New World Notes

Rooms.XYZ is a Kind of Mini-Metaverse You Can Customize & Explore in the Palm of Your Hand

Rooms.xyz is a new virtual world platform to play with; still in Beta, it's a deceptively simple (that is, actually powerful) interactive room creator/explorer on the web and iOS: 

• Try on the web here
•  For iOS, download the Alpha release on TestFlight here.

Watch the intro demo above. I only started noodling with it myself, but I see it as a kind of potential mini-metaverse, where the virtual world is represented by thousands of interconnected rooms you can play with in the palm of your hand. The charming voxel graphics and the bite-sized experiences that are 2.5D by default (with an option to display in full 3D) are a tight, organic fit with how Gen Y/Z habitually engage on the Internet. 

Founded by Jason Toff, formerly of Vine, Twitter,  and Meta (where he was a VR developer), here's a good interview with him in FastCo:

 

Viewfinder, Immersive, Brain-Melting Puzzle Game, Now 20% Off on Steam -- Read My Interview With the Indie Dev!

Fun for the long Labor Day weekend -- Viewfinder is 20% off on Steam until September 8:

Challenge perception, redefine reality, and reshape the world around you with an instant camera. Viewfinder is a new single player game offering gamers hours of interesting and fun experiences while uncovering the mysteries left behind. Viewfinder is a mind-bending first person adventure game in which you can bring pictures to life by placing them into the world.

As longtime readers may remember, I started cheerleading for and chatting with Viewfinder indie's developer, Matt Stark, back when it was just a viral demo released during the peak of COVID in 2020:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Powerfully Composed Images by Andrej Paulik

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

Andrej Paulik’s “Streetlight Skate” is beautifully composed. I love how he employed multiple composition “rules” to create a truly stunning picture. Here's how: 

The skateboarder in the upper left is placed by the Golden Ratio, both people by the Rule of Thirds, and look at the diagonals, not only in their gaze, but how the metal bars in the upper left are echoed in the lower right.  

For more beautifully composed pics, click here:

The Problem With Meta's Approach to Avatars in Horizon Worlds -- Excerpt, Making a Metaverse That Matters

With news that Meta's Horizon Worlds metaverse platform is finally coming to mobile in the run-up to next month's Meta Connect developer conference, here's an excerpt from Making a Metaverse That Matters on the fundamental mistakes Meta is still making in its approach to avatars -- including insights from Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka, who went on to become a top VP at Facebook, led the company's acquisition of Oculus VR -- but has serious misgivings about Meta's “infantilized human avatars”, as he calls them:

These Incredible Images of Angels & Demons Weren't Made by Midjourney. They're Screenshots from Second Life's Depicting User-Generated Content.

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

Thein Ravenhurst’s “We Get What We Deserve” was nearly overlooked as I thought it came from Midjourney. The definition he achieved is amazing. 

But then I saw that he wrote, “All credits can be found on my blog!” On his blog? Well, I had to check and he wasn’t blogging his MJ prompts, but his SL clothing items depicted in the image:

Hair

• • Magika – Morticia

Body Parts

• • LeLUTKA Skyler Head EvoX
  • [LEGACY] Meshbody (m)
  • Seraphim Wings + {egosumaii}

Tattoo

• • Nefekalum Tattoos – Grecian – Available at Enchantment Feb 12th – March 5th!

Wrap

• • Noche. Auryn Sarong White

In fact, if he weren’t on hiatus, I would recommend following his blog because it’s excellent. Sadly, he’s been on hiatus since April 2022, which feels permanent to me. Still, his stream is full of inventive styling and excellent pics. 

For some inventive pics, click here:

 

Linden Lab Hiring Senior Product Manager of Second Life to Shape the Original Metaverse's Future for "Millions of Customers"

Linden Lab has a new job opening that's been up on the website for at least the last several weeks:

Senior Product Manager at Linden Lab

We’re looking for a Senior Product Manager (remote) to elevate multiple facets of our Second Life product. This person would also enable growth and scale by shipping features that improve our customer experience... 

As a Senior Product Manager, you’ll utilize in-depth product knowledge to successfully drive key projects on Second Life. You’ll work alongside a supportive team of people across engineering, design, QA, and other cross-functional teams to build products and new experiences and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the original metaverse. And finally, the pleasure of seeing your solutions ship, scale, and make a measurable impact on millions of customers' lives across the globe.

Emphasis mine! I've been hoping that the recently unveiled mobile version of Second Life would not simply be an app that targeted existing users, but instead aim to grow the audience well beyond the core established user base of 500,000-600,000. This new job listing seems like a solid indicator that Linden Lab is indeed attempting to grow the Second Life community, building off the momentum of the mobile app after that's launched (late this year/early next).

I can't emphasize how important a mobile app is, even for long-running metaverse platforms like Second Life:

Like I wrote in 2020, IMVU floundered for years as an also-ran competitor to Second Life; after it rolled out a mobile version, here's what happened:

Today's Second Life Flickr Pick: A Whole Huge Group Devoted to Avatars Wearing Glasses & Shades

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

I love how these sunglasses reflect the city lights surrounding Dariam Waldorf. It’s not often that a headshot conveys movement, but this one does. It’s really a great picture. I imagine that the coming of PBR will inspire many more mirror shade images. 

This pic is one of tens of thousands from the SL Glasses and Shades Flickr group. I love a group that is still moderated so it doesn’t overflow with inappropriate images that are counter to the group’s purpose. In this pic, the glasses are totally the star. 

For more specs and shades, click here:

Top Four Posts Including "ChatGPT Killed the Metaverse" Debunking, Dystopian Scenario Contemplating & Emotionally Expressive Avatar Portraits

• Richard Bartle Asked Midjourney To Generate Avatars Of 15 MMOs -- Can You Guess Which MMO Each Is Supposed To Represent?
• Today's Second Life Flickr Pick: Emotionally Expressive Avatar Portraits From Fay Doobie
• Fighting The False "ChatGPT Killed The Metaverse" Narrative With Actual User Data Showing The Metaverse Actually Much Larger
• Listen: Pondering The Potential Of The Metaverse For Dystopian Purposes

Maui Fundraiser With Special Sales, Live Music & Linden Lab Vetting Open Until End of Saturday -- Let's Raise Three Million L$ for the Maui Food Bank!

Click here to teleport into the Maui Wildfire Relief drive in Second Life. Running until end of this Saturday, over 75 SL brands are selling excellent items (full list of participants here) with 100% of net sales going as cash donations to Maui Food Bank.

Several live music events are also planned today and tomorrow, including a very special one: Today at 5pm PT/SLT, event co-organizer Wendz Tempest, who's from Maui and still has family there, is set to jam live on her ukulele!

Since launching last weekend, over L$1,874,517 (almost $7000 USD, after 5% cash-out) has been raised. Since then, Linden Lab has vetted the donation process and is actively promoting the fundraiser on Second Life's social media channels. Let's double that raise and get it to over L$3,000,000 this weekend!

Speaking of the L$ cash-out fee, I definitely recommend also consider making a direct US$ donations to Maui Food Bank here. At the same time, there's tens of million of USD already in the Second Life economy, and if you have L$ in your account to spare, consider spending some of it to help the people of Maui. Not to mention being part of this virtual community event featuring several SLers from Hawaii including Wendz on the uke!

Friday Fashion Blog to Follow: Kanatan Abramovic's Le Soleil

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

Le Soleil is a blog by Kanatan Abramovic. Today she posted 167 For Tomorrow with a sassy little outfit and an absolute fantastical creature carved in wood. It reminds me of the prow of a Viking longship. I love the setting she created for her pick. 

• Dress: {HIME*DREAM} Ophelia Dress - FATPACK - @ Access ends 9/8
• Hair: [^.^Ayashi^.^] Asuka hair-Exclusive @ Access ends 9/8
• Creature: .::QUTWORLD Static Fantastic Creature Model::.
• Gate: dust bunny . robin fence . fatpack . 
• Smoke: Ana Poses - Yerevan

For more , click here: