New World Notes

Metaverse Interoperability Across Multiple Platforms Was Tried By IBM & Linden Lab But Didn't Catch On -- Here's Why.

Why the Metaverse is Beating Gen AI https://t.co/0CegcGDiSk

— Open Metaverse Interoperability Group (@open_metaverse) September 6, 2024

Thanks to everyone from the Open Metaverse Interoperability Group especially host @jimmy6DOF for the fun and spicy conversation last Friday -- you can listen to the whole thing above (starting around 4 minutes in), with some particular spiciness around 36:30, where I mention that metaverse interoperability of virtual objects has been tried before and fairly failed, a topic I go into at length in my book. So below is a somewhat edited excerpt on that subject:

 

Tomorrow at 11am on X/Twitter: Join Me & OMI on Spaces to Chat Metaverse vs. Gen AI!

Join Wagner James Au @slhamlet with us on Friday!

Open House & Talking all things Metaverse -- what it was -- what it is -- what it could be -- and why he thinks it's beating GenAI !!!

Here on X starting :
11AM(PST) 2PM(EST) 6PM(UTC) pic.twitter.com/3OQTiPIAzO

— Open Metaverse Interoperability Group (@open_metaverse) September 4, 2024

I'm on an X/Twitter Space tomorrow at 11am PT co-hosted by the Open Metaverse Interoperability Group, where we'll be getting punchy about the continued vitality of the Metaverse and metaverse platforms, especially as compared to the (largely) unsustainable hype of generative AI. Get your questions ready and join the fun! 

Afterward (around Noon PT), we'll be hitting a virtual world after party in the web-based NOWHERE, in a space co-hosted by the Virtual Worlds Museum -- will share the link when we're there! 

Watch Me Talk Making a Better Metaverse With XR Reality's Dominque Wu

Here's a fun recent chat with Dominique Wu of the XR Reality Pro podcast, on Making a Metaverse That Matters. Dominique herself is a recent author (Spatial Design) and was recently a developer on Horizons Worlds, so we're able to delve deep into the weeds on what works and what doesn't with Metaverse platforms.

Actually I put my camera at a weird angle (or maybe my head has a weird angle), so you might prefer listening instead:

• Get it on Spotify
• Get it on Apple Podcasts

Here's some timecoded highlights:

Hear Me Out: Audio Version of Making a Metaverse That Matters 60% Off Until July 11!

Wagner James Au · What the Metaverse is -- and what it's not. (Excerpt, "Making a Metaverse That Matters".)

The audio version of  Making is ideal listening for long Summer trips/vacations (in my very totally humble opinion), and it's now 60% off at Audiobooks.com until July 11th here! Listen to a sample above, read the description below:

Special Discount Code to Augmented World Expo 2024 in Long Beach, Where I'll Be Blogging & Signing My Book!

Augmented World Expo 2024 is happening next month in June in sunny Long Beach, and I'm excited to say I'll be attending the world's largest XR/AR/VR conference, signing Making a Metaverse That Matters and roaming the conference as a blogger/consultant/etc. Hope to see you there!

Speaking of which, the team at AWE gave me this special discount code on registration for New World Notes readers:

Use SPKR24D as a discount code on sign-up for 20% off all tickets except VIP.

That's on top an early-bird discounted price if you order before May 8. And if you are coming, please let me know in Comments or on my socials!

Watch Me Talk About Second Life, VRChat & the Metaverse on Belgian TV!

Thanks to host Tim Verheyden, here's my segments on The Digital Dilemma, a TV series from Belgium's public TV network. Most of it's in Dutch, but hopefully the YouTube subtitle AI works. (Belgians can watch the whole thing here.)

I'm at the start of the episode, walking on the beach in Malibu, comparing Internet dangers to surfers swimming beneath the surfers. 42:50 is my main segment, chatting with Tim about Second Life and its relationship to Malibu, the gender difference in VR that Meta has ignored, and how metaverse platforms already benefit vulnerable people like the LGBT community and military veterans with PTSD. 

I kinda hate watching myself on video but this was a fun time (shot in November 2023) and Tim and his team were lovely; even though I came back with a pretty bad sunburn after 6 hours of shooting. 

And yes, massive great white sharks literally do swim right beneath the surfers in Malibu -- watch below! And yes, I know the 90s called and wants my hair back.

Watch: Why Creating Diverse Communities Make the Metaverse Matter (My Appearance on the Remote Daily Talk Show)

Courtesy the lovely people of Remote Daily, an online talk show that launched during the pandemic (with live music and everything), here's my recent appearance with award-winning VR creator Athena Demos, where we talk about creating community within XR platforms. My favorite passage is around 17:00 minutes in, where I explain my argument for why the Metaverse is enables us to create uniquely transformational communities: 

That's one thing I really wanted to focus on with the book, because after Mark Zuckerberg and others sort of glommed onto the term, they were kind of talking about it like it's a technology. And I was pulling my hair out [saying], No, there's a virtual world where communities can emerge, and they are only possible within an immersive virtual world space, because you have by definition millions of people from all over the world connecting in the same virtual space.

 

So you have a sense of "you are there" with other people. And because there's millions of people, you're gonna meet people from different generations, from different economic backgrounds, different races. And that's only possible, far as I can tell, within a virtual space where you have this sense of immersion. Because with social media, you're either connected with your friends or you're yelling at each other on Twitter, and so on.  

By the way (since Remote Daily's host mentions it, and it comes up fairly often), if you're wondering about my name:

Join me for a Zoom Webinar on Building Virtual World Communities -- Tomorrow at 8am PT/11am ET/4pm CET!

RSVP here! Joined by award-winning VR creator Athena Demos, here's the roundtable summary:

XR (Extended Reality) has transformed industries from gaming and entertainment to healthcare and education through immersive technologies that alter reality like VR, AR, and MR. How does community building work in a virtual world and what can community builders learn from the XR space? What do community builders need to know about all of this to stay on the cutting edge of the field?

Kickoff time is pretty early for West Coat people, I know, but I will be highly caffeinated.

TODAY AT 4pm PT: Watch Me Talk About Mythic Origins of Metaverse Myths at VWBPE 2024 -- And Get a Special Discount of My Book!

Stream starts at 4pm PT today! Watch on YouTube, or join us in-world:

Teleport link: VWBPE Auditorium - Canopy Waterfall

Teleport link: VWBPE Auditorium - Floating Gallery

We'll take as many audience questions as possible, just post them in text chat.

Also! Thanks to my publisher Wiley, there's a special 35% discount on the print addition of my book. Here's the details:

 

Despite Warnings from Top Researcher, Meta Has Not Seriously Researched VR's Strong Propensity to Cause Females Nausea (Far As I Can Tell)

"With Vision Pro launched, companies must talk about XR, nausea and gender" is a new Gamesbeat editorial that's an expanded excerpt of my new book, highlighting the most shocking thing I discovered while writing Making a Metaverse That Matters:

Meta, from what I can tell -- and I've brought this up with several senior executives, including former Oculus CTO John Carmack -- has not done any substantial research into a gender component around VR and nausea, first raised by danah boyd and backed up by several subsequent studies.

Specifically: that females have a strong propensity to get nauseous in VR.

I cannot overstress how flummoxing an oversight this is on Meta’s part, and for the tech world as a whole. Meta paid $2 billion for a piece of technology intended for a mass consumer market, even though reputable research suggested it tends to make half the population literally vomit.

My hope is tech reporters with large publications pursue this question with executives at Meta and other companies in XR (including now Apple). Anytime an article or news segment features images of women and girls happily enjoying an HMD experience, the media outlet is actively helping to obscure this extremely important, live topic.

Interestingly, there's some Linden Lab overlap to this question. Avi Bar-Zeev was a very early Linden (and most recently, helped develop the Vision Pro for Apple), and Meta's entrance into VR was driven by Second Life's co-founder: