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: Survey
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Here's the reader response to that widely-discussed rant from an anonymous SL creator on all the challenges plaguing the Second Life economy. With 247 responses — quite a large sample, as these things go — a strong majority of 57% said they agreed with the essay, Strongly or Mostly. (Contrasted with just 16% in the…
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Here's the results of my survey on the PBR upgrade in Firestorm, which brought in 177 responses. (A pretty large sample size, as these things go.) Asked how it's changed their overall Second Life experience, a plurality — nearly 1 in 3 respondents — chose "Much worse than before". That's compared to 20% who said…
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As promised, here's some of the top highlights to my Patreon subscriber report on the Second Life economy in its 21st year: With one hundred and eleven SL merchants responding to my survey, this overview of the Second Life economy represents a sizable slice of the most financially successful content creators in the virtual world. …
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Loading… Now that PBR graphics are officially part of Firestorm, the most popular Second Life viewer by far, please take this survey about how that's impacted your virtual world — use a mouse/trackpad for best results. Survey reactions published on New World Notes later this week/early next!
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Loading… Here's a survey asking how much (or how little) generative AI programs like Midjourney and Leonardo AI have penetrated the Second Life economy. (Take with a mouse/trackpad for best results.) In the last couple years I've started seeing SL images heavily upgraded with gen AI, but I'm specifically referring to advertisements or product displays…
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Loading… Now that Vision Pro is open for pre-orders, it's time to survey New World Notes readers, who are surely early adopter/hardcore fans for cool VR/AR devices. But does that mean they're lining up with credit cards now? Take the survey above, and explain your answer in Comments! (By the way: Respond to the poll…
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Here's the results of our survey on PBR in Second Life, and they may be surprising: While over 1 in 4 are excited by what they see with physically based rendering… nearly half (44%!) are waiting for PBR to be integrated into Firestorm and other third party viewers. Firestorm alone is the most popular viewer…
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Loading… It's been a week since PBR was launched in the official Second Life viewer, but so far its impact on the user community seems to be all over the place. So here's a survey to collect user reactions (take on a laptop/PC for best results)! On the one hand, we have creators like…
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Here's the results of last week's survey, asking how much generative AI will change movies, music, and metaverse platforms. By and overwhelming 65%, the majority opinion is that AI's impact will be nominal, and that generative AI programs like ChatGPT and Midjourney will just become one of many other high tech tools in our creative…
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Loading… Here's a survey on how much generative AI will change important parts of human culture, inspired by a debate posted last week. In case you missed it, read the different perspectives below here: How Artificial Intelligence May Change Metaverse Platforms. How AI May Change Movies and Music. Roughly summarized, one argument suggests AI will…