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: Grotesque Self-Aggrandizement
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Here's an interview about Making a Metaverse That Matters on the Plutopia News Network, hosted by Internet OG Jon Lebkowsky with fellow OGs Wendy Grossman and Scoop Sweeney. Watch above, though please disregard my disheveled look — I realized only at the very last moment that this was an on-camera interview! One spicy topic we…
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In case you missed it, FastCompany recently featured an excerpt based on my extensive interview with Neal Stephenson for the book. Highlights include his own definition of the Metaverse, reports that he looked into building it back in the 1990s right after Snow Crash was published, and that 1992 novel's long-delayed Hollywood adaptation. Marco Brambilla,…
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Grateful for this book review by veteran virtual world educator Valerie Hill, who pinpoints some themes I've been most hoping that readers catch: Surprisingly, Au holds the view that interoperability (which has been talked about for years as being essential to the real metaverse) may not be necessary! He argues that it is the communities within virtual…
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UPDATE, July 28: Bumped up for weekend watching! And be sure to check out the interesting, somewhat ranty reader comments, and add some of your own. Recorded at Linden Lab last week Friday, I'm honored to be the latest guest in Philip Rosedale's new YouTube vlogast, where we do a deep dive on the past,…
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For weekend reading/listening, here's the transcript of a new podcast interview with VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi for Making a Metaverse That Matters. You can listen to the whole thing above, and some favorite of my favorite are excerpts below — on the origin of the book's title, my problem with the "open metaverse" as it's usually…
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This is a very fun loosey goosey chat on the gaming podcast Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat, perfect listening for Friday and the weekend. Since we're all gamers, we get into many topics I haven't discussed as much in other interviews, such as (roughly in this order): How gaming's modding community brought me…
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The celebration of Second Life's 20th anniversary isn't over. Now available on Kindle for $9.99, I've just released a special new edition of The Making of Second Life, featuring a new foreword and afterword, and selected images. Get it here. Making a Metaverse That Matters is in many ways a sequel to my 2008 book,…
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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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Thanks to everyone who participated last week! Here's some of my favorite exchanges: Photo of Judge Richard Posner in Second Life by Sam Sellers Did you expect to be writing about Second Life and the Metaverse for 20 years? (bce13) The first few years I thought Second Life was a very interesting niche MMO. Then…
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I’m the author of “Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For”, aiming to cut through the hype and tell the true story of the Metaverse and the people striving to make it fully real — AMA! by u/slhamlet in IAmA https://embed.reddit.com/widgets.js
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 