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!
about
Category: Comment of the Week
-
Over one billion people use a virtual world avatar of some kind. (Factoring in the half a billion+ on a metaverse platform, and the hundreds of millions who play MMOs and various multiplayer games.) Many if not most of them are such avid users, they frequently share content about their avatars (screenshots, video, blog posts,…
-
Fun comment from reader Ravelli Ormstein, spinning off from my post about how full of fail ChatGPT is when you ask it a question you're an expert on: First, I asked ChatGPT to write a LSL script that would turn on a light when the sun went down. It wrote a nice script, but it…
-
Above: A Bonnie bot, tirelessly on bot patrol There's been lots of interesting conversation and debate spurred by my post on BonnieBots, the new website tracking genuine Second Life activity. While Bonnie's bots don't violate any Linden Lab policy that I'm aware of, the sheer amount of information that both her avatar and web-based bots…
-
Whoever Linden Lab hires to fix its first-time user experience, they may want to take a look at what New World Notes readers recommend: Optimize the first-time orientation for low-end computers. Ideally it should look halfway decent on even a PC/Mac laptop with no 3D card. More from Yves Firlan: Update the default settings so…
-
Good thoughtful comments from Kate Nova, reflecting on that amazing (and heavily post-processed) Second Life machinima from Teal Aurelia: It's a gorgeous video! And a very cool "how to" companion video. [Watch above] Wonderful work by Aurelia and I wish her a great career journey! One of the reasons people sometimes go gaga over Christopher…
-
Left to right: Linden Lab's Robin Harper and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, along with the CEOs of MySpace and LinkedIn (Commonwealth Club, 2006) Good point from reader Martin K, adding to Cory Ondrejka's analysis of why Second Life hit a growth plateau during the peak of media attention between 2006-2008: The other trend that SecondLife was…
-
Female Users of Virtual Worlds Get Bodyshamed About As Much As They Do Offline (Comment of the Week)
Great rant from reader "Nadeja", leaping off from my interview in CNN about prejudice against non-attractive human avatars — specifically, on how it impacts female users in virtual worlds: Sadly, it's true. Also it's more than just being fat or slim. I had messages from guys commenting on the physical appearance of my avatar (i.e.…
-
Thanks to reader "dkronfeld" for sending this photo which effectively demonstrates a pretty surprising point he made in a recent open forum: With the right settings, Second Life runs pretty damn well on a recent model MacBook Air! Pictured above is his 2020 MacBook Air with an M1 processor, 16GB RAM, and the 8 core…
-
Above: Whiskey's laptop running SL — photo courtesy Whiskey Monday If you're looking for a new PC gamer laptop that runs Second Life well, acclaimed metaverse artist Whiskey Monday recommends the ASUS – ROG Zephyrus 16": "This is my new laptop and it's light and ridiculously powerful in Second Life," she writes in Comments. "I…
-
Really smart points by reader "Liv", on whether AI generated images like Dr. Nettrice Gaskins' Midjourney-based works can be called art: Like all artforms new technology comes along, and equivalent debates arise in different fields. “Is electronic music really music?” Same question. Some people will always value craft (or instrumentalism, in the music case) and…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 