Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

recent posts

about

NEWS: My Next Book, Why the Metaverse Matters, is Coming Out for Second Life’s 20th Anniversary!

Wagner James Au metaverse second life book

I've been wanting to make this announcement for months, and now I finally can, through this scoop from Dean Takahashi on VentureBeat:

For a guy who was an embedded journalist inside the virtual world of Second Life, this whole metaverse thing is a ride around the merry-go-round again.

And so Wagner James Au, who previously wrote a book on his Second Life experiences, is now writing a book dubbed Why the Metaverse Matters: From Second Life to Meta & Beyond, A Guide by Its First Embedded Journalist.

In an interview with GamesBeat, Au said his focus is on the metaverse user communities, especially the grassroots creators, which make these platforms meaningful. He will explore the continued influence of Second Life on the evolution of the metaverse platforms, and uncover the mystery of Second Life…

Much more here — and much more soon on New World Notes. I fully plan to keep blogging as the book takes shape, creating what's essentially notes and thoughts that will shape the final product. That also means relying on the feedback of you, you excellent readers, who have been an incredibly smart and supportive community that I continue to learn from. So thank you all for helping make this possible!

And if you have ideas of what I should be sure to include, please let me know in Comments!

Posted in ,

2 responses to “NEWS: My Next Book, Why the Metaverse Matters, is Coming Out for Second Life’s 20th Anniversary!”

  1. Martin K. Avatar
    Martin K.

    Discussing the definition of “Metaverse” that you employ in the book would certainly be a good idea.
    If you employ a definition that is very close to the use of the term in “Snow Crash”, it would be interesting why a concept from a book that was designed to serve the story of that book would matter outside of that book. Personally, I believe that we have to expect many differences between the Metaverse of Snow Crash and successful metaverse apps in the real world. And that’s probably a good reason to employ a wider definition of “Metaverse” (or of “metaverse apps”).
    One trap that many people fall into is to argue that the Metaverse/metaverse apps matter because of all the applications of virtual reality/virtual worlds (for training, simulation, gaming, education, etc.). That’s obviously not true, because we can have most of those applications without metaverse apps.
    One important difference (if not the most important difference) between metaverse apps and other virtual worlds is probably the aspect of community. And maybe that’s a good starting point for a broad definition of metaverse apps: virtual worlds that support the formation of communities, which might already give away the reason why they matter.

    Like

    Reply
  2. Lex4art Avatar
    Lex4art

    Good luck with the book, I definitely will keep an eye on this )

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment