New World Notes

My Top Ten Personal Favorite New World Notes Posts of 2019

"Favorites" in the sense that I find them to make the most important points for where virtual worlds, VR, and the Internet culture is now, or that they fit New World Notes' original mission: Embedded reporting in a virtual world that reflects who we as humans and a culture truly are. And how digital life re-shapes that. I'm grateful to Cajsa Lilliehook and Danielle "Nylon" Feigenbaum for brilliantly helping me to tell that ever-evolving story.

• Radio, Remembered: Father Who Lost His Beloved Virtual Art In Second Life Finds Them Again -- Recreated In Fortnite By His Son
• Despite $2.6 Billion In Funding, Magic Leap Sold Less AR Headsets Than Jeri Ellsworth's Tilt 5 Kickstarter
• John Carmack, VR Pioneer Who Once Described Developing VR As A "Moral Imperative", No Longer Focused On Developing VR
• Majority Of Facebook Employees Believe Policy Allowing Political Ads With False Claims May Change 2020 Election - Blind Survey
• Donald Trump: The Japanese Dating Sim!

Sinespace Users: Refer Friends for Free Gold & Premium Subscriptions!

Here's a new offer for users of Sinespace, the Unity 3D-based virtual world sandbox MMO (and proud sponsoring partner to NWN): Get friends to sign up for Sinespace, and when they do and buy Gold, you get a Gold bonus that's 2% of whatever they buy. For instance, if they buy 10000 Gold, you get 200 Gold in your account.

The Referral Program also has a Premium offer: Refer 5 friends who become Premium members, you get your Premium membership free while they are subscribed!

Click here for details for how to redeem these offers, or log into your account and click the "Referral Program" tab.

Questions? Post in Comments below or even better, join Sinespace's official Discord. 

Join New World Notes' Discord! (Or Let Me Know If You Can't)

Click here to join with an invite link that's supposed to be permanent and for everyone. Several readers have reported being kicked out of our Discord -- which is either a service bug, or due to an old invite code with the wrong settings. If you do experience that problem, please let me know in Comments, so I can try and locate the bad link.

Speaking of Discord, there's an outstanding mesh complexity question from "Ianua" in the sl-news-and-coolness channel that needs some expert attention:

New World Notes' Discord Needs YOU - UPDATE: Fixed Invite Link

Click here to join. We're a friendly little club of some 200 folks or so talking about virtual worlds, VR, gaming, and subjects in between.

Speaking of virtual reality, here's a new server for AR/VR/XR fans called, of course, We Make Reality. (Via founder Eva Hoerth.)

New World Notes Seeking Another Sponsoring Media Partner!

Interested in becoming a Media Partner with New World Notes, the largest and longest running virtual world news/culture/opinion blog with a primary focus on Second Life and its many related spinoff products/virtual worlds? We get roughly 120,000-170,000 visits per month, according to Similar Web, fairly frequent coverage on major media outlets, and more key, we get our partners results:

At right are the clickthrough rates to the Second Life Marketplace listing of a recent partner, after just 4 months of their ad going live. (Typical CTR for NWN.)  You'll be joining our excellent, ongoing partners Sinespace and Ample Avi, and we''re looking for another, non-competing partner with a brand and product of value to our readers. For instance, given the ongoing search for better optimized 3D content, we're interested in partnering with a brand which values quality and graphics optimization. Other potential partners: Second Life/virtual world brands across many categories, VR/AR products/services, related hardware and software brands, and major organizations doing work in virtual worlds/VR.  

More details below:

All the Cool Virtual Kids Hang Out in New World Notes' Discord Channel

So you really should join us there too. Now closing in on 200 members, with channels for talking about anything virtual, from worlds to reality to games to actual real life. (Which as we all know is a virtual world simulation anyway.) There's even a tip channel where I wind up getting ideas to cover on NWN. See you there!

Now in Sinespace: Take a Tour of Home Templates for Your Free Region During Creator Weekend

NWN partner Sinespace is devoting this weekend to its many creator, including store and region tours, micro-games, quests, club shows, and contests. The blog has a summary of events happening today and Saturday/Sunday; for new users, a good place to start is the Self-Guided Tour of Home Template Regions, which can be used in your free home region:

There are room templates in the Sinespace Shop that can be purchased to use for your free home space. Most are well under the 128MB limit - this leaves you lots of room for furniture and decorations. Many of these templates are also regions you can visit before you buy them. 

For instance, above is Wondermere, a user-created region in the store. To visit all the regions, look for this sign (at right) in the Welcome Center, and enter the name of the region in the Explore. (Follow the arrows in the image.)

Much more events here and in the Sinespace forum. As always, if you have questions for the team, post in Comments and I'll nudge them to respond when they can!

Thanks to Sinespace's Dolome Demonia for creating the region tour tutorial!

New World Notes Wants to Partner With a YouTube/Twitch Streamer/Creator!

New World Notes' is expanding its video content and coverage, so I'm looking to hire/partner with a talented YouTube/Twitch video streamer and creator who wants to expand their fanbase, grow their views (and ad revenue), and take on some paid projects for NWN. (Yes, New World Notes pays contributors!)

I'm open to all kinds of video creators of various virtual world/Second Life/MMO/VR/AR topics, including:

• Unboxing/product reviews
• Shopping Tours
• Tutorials for users and creators
• Let's Play/Let's Explore videos
• Live events across various worlds
• Random hilarity

That's just a beginning list -- pitch me! For ideas, here's some videos/machinima I've featured on New World Notes in the past. Here's how to get in touch:

Join New World Notes' Discord Server for Friday Fun, VR/MMO News Tips

Click here to join, and connect with my Discord account directly at WJA#3523. We're up to nearly 100 members now, with lots of cool folks, news, and convos. There's even a channel for submitting News and Events tips that I often refer to for NWN posts! 

Join New World Notes' Discord Server to Chat About Social VR & Whatever

The link you need is right here, with close to 50 members now, a friendly talkative bunch. We're recently talking about VRChat, Linden Lab's recent brush with a real name policy, and you should jump in and suggest some new topics, post some cool links, no big whoop.