New World Notes

Top 5 Posts Last Week: Philip Rosedale Re-Joins Second Life, a Fun Experiment in Metaverse Teleportation & Much More

• BREAKING: Philip Rosedale Re-Joins Second Life As Strategic Advisor To Grow It Into Inclusive Metaverse Competing With Big Tech's "Ad-Driven Behavior Modification" Metaverse
• Should Second Life Have An Export / Licensing Option So Creators Can Sell Their Massive Trove Of Content To Other Metaverse Platforms?
• Watch: Metaverse Experiment Creates "Portals" From NeosVR To Anyland To Mozilla Hubs To Gorilla Tag
• Cajsa's Choices: Stunning, Painstakingly Posed Action Images By Artemis Fate
• Does VRChat Or Second Life Have Better Avatar Options? New World Notes Readers Debate The Pros & Cons

Listen: I Talk Second Life, The Metaverse, and the Metaverse's Killer App on CBC Radio's "Sparks"

Click here to listen and read the article summary, my chat with Nora of "Sparks", a tech show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (basically the NPR/PBS of Canada) about Second Life and the Metaverse. Some of my answers seem a bit stumbly to me (I blame my morning coffee for not kicking in soon enough), but it was fun to delve into some areas I haven't discussed as much before. For instance:

The looming question as to whether the Metaverse has a "killer app", My take:

Apple XR Headset Not Likely to Come Out in 2022 (Like I Said In 2021)

Just posted my 2022 predictions just last week, and this news already dropped this week:

Apple was reportedly planning to put the headset on sale sometime after the [June 2022] WWDC announcement.

Now, however, Apple is said to be exploring the possibility of delaying the announcement by at least a few months, or potentially pushing it back to 2023. If the iPhone maker goes forward with the plan, the device would reportedly start shipping to customers later than planned as well.

According to today’s report, Apple’s hesitance to debut the headset at WWDC in June is the result of ongoing development challenges related to the device’s software and cameras. Additionally, there are reportedly overheating issues caused by the onboard processor.

I don't doubt the hardware issues are an issue, but as I said, "I still fail to see why Apple would risk its brand on a still-niche product as yet." (If Meta announces much greater Quest 2 sales than expected, I would expect Apple's hardware challenges to get solved right quick.)

But even beyond sales, there's the other virtual shoe that hasn't dropped. If Apple has an XR headset... who is making the content for it? Because like I wrote:

SL Fashion Friday: Male Metaverse Style from Blogger Jakobat Bergan

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

The World That I Would is Jakobat Bergan’s fashion blog. I like his style. It’s relaxed and comfortable, but not sloppy. He looks like he thinks about what to wear, but not so much it distracts from more important things. I love this look with the shirt peeking out from the sweater, not tucked in and most importantly, with a straight hem. This tells you it’s not meant to be tucked in, it’s not sloppy, it’s style. This is all featured in his recent post 2560.

[ ERAUQS ] - Ben Sweater and Shirt @ACCESS (Jan 12 - Feb 8th) by Renan Mckeenan

There is so much to like about Jakobat’s blog, his consistency not just in blogging regularly, but he has a coherent style. You don’t see him looking out of character just to blog something. His blog is simple with few bells and whistles, maybe too few, because he doesn’t promote himself very much. There are no links to his social media or even his Flickr. But he has many sponsors and blogs for several events according to the Events and Sponsors pages that are listed in the footer, so perhaps he doesn’t need to promote himself more. 

For more great men’s style -- plus more of review of Bergan's blog -- click here:

BREAKING: Philip Rosedale Re-Joins Second Life as Strategic Advisor to Grow It Into Inclusive Metaverse Competing With Big Tech's "Ad-Driven Behavior Modification" Metaverse

Update, 8:05pm PT: For context on this move and what Philip might advise on the future of Second Life, here's a recent  interview with him suggesting Meta shouldn't be the one making the Metaverse and that it's not for everyone anyway, my post on how he started integrating High Fidelity spatial audio in virtual worlds like Breakroom, and (watch below the break), his chat on the Metaverse with Sine Wave's Adam Frisby.

Just got this message from Philip Rosedale, about the future of Second Life:

"I'm not back full-time, but it feels great to get to be talking to Lindens about design! I think the vital thing to focus on is demonstrating that a virtual world can scale to greater capacity while being inclusive and fair and safe for humanity."

He's saying that because yes, Second Life founder Philip Rosedale is now officially back at Linden Lab as a strategic advisor and an investor though this company High Fidelity, which will also share resources and technology with the Lindens:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Iolande Weidman Turns Nude Avatar Photos Into Abstract Art

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

Iolande Weidman, aka Rania Adjani, shoots some of the most extraordinarily beautiful aesthetic nudes.

So when I saw “Naked” I snort-laughed, because it reveals such a great sense of humor behind the avatar. Ah, yes, when the notorious nipples are printed on a shirt, they are perfectly safe, unlike their appearance, however, subtly and carefully shot in her other pictures. 

For more stunning photos, click here:

Should Second Life Have an Export / Licensing Option So Creators Can Sell Their Massive Trove of Content to Other Metaverse Platforms?

Here's a really interesting editorial video from veteran Second Life advocate Luca, arguing that Linden Lab and the user community are sitting on a goldmine: Nearly 20 years of 3D content, much of which could be exported and licensed for use in other platforms. "There's no way," as Luca puts it, "for any company on Earth right now to be able to match Second Life's existing diversity of assets." 

This idea, as you might imagine, has some hurdles to overcome. For instance: Wouldn't optimizing and wiring up an SL avatar be really time consuming and difficult? And maybe even impossible for the top mesh bodies -- most of which are very poorly optimized?

Luca think it's possible:

Kai Wirsig Makes Second Life Screenshots Look Like Action Movie Stills

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

Kai Wirsig is wearing some serious body armor in this picture. I like the form of this picture, how it’s cropped and framed so the gun is pointing just past the viewer and the end of barrel is cropped out. ("I only changed the saturation," Kai notes in the image description. "No other photo processing,") He also makes great use of light and shadow. Bonus! In Second Life, he can wear his body armor without a shirt and there’s no chafing. 

Kai makes the diagonal frame work for him, see how here.

Watch: Metaverse Experiment Creates "Portals" from NeosVR to Anyland to Mozilla Hubs to Gorilla Tag

Update, Jan. 12: This demo by @TheRealKoolala is part of an Open Metaverse Interoperability Group project led by longtime Metaverse evangelist Evo Heyning -- follow the group on Twitter @open_metaverse.

Here's a fun experiment in Metaverse teleportation from "Koolala" on YouTube, who's created "portals" that enable him to seamlessly travel from XR-based virtual worlds/online games -- specifically from Neos VR to Anyland to Mozilla Hubs, and finally to Gorilla Tag. I say "portals" in quotes because if I'm watching this right, Koolala cleverly launches each individual world in the background, out of sight from the user (obscured by a closed elevator, in one case), until they're ready to make the leap. Which is a very clever hat trick, though not a literal portal from one code base into another. (Then again, why split hairs if it looks and feels like a portal?)

Hat tip longtime reader "Adeon", who I'm currently talking with on Discord, trying to figure out what is actually being carried across from world to world:

Second Life's Top User-Run Fashion Blog Attracted 20 Million Pageviews in 2021 -- More Than Many Real Life Fashion Blogs!

Seraphim SL traffic stats via Similar Web

Seraphim SL, the top user-run Second Life fashion/shopping blog, is reporting that the site attracted over 20 million pageviews in 2021 -- that's doubling its traffic from 2019, when it earned 10 million pageviews for the year. This is noteworthy, because actual overall Second Life usage has declined slightly in recent years. 

To put that traffic in broader perspective, this Second Life fashion site gets more pageviews than many top real life fashion sites, like Fashionista.  Related to Second Life as a virtual world community, this suggests that users are spending less time in-world -- and more time consuming virtual world content on the web and across social media. 

Kess Crystal attributes this pageview growth to curation, and regular discount events: