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: Making the Metaverse
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Getting even closer to Second Life's 20th anniversary! I just talked about the topic with FastCompany, who also chatted with Philip Rosedale. Sample: Three years after Second Life’s launch, another virtual world emerged with a much more guided approach. Roblox also empowered its users to create their own worlds, but put a heavy emphasis on…
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Now in hard cover you can hold in your hands, Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For (Wiley), is in book stores in a couple of weeks! If you've enjoyed anything I've blogged here over the last 17 years (or at least had some…
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I was just doing a podcast interview about the book, happily getting into the weeds about the Metaverse and its history, when the host asked me a question that caused me to go blank: "So what are some movies and TV shows about the Metaverse you recommend to listeners?" By brain seriously went empty for…
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Avi Bar-Zeev led Experience Prototyping for Vision Pro at Apple, where he was most recently a Senior Manager; he just shared some intriguing observations on Apple's Vision Pro reveal: The word "Metaverse" didn't appear once in Apple's WWDC thus far. 3rd party apps may espouse that next-gen internet vision later. But I'd argue it's much…
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At right: Video from Apple's WWDC 2023 developer page After some tantalizing hints on Monday, I can confirm that Apple is indeed working directly with leading metaverse platform Rec Room on being a full VR application for Vision Pro. You can see for yourself by going to this WWDC 2023 developer page, where Apple devs…
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I love waking up to a New York Times story that cheerfully gets three things wrong in just the headline. We've been doing variations of this since at least 2021, when Zuckerberg changed Facebook's name to Meta, announced it was making the Metaverse without clearly defining it, sucking most of the media into a vortex…
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Here's my Metaverse Forum appearance broadcast at GamesBeat 2023 last week, along with Chris Brandt, CMO of Chipotle (creator of this burrito-making game in Roblox), Roblox VP Nick Tornow, with Shuchi Rana moderating. Topics include: What got each of you interested in the Metaverse? There are many definitions & many tiers of the Metaverse, what…
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VRChat recently announced in-world monetization options for creators, and I've been wondering since then whether it's too little, too late. The founders' extreme caution around a creator economy is totally understandable, but the virtual world already has about 4-6 million monthly active users (by my estimate), making its population about the size of Los Angeles.…
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Register for free here to attend my virtual talk at GamesBeat 2023 this Wednesday (May 24) at 1:00 PM PT, where I'll be part of The Metaverse Forum panel: As the concept of gaming, immersive worlds, and the metaverse continue to evolve, it's becoming increasingly clear that there are a number of significant challenges that…
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After 9 years of operation, VRChat is finally — and very carefully — rolling out its user creator economy: First, when we say Closed Beta, we really mean it – we only intend on inviting in 10 – 20 creators at first. Up until now, we’ve been testing these systems internally, but before releasing them…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 