Leading Tech Evangelist Robert Scoble, Who Once Evangelized Second Life, Now Evangelizing Virtual Reality

Update, 2:40PM: Read my interview with Robert on this topic here.

In yet another example of VR hype imitating Second Life hype 10 years ago, top high tech evangelist Robert Scoble has officially become an evangelist for virtual reality:

Today I’m announcing that I’m leaving Rackspace to join Upload VR http://uploadvr.com/ — a new media site covering virtual and augmented reality -- as its entrepreneur in residence, where I’ll be developing new shows, events, and working with other entrepreneurs in the Upload Collective, a coworking space for virtual reality-focused startups.

Ten years ago, I fondly remember sitting in Robert Scoble's home office, talking about Second Life for his video series. Because back then, Robert was the most well-known and admired promoter of Second Life -- in fact, I've argued he was the leading figure who started the hype wave over SL in the first place:

Perhaps more than any other person, technology uber-blogger Robert Scoble was responsible for fueling the enthusiasm that led to Second Life's hype period of 2006-2007 (certainly in Silicon Valley). I trace it to a post he wrote in March of '06, "Second Life +is+ an OS". (Poignantly, a lot of his own excitement was informed not by press reports or media demos, but by his son, who was a dedicated builder in SL, albeit an underage one.) He interviewed me at his house in 2007, and spoke at length about Second Life in numerous venues.

He even appeared on a SXSW panel I hosted in 2007 about virtual worlds and the 3D web, but more specifically about Second Life. Of course, we all know that Second Life didn't become an operating system, so is Scoble right to get behind VR now?

In fairness to Robert, I believe he's argued in the past that 2006 was not the right time for virtual reality/worlds to go mass market, as the deployment technology of the time was not simple simple or powerful enough to meet the expectations created by Neal Stephenson's Metaverse. I suspect he's convinced that this time, it'll be different.

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Comments

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Pie-in-the-sky transhumanist jibber-jabber spouting Valleywags!

This is why that old trope is still valuable:

Will it play in Peoria.

Because you can't trust Valleywags to not let their transhumanist holodeck sci-fi dreams from skewing their perspective.

No one wants to wear VR gear for more than a half hour or so. No one, other than a few addled tech-toy geeks, wants to hook up a VR headset to a PHONE of all things. Because of the disconnect between what you see and your brain, HMDs work best for sit-down experiences, like piloting a plane or vehicle, or riding a "fixed" tourist style ride. Once you know those things, all else follows.

A bunch of rich valleywags are essentially trying to make "fetch" happen, AGAIN, and it's not happening. Fetch in this case being VR.

Though I do suspect flight simmers are going to be more fond of VR, at least for short play sessions. A la jumping into a few furballs in War Thunder.

[melponeme_k]

How attractive, a man flailing around and blind to the world.

The minute this rig has its "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" incident, the ban hammers will come down quick. But rest assured the tech con artists will already have their pounds of flesh.

[Bettina Tizzy]

Anytime Scoble gets behind anything, there are going to be breakthroughs AND the world is going to take notice.

I'm delighted and look forward to learning from him (and stumbling over) new emerging technology with him.