding A Better & More Fun Virtual World
• How It Started, How It's Going: 1991 To 2020 Virtual World Edition

Explore in SL This Weekend: Spooky New Orleans With Adventure Game

Click here to directly teleport to Bloodbath New Orleans, a perfect place to explore as October creeps up on Halloween. Star SL YouTuber Naria Panther (with a delicious, mood fitting Eastern European accent) and friends explore the place with a working streetcar, an eerie fair ground, and many gorgeously detailed Gothic edifices to creep through. 

SL Halloween Shopping Tips & Photography Contest from Blogger Luane Meo

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

Luane Meo is a Flickr blogger, providing credits in her picture descriptions. I loved Happy Halloween which cleverly shows off some lovely boots for fall and some decidedly ghoulish pets ready for Halloween.

• [Rezz Room] Dachshund Halloween Adult Animesh (Companion). Exclusive for ACCESS EVENT (NEW)
• [Rezz Room] Chihuahua Devil Animesh (Companion) (held version also available). Exclusive for Satan Inc (NEW)
• Eudora3D Cadence Boots and Socks . Exclusive for FaMESHed (NEW)
• DaD . "Let's Party skully Benjamin"

An adorable top and a photo contest ahead:

Study: Men Who Experience VR-Based Sexual Harassment from Woman's Point of View Exhibit Less Sadism in Subsequent VR Shock Test

Above: Male test subject in VR given the option to "shock" female avatar 

I recently told you about the VR-based recreation of Milgram’s infamous shock experiment, in which test subjects became traumatized, even knowing that the victim of their shocks was only an avatar. In an equally remarkable follow-up study, researchers recently used this VR Milgram's scenario to test another hypothesis: Would a traumatizing experience in VR influence how many shocks a volunteer would subsequently give out? 

"Milgram can be used as a moral thermometer of empathy,"  as Dr. Mar Gonzalez-Franco at Microsoft Research, a co-author of the original study, explains to me. "The idea is that if you have some priming experience before doing the Milgram test, it will change your performance. In this case, through triggering empathy."

In the follow-up study led by her co-author, Dr. Mel Slater at the University of Barcelona, this priming experience was a virtual reality simulation of sexual harassment. In it, a group of men in a public space become increasingly hostile to a nearby woman (video below): 

Tischa Uses Virtual Light & Shadow to Make Avatar Photos Come Alive

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

Ticha’s “Un soir comme tant autres” shows an ordinary evening for many of us, absent-mindedly stroking our cat while reading a text or social media. I love its capture of an ordinary moment so naturally. Much of her stream features similar slice-of-life moments such as relaxing after dance practice or even practicing a pas-de-deux .

She also has a taste for aesthetic nudes, beautifully and tastefully done.

Among Us Inspires Full VR, Horror-Themed Version of Hit Game in VRChat

If anyone is interested, we are working on a VR Chat map based on #AmongUs Come check it out and join our discord! We would love to know what everyone thinks of it! https://t.co/cCfMGjaLSl#VRChat #VR #amongusfanart #AmongUsMeme pic.twitter.com/lGPtsyE3BN

— Shoobly (@Shooobly) September 25, 2020

Among Us, the wacky sci-fi party hit game of deception and betrayal, has quickly become the Fortnite of 2020. And because user-generated content communities inevitably schloop up and synthesize the interactive zeitgeist, it should be no surprise that a group of ten or so VRChat community developers have already been hard at work creating a fully playable VR-based version of the hit game. "Fully playable" might seem like hyperbole, but among the lead developers is "Markcreator", who also created this fully playable version of  Minecraft in VRChat:

"I'm working with a team of artists to make a realistic VR rendition of the game, fully playable using Udon scripting magic," he tells me. (Udon being VRChat's scripting system.) In other words, don't confuse it for Among Us-themed roleplay in VRChat.

In fact, to judge by the teaser video above and screenshots below, Mark and friends are turning Among Us into a game of goofball fun into a foreboding space survival game with the added suspense of being in immersive VR, with VRChat's voice communication enabled. (In VRChat space, everyone can hear you scream.)

Will Edge Computing Give Us the Edge to Create Sunglass-Sized VR HMD?

Will we ever really reach a VR experience where the headset is the size and weight of sunglasses -- you know, the Holy Grail form factor envisioned by Neal Stephenson in Snowcrash decades ago?  I explore this topic in my new article for Samsung NEXT's Component magazine, where some experts argue that edge computing will make this possible:

In theory, edge computing could obviate the latency issues associated with moving large amounts of data back and forth from the cloud, particularly high-quality 3D graphics and other assets that would be used by low-profile form factors like glasses.

“Since HMD [head-mounted display] and other XR devices essentially become simple data input/output and rendering devices,” Theta’s Mitch Liu says, “their form factor can be vastly reduced.”

Infinite Retina’s Irena Cronin sees edge computing as a necessary condition for next-gen XR headsets. “When we’re talking about visuals especially,” she tells me, “without having these kinds of features, and the massive amounts of data that are going to be used having to do with spatial computing, it’s a non-starter,” she said.

Jeri Ellsworth (above), CEO of AR startup Tilt Five and someone who's been creating variations of the sunglasses-sized HMDs since her time at Valve in 2012, injects some caution into this vision:

31 Days of Halloween Illustrated by Freaky SL Screenshots -- Including an Amazing Tribute to Beetlejuice

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

I featured Grant Valeska’s blog Blond back in February, so under normal circumstances it might be too soon to come back around, however since Grant is devoting their stream entirely to Halloween for the month, I just don’t want you to miss out on this great project. Here is Day One. A spooky gatekeeper into a world of the spooky and spectacular. 

More spooktacular pics ahead!

 

As Virtual World Grows, Real Cash Marketplace for VRChat Content Emerges

VRChat content creator "Markcreator" (last seen on New World Notes showing off this impressive VRChat-based tribute to Minecraft he built) is now selling buttons for VRChat for USD $12.50. This might not seem like news in itself -- unless you're specifically in the market for VRChat-based buttons -- except that it's another indicator of a larger trend: As VRChat continues to grow in usage and content, a marketplace of VRChat content selling for real world money is starting to emerge.

"The VRChat avatar market is already pretty large on websites like Gumroad," as Mark tells me. This is because VRChat the platform itself does not (yet) have an in-game marketplace of its own -- while the user community does have a pent up demand for quality content for VRChat.

Indeed, a quick search on Gumroad (a site for selling 3D content) turns up over 300 VRChat-tagged items for sale, with some items selling for as high as $80.

"I know multiple people personally that are supplementing or completely sustaining themselves on avatar sales," Mark tells me. "There is much demand from people that wish to express themselves through their avatar, I see a lot of parallels to Second Life in that regard. It will be interesting to see if there is also a sufficiently large market of world creators looking for the next thing to improve their personal projects."

Which brings us back to Mark's buttons:

Artist Transforms Second Life Screenshots Into Epic Cinematic Action Stills

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

The first time I saw a photo by Seduce, I didn’t follow him because I thought it was a screenshot from some MMO game, not a picture originating in Second Life. But I was wrong! Imagine! “The Last Dragon Fighter” is from Second Life. (After, he notes, “[a] few (plenty) modifications.”)  He even provides credits. These are extraordinary digital paintings, many inspired by films and books. 

Even more stunning and cinematic photos below:

Saying "Second Life is not a game" is an excuse for not demanding a better & more fun virtual world (Comment of the Week)

Pictured: A nightclub experience... in Grand Theft Auto V Online

While the "Is Second Life a game?" argument has basically gone since SL launched, reader "0xc0ffea" (who also co-hosts the largest SL community on Reddit) posts a fresh perspective: Whatever SL is on an ontological level, not treating it as a game has contributed to its lack of evolution:

 SL users and, more importantly, its developers need to play more games.

There is a shocking disconnect when switching between SL and modern games (even 7 year old games like GTA5). By comparison, SL barely runs, fundamentally fails to operate as a social platform the moment you get a few people in the same location (or try to converse in group IM), lags to hell and back, and it's users have been conditioned to blame each other for the overall poor experience.

A little gaming makes it very apparent that SL's technical woes are not caused by that one person who dared to wear those shoes with that hair, happened to have a scripted attachment, or had the audacity to load slowly.

"SL is not a game" has been a handy excuse to gloss over it being architecturally stuck in the days of single core processors.

Here's why, she goes on:

How It Started, How It's Going: 1991 to 2020 Virtual World Edition

I love this virtual world variation on the "How It Started, How It's Going" meme from metaverse veteran Loki Eliot.  (Click to embiggenate.) And no, that's not Habitat from the 80s at left, which was my original assumption. 

"[It's] 3D Construction Kit on the Amstrad CPC 6128 in 1991," Loki tells me. Its not a screen grab of my own house, but it’s close to what i was making back then. It was my first experience of 3D creation." 

And here's what it was like creating 3D content back then:

Top 7 Posts Last Week Including: David Lynch Enters the Metaverse

• Get IncrediMarble: Free-To-Play, Physics-Based, Marble Slide Construction Game For IOS From Linden Lab Vet Dave Kap
• "Second Life Is A Game" Meme Inevitably Outrages Non-Gaming SLers
• David Lynch Appears As Avatar In Breakroom From Sinespace To Accept Award At First Major Film Festival Hosted In A Virtual World
• Survey Of Top Tech Company Staff: Facebook Not Doing Enough To Prevent Election Disinfo & Hate Speech -- But Most Facebook Staffers Insist Otherwise
• Using Virtual Worlds For Real Work -- An Oculus/Linden Lab Vet's Insights
• Does The Metaverse Require Real World Money?
• Black Dragon Creator Praises Optimization Of Slink Mesh Bodies -- And Challenges Creators Like Maitreya To Follow Slink's Example

Get IncrediMarble: Free-to-Play, Physics-Based, Marble Slide Construction Game for iOS from Linden Lab Vet Dave Kap

IncrediMarble is a fun new sandbox construction game for iOS where you get to build gigantic marble slide worlds with real time physics, and earn points by adding more and better slides. The more points you earn, the more pieces you win to keep upgrading your slides, and turn them into massively deranged contraptions. (Android and PC/Mac versions coming soon.) 

The game is solely created by Dave Kap, an indie developer who got his start at Linden Lab. The game reflects both his time there, playing SL, and a dream he's had since a boy:

"When I was a kid," as he puts it to me, "I had a toy that was just this huge set of plastic slides and a bunch of marbles. You connected the plastic slides together, put the marbles into the top-most one, and watched them flow down from piece to piece. I always loved this toy as a kid in the 80s and it turns out that even kids now still have this toy. I always wanted more pieces and the ability to defy gravity so a video game version was something I've always wanted to play. It turns out nobody's ever made a good version of what I wanted, so here we are!"

Linden Lab helped hone his developing skills, while Second Life influenced IncrediMarble 's creative gameplay:

"Second Life is a Game" Meme Inevitably Outrages Non-Gaming SLers

Antonio Giano recently wrote and posted this SL variation of the famous defenestration meme on a private Facebook group for Second Life users -- and as you probably would have guessed if you read New World Notes on the regular, it provoked a long back and forth of outrage and argument.

Which as Antonio tells me, was what inspired him to make the meme in the first place: "[A]s you can see, people are always fighting a lot on that topic." In fact the post got so heated, he finally disabled his notifications.

As I observed on the Facebook post, the argument inevitably breaks down between longtime gamers who know Second Life has many similarities to many games -- and those for whom SL is the first online game in which they've devoted serious time, energy, and emotional investment. Here's why:

Fashion Friday Blog: Visit Vanity Unfolded for Fantastic SL Shopping Tips

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

Put It Off is one of several excellent posts at “Vanity Unfolded,” a blog featuring the photos and styling of Hopa Shinobu. In the post, she explains why she has been doing posts with just credits and not writing as much as she used to. She prefers spending more time with her daughter and putting off what is less important.

She has wise advice: “[W]e should use this time to rebuild our humanity and compassion to others. To put off the things that dont really matter and focus on the things that are priceless.”

I also love how carefully she posed herself so her feet and shoes look right. Go to the post for the massively detailed list of decor, including: 

• Hair:DOUX – Ubert Hairstyle
• Top:Mossu – Nora.Cardigan – Print N2 @Uber
• Jeans:RIOT / Celeste Jeans – Blogger [email protected]Uber
• Shoes:Garbaggio // Nicole D’Orsay – Nude

Coming up, a blogger wearing clothes...

Edge Computing Will Transform the Metaverse: My Article for Samsung Next

"Edge computing is opening a door to the metaverse" is a just-published article I wrote for a new web magazine from Samsung NEXT, the venture funding arm of the tech giant, and as the name suggests, it attempts to explain how edge technology will transform our expectations for VR, cloud computing, and building a mestaverse worth the name:

Edge computing -- in which compute, storage, security, and networking occurs physically closer to end users and their devices -- will enable us to think about the metaverse and related applications in a new light...

In the eyes of many industry insiders, edge computing will be an essential pillar in the metaverse’s creation, by enabling developers to reduce latency in virtual worlds. This technology could empower new and better devices and new virtual experiences that support many thousands -- and eventually, millions -- of concurrent users in the same shared 3D space.

As an elevator pitch to explain edge computing, I often say, "It's basically a real life version of the Piper Net from Silicon Valley." And as you imagine, in it I talk with Philip Rosedale, Jim Purbrick, and a lot of other luminaries who've been working in virtual worlds for nearly two decades, waiting for this technology to come. Philip and Jim of course have some interesting perspectives on edge computing, such as how it will improve the audio experience of virtual worlds:

David Lynch Appears as Avatar in Breakroom from Sinespace to Accept Award at First Major Film Festival Hosted in a Virtual World

Acclaimed artist and filmmaker David Lynch recently appeared in avatar form in Breakroom, the virtual world for live events from Sine Wave Entertainment (a sponsoring partner to New World Notes). Lynch did so to receive an award from Mexico’s Guanajuato International Film Festival (or GIFF), one of world’s largest annual cinema events. Due to the pandemic, GIFF moved many of its scheduled events to a virtual campus built in Breakroom, so hundreds of registrants could safely watch short films in competition, attend panels, even participate in a studio pitch session.

As a longtime Lynch fan, it was a professional highlight to help bring the master creator of dreamlike alternate realities into a virtual world for the first time. Lynch and his assistant safely logged into Breakroom from his home in Los Angeles, from the very same spot where he shoots his famous weather reports. As you might have guessed, getting his iconic hair as accurate as possible for his avatar was the most challenging task. To make it a truly Lynchian event, the entrance to the theater lobby where the director received his award was even made to look like the Red Room from his cult series Twin Peaks. (We did consider adding a backward-talking midget as well, but that’ll have to wait.)

More details and video below. With this event, GIFF became the first major film festival to move its activities to a virtual world, but with the global pandemic still raging, I expect many more will follow. As for Breakroom, it’s recently hosted virtual world conferences for Stanford and the United Nations, and will soon launch a speakers’ events series open to all -- stay tuned.

These Mouth-Watering Still Life Photos of Food Are Actually Second Life Screenshots of Virtual Meals

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

Xinni Somwan’s “Citrus Love” appealed to me so much. I love oranges and became allergic to them as an adult, so I sometimes dream about them. This is a photo from a dream. I love the bold orange, the blurred orange in the front, and the appeal of all that fresh and juicy, tangy oranginess of them all. 

More foodie goodness ahead.

New iPad App Uses Machine Learning to Capture Real World Objects & Convert Them Into Standard 3D Files

Caveat emptor and all that, but the iPad LIDAR Scanner just published in Beta seems seriously impressive, able to "capture" real world objects and convert them into imperfect but pretty usable 3D models. It works, says developer Laan Labs, by automatically extracting objects via machine learning (i.e. extrapolating data for unseen surfaces).

More info from iOS app page: 

Survey of Top Tech Company Staff: Facebook Not Doing Enough to Prevent Election Disinfo & Hate Speech -- But Most Facebook Staffers Insist Otherwise

With less than a month before the next U.S. Presidential election, here's new survey results from the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging/virtual community app for company staffers that's especially popular at large tech firms.

This one asked a question that's been the subject of constant press coverage since the 2016 election: Is Facebook doing enough to prevent the spread of misinformation and hate speech on its platform related to the 2020 election?

With nearly 1600 responses, most from team members at major technology companies, here are the results (right):

By overwhelming numbers ranging in percentages from the mid 60s to the mid 80s, staff at Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, and other tech firms believe Facebook is not doing enough. Notably, staff at several of these companies -- LinkedIn, Google (thorough YouTube), and Amazon (through its customer reviews section) -- deal with preventing misinformation and hate speech on their own platform, and presumably have better than average knowledge to evaluable Facebook's efforts thus far.  

Contrast that with the response of Facebook staff themselves:

71% of respondents answered that the social network is doing enough to combat election period hate speech/misinformation. (Still, it is notable that nearly 1 in 3 of Facebook staff surveyed believe they could do more.)

Launched last week, the Blind survey ran until yesterday -- when as it happened, Facebook removed a post by Trump falsely claiming that the flu is more dangerous than COVID-19.

You can read more details on Blind's company blog -- including results on a related question: On whether (as has been reported by Bloomberg and other outlets) Facebook's policies and algorithms are designed to support Trump and other right wing political figures. Answer:

Stylish SL Flickr Stream Devoted to Virtual Car & Chopper Culture

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

Who doesn’t love working on cars? “Correre è un'arte, ma correre con passione è la vera arte” impressed me with actually getting a bit greasy, though usually mechanics don’t get covered so thoroughly in grease. (My dad was a mechanic, cars and farm equipment, and I spent many hours helping in the garage.) My niece worked as a parts-puller and seriously, she could be covered in grease from top to bottom. Still, it’s lovely to see some grease. 

Coming up, a great graphic image.

Using Virtual Worlds for Real Work -- An Oculus/Linden Lab Vet's Insights

In the latest blog post by Jim "Babbage" Purbrick, a lead developer/consultant at Oculus, Eve Online, and of course Linden Lab, he shares his thoughts on using virtual worlds for real world work. Most of the examples he gives there are from his time as a Linden -- but I wouldn't be surprised if we see Oculus come out with products partly inspired by the lessons he describes here. Such as:

After an hour or so of pair programming with Zero to hand off the code I’d been working on during the UK daytime, other Lindens would start arriving at the San Francisco office and we would start using Second Life for larger scale team meetings. Even without tracked headsets, the 3D positional audio and instantly recognizable avatars made these meetings more successful than video conferencing. Because everyone was in Second Life together I felt far more present than I typically do using video conferencing to join a meeting in Menlo Park as the lone participant in London. Everyone was an equal participant in every meeting.

I expect this to be a common model for collaboration between remote workers in VR: the virtual space provides a forum for communication, conversation and annotation while existing applications, editors and tools are brought in to VR to provide familiar and powerful ways to create content together. I’m particularly excited about the possibilities for people to collaborate on very complex problems at the limit of human comprehension like large scale software development which are often hard to discuss in real life, but possible to visualize, understand and explore together in VR.

This doesn't necessarily mean copying business standard meeting tools into a VR space, so much as leveraging the capability of virtual worlds in a work context. As Jim puts it to me: