Click here to a reserve a spot to join a book launch party in the metaverse platform Breakroom next week Wednesday! Will be a fun and casual Summer bonfire-themed event, hopefully similar to the event I co-hosted for Philip Rosedale back in 2021 (watch below). Details:
Released on the 20th anniversary of Second Life, the first metaverse platform to reach mainstream awareness, Wagner James Au’s new book Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For (Wiley) arrives after three years of media hype, misinformation, and backlash around the concept.
Weaving together two decades of experience writing about and helping launch metaverse platforms, from his start as Second Life's official embedded reporter, James clarifies the history of the Metaverse, debunks myths that have since formed around it, and offers best practices for engaging a metaverse platform audience over 500 million in size -- and growing it toward a billion.
Hilariously, back in 2021, we (Philip, Adam Frisby, and myself) each gave wildly different definitions of the Metaverse, but the concept has become so popular and over-broad, I had to spend a whole chapter focusing on a workable way to define it.
Hope to see you there!
Just got the book and finished the 1st 3 chapters. Congratulations! It's a masterpiece! You've managed to assemble massive amounts of information, interviews, ideas, and quotations from so many voices over decades into a coherent and compelling narrative.
Everything so far either reinforces things I've previously believed or suspected, or introduces me to new and significant ideas. Looks like the coming chapters will go deeper into spaces I'm less familiar with.
Amber Case' idea of "the templated self" and your explanation of how it both helped Facebook surpass MySpace, and prevents Meta from succeeding at Metaverse is fascinating. And, as an avatar who's been kicked off both Facebook and, back in the day, Google+ for being an avatar, I feel it!
Any idea if anyone is doing a book group on your book? I'm loving reading it and would love to meetup with other avatars to discuss the ideas as I go through the chapters.
New World Notes is a great blog. And I don't at all mean this as any sort of backhanded compliment, but wow, the book is next level!
Posted by: Kate Nova | Sunday, July 02, 2023 at 02:09 PM
Wow thanks much, Kate!
Posted by: Wagner James Au | Wednesday, July 05, 2023 at 01:08 PM