New World Notes

Cajsa's Choices: SL Community Celebrates Real Spring in the Virtual World

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

Damatjo Magic created this for Lawrence D. Pryce’s Bloom of Spring: Humanity’s Hope Challenge. [Details of the Challenge here.] In addition to their pictures, people were asked to add some words of encouragement and inspiration. Damatjo added a link to Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World” [click here] which I cannot remember ever hearing before. I expected to see a lot of sunflowers and people did not disappoint. Damatjo wrote, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope. Let's hope that the war, that's going on now, will end and that we can all live in peace again. My heart and prayers are with the people.”

For more blossoming pictures, click here:

The Inevitability of Virtual Sex, Technical Debt & Other Things Metaverse Platforms Could Learn from Second Life

"What can the Metaverse learn from Second Life?" is a good new story for UK publication Engineering & Technology from freelancer Hilary Lamb, delving into the lessons that new metaverse platforms could learn from Second Life. For instance, technical debt: 

‘Second Life’ is notoriously clumsy, with lag and lumpy framerates that put something of a damper on the virtual orgies. Some of this is on account of technical debt accrued early at Linden Labs – which cannot be righted without sacrificing vast quantities of user-generated content – but it also points to the challenge of generating high-poly content in the metaverse.

I chatted with Hilary for the piece, talking about that and other topics -- including, of course, those virtual orgies:

Top Posts Last Week Including: The Sandbox's Shades of Second Life Hype & My 2021 Report on Meta's Muddled Metaverse Strategy Confirmed

• Business Insider Confirms My July 2021 Report Of Meta's Muddled Metaverse Strategy
• Watch: Rising Indie Pop Star Aufwie Kickstarted His Career In Second Life During The Pandemic -- Now Here's His First Music Video Shot In SL
• The Sandbox Reports 300,000 Monthly Active Users Despite Partnerships With Top Brands -- Shades Of Second Life's Hype Days?
• VRChat's New Avatar-To-Avatar Interactions Are Amazing -- Here's Some Tutorials To Get Started Booping & Grabbing
• Bring New Excitement To Ancient SL Locations With A Discovery & Exploration Game (Comment Of The Week)

Business Insider Confirms My July 2021 Report of Meta's Muddled Metaverse Strategy

Here's what I wrote in July 2021 about Facebook/Meta's flagship metaverse platform project:

"I think Facebook has the money and people to throw at the problem," as they put it to me, "but making products as a large entity hasn't been one of Facebook's strong suits... it's been to acquire other products and integrate them into the Facebook ecosystem. With the average employee tenure being 2 years or so, and the need to expand teams at rapid rates, it's very difficult to make decisions and stick to a single vision because things are always changing."

Consequently, they go on, the Horizon team has been jumping haphazardly to the latest hot feature or platform:

"This [turnover] leads to teams at Facebook fast following on trends. You can see it when you look at Horizon and Rec Room, or when you listen to Instagram's new focus on video, referencing Tik Tok. So will they achieve the vision [Zuckerberg] paints? Maybe."

And here's what Business Insider just reported today:

Watch: New SeraCast Featuring a Lelutka Mesh Head Giveaway & My SL Revenue Share Survey!

Fresh from YouTube, here's the latest SeraCast featuring a new Lelutka Head giveaway (watch for details on how to win), and a discussion on my survey for SL content creators, on their revenue split with Linden Lab -- click here to take it.

More highlights:

Fashion Friday Blog: Incredibly Kawaii Looks from Sparkly Fly

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

Sparkly Fly or “A Dream in a Dream” is the cutest blog I cannot read. It’s a blog created by Andie {Andyylee] in Tumbler and is so very kawaii. Sadly for me, however, pale pink on white text is just not readable, but I do love the pictures. Anyway, with Playing with Fire, her avatar captured my attention so completely it was only on the third pass that I noticed the fire. I think it was the way she looks straight at me. Now if she only mentioned who makes that great hair. 

• Skin: ~Little Foxy B.~ TrIck Skin Blogger (LeL EvoX) @Hongdae
• Clothes: REKT_Fresh Outfit Fp @Hongdae
• Shoes: Deadly Pixels: Yuta Net Platforms [FATPACK] @Hongdae 
• Accessories: QUIXE - JKook Earring @Hongdae

For more clearly kawaii clothing, click here:

Watch: Rising Indie Pop Star Aufwie Kickstarted His Career in Second Life During the Pandemic -- Now Here's His First Music Video Shot in SL

After performing in Second Life during (and because!) of the pandemic lockdown since last year, rising indie pop star Aufwie recently released his first music video shot in Second Life -- watch above! Very nicely shot and edited by VRutega, Aufwie's "throw me to the sea" because quite literal in the virtual world.

"[The machinima] uses the sea as a metaphor for oblivion and how someone can actually throw u into oblivion by forgetting about you, taking u out of their lives," he tells me now. "Sinking as a metaphor of how depression pulls u down."

His virtual performances in SL through 2021 helped him take his career to the next stage -- both in the virtual world and across social media:

I'm Giving a Webinar on the Metaverse Next Week Friday -- Register to Attend Live for Free!

Click here to register for free to attend a Zoom webinar on That M Thing in a conference hosted by Canadian non-profit org CPAC (Chinese Professionals Association of Canada), which kicks off April 29 at 6:30pm PT. I'm preparing a slide deck now covering a range of topics, including how to define the Metaverse, Second Life's role in shaping it, mass market and niche use cases, and common misconceptions around the technology.

Is there any particular topic around virtual worlds and the Metaverse that I should also cover? If so, please suggest in Comments below!*

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Stunning & Sensual Images by Shiloh Lyric

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

The title of this brilliant picture is clever, but sad. “I was your favorite toy before you broke me.” But who quits playing with their favorite toy just because it lost a wheel, or an arm? Nonetheless, this image is striking and stopped my browsing while I thought about it. That is a common effect with Shiloh Lyric’s pictures.There is so much to love in this picture, but my absolute favorite is easily missed. I just love the way the ribbon trails back so far it fades into the shadows. 

I love the next two pics, sort of bathing, click here:

The Sandbox Reports 300,000 Monthly Active Users Despite Partnerships With Top Brands -- Shades of Second Life's Hype Days?

My post yesterday questioning the logic behind The Sandbox's reported $4 billion valuation (by Bloomberg) led to an interesting conversation on LinkedIn. Staff members of The Sandbox took some umbrage in the thread, pointing out that the co-founder recently reported that The Sandbox client now has 300,000 monthly active users, which is pretty solid growth from its reported 30K MAU last November. (I updated my original post to reflect that.)

Then again, 300,000 is still very much on the low end for current metaverse platforms as compared to, say Rec Room (with 3 million MAU on VR headsets alone), not to mention ROBLOX and Fortnite Creative. And yet again, last generation platform Second Life still has some 600,000 monthly active users! 

In reply to that point, one Sandbox staffer told me it's still early days -- since after all, the product is currently designated as being in Alpha. Which is fair enough. But from my view, it only deepens the mystery:

Why aren't all The Sandbox's major brand partnerships leading to major user adoption?