Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
Making a Metaverse That Matters
Contact me — links below!
recent posts
- Warning: LLMs Able to De-Anonymize User Accounts on Reddit, Hacker News & Other “Pseudonymous” Platforms; Report Co-Author Expands, Advises
- Want to Go On-Together? A New Virtual World for Real Life Coworking
- All the World’s Avatars (1 Billion & Counting)
- Gamers Overwhelmingly Hate Gen AI in Games, Major Industry Report Finds — Here’s Why!
- Why Do Gamers Generally Prefer Fantasy Virtual Worlds Over Sci-Fi MMOs?
about
Category: Economics of SL
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting “Flickr Stats – PRO Accounts – Are you doing more than needed?” is a not to be missed post at SasyScarborough.com written by the aforementioned Sasy Scarborough. Sasy is one of the OG bloggers who set the standard for many years. She’s…
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This spectacular montage machinima may seem like a big budget commercial for Second Life (and it's definitely more dazzling than the actual ad Linden Lab paid for in 2021), but it's actually more interesting than that: It's a showreel of ads for top metaverse brands inside the Second Life economy, created by Teal Aurelia, a…
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If you saw Blade Runner 2049 from a few years back, you probably remember the Ryan Gosling character visiting the eerie headquarters of the Wallace Corporation, which has replaced the original film's Tyrell Corporation as the leading developer of replicants, i.e. artificial humans. And if you went shopping at the Second Life headquarters of Inthium,…
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Lots of interesting conversation around Linden Lab's new (and still active) job search for a senior product manager to help grow Second Life into "millions of customers" as the virtual world expands to mobile. Kaylee West understandably worries if this growth will impact the long-term existing community and the rates they pay for premium subscriptions:…
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A few days after the folding chair combat meme went viral (for hilarious and horrible reasons) earlier this month, the proprietor of Bad Unicorn, a Second Life content brand, went to work on bringing that meme in all its deranged glory to Second Life. It's now available in the Marketplace: 6 texture options Hit your…
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Stream on Spotify above or get on Apple Podcasts here, I just did an incredibly fun episode bout Second Life’s 20th anniversary and its role in the Metaverse’s evolution for the 2 Girls 1 Podcast show devoted Internet culture. Content warning: We get into some weird and/or sexy areas, including a long discourse on TTP,…
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This is an interesting and short survey (should take less than 10 minutes) for a master's thesis on Second Life avatar identity and virtual items. It's overseen by Professor Diana Falcão of Oporto University in Portugal. "The survey aims to assess buying behaviours of identity items in SL, namely avatars, clothing and accessories. This is…
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Here’s an interesting footnote to the story of Bonnie Bots, the web site that collects and displays Second Life user data gleaned from in-world bots — a practice so controversial and provoking so much outrage, Linden Lab had several internal conversations and debates about it, posted a new policy statement, and even added new tools…
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If it's true that some SL merchants create poorly optimized mesh items to satisfy customer demand for "more detail", reader Chic Aeon makes the point that the opposite is also true — that customers can make their preference for better optimized content known to to merchants: There ARE designers who make outstanding items that are…
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Pretty amazing reader debate around my interview with professional game artist Penny Patton, who pointed out the problems with poorly optimized mesh items being sold in Second Life, and how to solve them. (That one shirt above, as I noted, has way more triangles than Kratos in God of War on the PlayStation 4.) Reader…
