Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
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Category: Comment of the Week
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Lots of conversation last week around what it would take to upgrade 17 year old Second Life, with an intriguing point of comparison made by longtime virtual world user Jumpman Lane, who contrasts SL's performance with that of a 6 year old virtual world: I just recently returned to Second Life after 3 years of…
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Fascinating conversation in response to Luther Weymann's somber analysis of Second Life's prospects under new ownership, featuring many comments by readers who seem to be longtime veterans of the game/tech industry, or at least write with that level of expertise. Among them is Russell Skyther, who wrote this really sharp breakdown of what it would…
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You read the optimistic view of Second Life's future from a top SL brand owner, now here's a necessary counterpoint from longtime reader Luther Weymann, a retired technology industry veteran who last ran a company with 1000 employees, and is an eloquent supporter of SL's creative power. Despite his love for the virtual world, his…
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The legendary Fifty Linden Fridays shopping extravaganza, in which top SL brands offer select items for a mere L$50 (i.e. about 20 cents), has been running since 2009. But it only just occurred to me recently: How the hell does this even make any economic sense? Or as regular reader Patchouli Woolhara recently commented: After…
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Fatboy's Lost Horizon set in Sansar via Tim A's Twitter I don't have a PC/VR rig powerful enough to catch the Fatboy Slim/Lost Horizon show staged on Sansar under its new owner Wookey, but longtime virtual world user/creator Tim A did, and here's his take: I checked it out – I love Fatboy Slim, and…
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Interesting comment from Amanda Dallin, reflecting on SL's recently reported "pandemic boost": If the definition of a monthly active user has remained the same then the comparison to the peak in 2007 is valid. Actually there were likely more than 350,000 new registered users a month in 2007 when SL hit the peak of 1.1…
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Demo video by Pepe Kuno, who notes: "Finally smooth. Firestorm was killing me with the lag. Last week's most socially shared post by far is this one on the third party SL viewer known as Alchemy, which suggests to me that many are looking for an alternative to the popular Firestorm viewer. Readers weigh in…
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The comment thread to last week's "Why Do So Many Gamers Passionately Want Star Citizen To Fail?" was definitely more civil and thoughtful than the brigade of Star Citizen hate that my first post on Chris Robert's crowdfunded MMO attracted. While the level of rage remains a mystery to me, I do have some more…
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When I wrote about the latest update to Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' highly-ambitious, massively crowdfunded MMO — with over $250 million pledged so far — I expected it to be received as some interesting insights into an online world that many people haven't thought about much lately. What I didn't expect at all was a…
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Last week's most popular post by far is this one about how the Black Dragon viewer now has a setting to take 12,000 by 12,000 images of Second Life. So clearly many were interested in that option. However, this also provoked reader comments like "4K is generally good enough for screenshots" and, of course, "Why?"…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 