New World Notes

Open Forum: What Are Your SL / Virtual World / Metaverse Predictions for 2025?

Post your own predictions for highlighting here and on New World Notes, the more concrete and easier to validate, the better!*

I'll start with two of my own:

• Thanks to the launch of Linden Lab's mobile app and cloud streaming, Second Life increases peak concurrent users by at least 20%. I predicted something like this would happen last year, but muffed it. But I'm still bullish on this happening in 2025!

• A leading metaverse platform start-up is acquired or goes on an IPO track. This is another prediction I missed in 2024, but I actually think VRChat's painful layoffs last year better position them for this happening (if they want) in 2025.

I'll think of more predictions over the weekend, but want to read yours first!

I usually post an open forum for New Year predictions in late December, by the way, but this time, when I got the sense something big was coming in early January, had to move it to this week.

What New-ish Second Life Brands Should New World Notes Feature This Month?

Last month, New World Notes readers selected Aardvark and The Discord Experts as favorite new-ish SL brands. For November, I'd like to profile one or two other brands!

If you'd like to nominate one, please post details in Comments. Here's info/criteria to include:

• SL brand must be 5 years old or younger
• Include brand's Marketplace listing and/or mainstore SLurl
• Include brand's social media feed (Flickr, X/Twitter, FB, etc.)
• Include a short explanation about why the brand is unique/interesting/worthwhile

Please post nominations by this week! And yes, self-promotion is fine.

What Other New-ish SL Brands Should New World Notes Feature?

I'm compiling a finalist list of new-ish Second Life brands to feature next month but still have some openings for consideration! If you'd like to nominate some personal favorites in Comments below, here's the info/criteria to include:

• SL brand must be 5 years old or less
• Brand's Marketplace listing
• Brand's social media feed (Flickr, X/Twitter, FB, etc.)
• Must be innovative, high quality, and graphically well-optimized 
• Include a short explanation about why the brand is unique/interesting/worthwhile

Please post details/links in Comments by Thursday! And yes, self-promotion is fine. (See previous nominations here and here.)

Open Forum: What Amazingly Artistic SL Flickr Creators Should Cajsa Cover in Her Column?

After covering hundreds and hundreds of the very best, most artistic Second Life image creators on Flickr for nearly 10 years, Cajsa Lilliehook is looking for new creators to feature on her regular New World Notes column. (New, or new to her!)

Question is, who? Ideally we're looking for creators who haven't been featured in Cajsa's Choices over the last year or so (if at all) and who have created new images in recent months. We're definitely not looking for images which fit somewhere on this SL Cliché Bingo card.

Please recommend and link to your favorite Flickr creators in Comments below! And yes, your favorites can include yourself. Also take a look at Cajsa's favorites on Flickr for a sense of what she's looking for (some featured below):

What Questions Should I Ask SL Content Creators in My Upcoming Report of the Virtual World's UGC Economy?

I'm preparing to write an in-depth report on the internal user-driven Second Life economy, which remains one of the most thriving in the entire industry. (And arguably better than even Roblox.)  As part of that, I'll be conducting an anonymous survey of SL-based content creators, trying to capture the overall state of the market, while offering some useful takeaways for creators.

What questions should I ask? Here's some I have in my notepad:

How long have you been creating and selling content in SL?

How much in USD do you gross per year?

What price is your best selling item?

What percent of your sales are from the Marketplace?

How has your income from Second Life creations/merchandise evolved over the past few years?

Are you actively preparing to sell your content to mobile users?

Are you also selling your content on other platforms, and if so which ones?

Please post more in Comments below, and share this open forum post with the SL content creator in your life!

Open Forum: What Flickr Artists Should Cajsa Cover When She's Back?

In case you missed it (and I sure have!), Cajsa's regular column covering her favorite Second Life-based Flickr photographers and artists has been paused, as she deals with some various real life logistics.

Meantime, who are some of your favorite photographers/artists she should cover? Please post their feeds in Comments, or tag a specific picture with #CasjaNWN, aand add Cajsa Lilliehook on Flickr to the image. 

Here's what she's generally looking for:

Connect With Me on Socials & Share Anything About the Metaverse!

Here's an open forum to please share anything even vaguely SL/Metaverse-related that's on your mind, the more opinionated, the better. I'm still recovering from the GamesBeat NEXT conference on Tuesday while Cajsa held down the fort, but should be back to normal by tomorrow.

Also please connect:

On Twitter/X, I'm "SLHamlet"

On Discord, I'm "wja_hamlet"

On Reddit, I'm "SLHamlet"

On Facebook, I'm "Hamlet.Au"

On Threads, I'm "wjamesau"

On Bluesky, I'm "SLHamlet"

And e-mail is wjamesau at gmail dot com!

New World Notes Finally Back Online, So Here's an Open Forum & My Contact Info

Apologies on behalf of Typepad, my super awesome blogging service, which had a server outage for most of today. Blogging should resume to normal speeds by tomorrow. Meantime, here's an open forum to discuss or share content. I'll go first:

In case you missed it, here's my main contact/social media channels. I'm "Hamlet Au" in Second Life and you can e-mail me at wjamesau at gmail.com.

As for my socials (roughly in order of preference and usage):

• On Twitter/X, I'm "SLHamlet"
• On Discord, I'm "wja_hamlet"
• On Reddit, I'm "SLHamlet"
• On Facebook, I'm "Hamlet.Au"
• On Threads, I'm "wjamesau"
• On Bluesky, I'm "SLHamlet"

Please share your own contacts, or whatever else even vaguely SL/Metaverse-related that's on your mind, below!

Open Forum: What are your favorite Metaverse/Virtual world-themed Movies & TV Shows (That Are Not Ready Player One?)

I was just doing a podcast interview about the book, happily getting into the weeds about the Metaverse and its history, when the host asked me a question that caused me to go blank:

"So what are some movies and TV shows about the Metaverse you recommend to listeners?"

By brain seriously went empty for what felt like three minutes before I finally mentioned a recent example (which I won't reveal until the podcast comes out).

Ready Player One would have been the most obvious example to mention right there; but while I liked the Spielberg adaptation just fine, it now leaves a bad aftertaste. (Which probably contributed to my brain freeze.) The movie doesn't add much to the original concept from Snow Crash, for one  -- other than basically presenting it as a fun, single shard multi-player video game. Worse, depicting the virtual world as only being accessible through VR has created a unfeasible and frankly undesirable vision that's inadvertently caused enormous damage to the concept's evolution. 

None of that's the fault of original author Ernest Cline, of course, and not taking away anything away from the novel's success! If anything, I'm faulting executives who only read and recommended his novel. 

As I write in Making a Metaverse That Matters, the book was made required reading for new employees at Oculus before and after its acquisition by Facebook -- even if that meant ignoring earlier, more important readings:

Open Forum: What Are Your Metaverse Predictions for 2023?

With the year 2022 starting to sunset, it's time to gather reader predictions for the New Year! Anything having to do with any metaverse platform (SL, VRChat, even Horizon Worlds) or related technology (VR, AI, MMOs, etc). As always, the more falsifiable the prediction is, i.e. concrete enough to empirically prove or disprove, the better!

To start things off, here's a couple I mentioned in my last video with Isabelle (watch below):

• VRChat will have 10 million monthly active users (either announced by the company or by a reputed analytics firm).
• Second Life will finally release an official mobile app.

Post your own in Comments below! I'll feature the best ones -- i.e. the most falsifiable and interesting -- in a post next year!