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Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

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  • 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!

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  • VRChat Company Rep Addresses Breaking of CyanTrigger Script Compiler During Recent Update

    May 30, 2025

    CyanTrigger VRChat company response

    Just as the the VRChat creator economy is expanding, VRChat's creative community is roiling over a recent update with which broke CyanTrigger, a compiler for the platform's Udon scripting system which helps make in-scene editing fairly easy.

    The creator, CyanLaser, is publicly outraged, while at least one top VRChat creator, Lakuza — of Bullet Time Agent fame — has angrily announced an indefinite break from world creation on the platform.

    I reached out to Strasz, Senior Community Manager at VRChat, about the topic. What does the company recommend to VRC creators who are still using CyanTrigger?

    "They can keep using it, if they'd like," Strasz tells me, "but at their own risk! You probably shouldn't rely on tools that aren't open source and that can be controlled by a single party. There are other tools out there that offer up easy ways of doing basic things in SDK3. For creators looking for more advanced tools, learning Udon is probably the smart move. One of the best things about the VRChat community is that there's always someone willing to share their knowledge or even team up!"

    In any case, this is yet another application of my general rule for metaverse platforms, that any user-created feature/tool/content that becomes popular effectively becomes part of the platform itself. (At least until it's no longer usable.)

    (more…)

  • Amazing Aperture Photos: Look at These Raw Screenshots Taken in Second Life’s Hot New Third Party Viewer

    May 29, 2025

    54550823145_e5fd4802b2_c

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Silivren Atheria shot this amazing picture using the new Aperture viewer recently added to the approved third-party viewers for Second Life. (Read Hamlet’s write-up and interview with lead developer William Weaver here.) It is a viewer created for photography and folks are having great fun with it. Sillivren wrote “I actually love the post processing / photoshop when doing any pics, RL or SL. But having a viewer that can start that process when actually taking the pic? My inspiration may have found it's way back again.”

    I did a scan for some of the best Aperture pics on Flickr, check them out here:

    (more…)

  • VRChat Creators Making 4-5x More Money from In-Platform Sales vs. Patreon / Ko-Fi Etc. Says Company Rep — Even After 50% Revenue Cut!

    May 28, 2025

    VRChat avatar marketplace

    VRChat recently (if belatedly) unveiled its in-world avatar marketplace, so here's an interesting stat from Charles Tupper, Community Manager at VRChat. Speaking during a recent Twitch forum for VRC creators, one of them offered a succinct comment about VRChat the company taking 50% from each avatar sale: "WTF?"

    Tupper's reply:

    (more…)

  • Virtual Worlds Museum Launches Explorable Education Hubs in Roblox, Horizon Worlds, Rec Room & Second Life

    May 28, 2025

    Virtual Worlds Museum hubs Rec Room Roblox Horizon SL

    The Virtual Worlds Museum just unveiled its first set of interactive hubs and exhibits within multiple virtual world platforms including Roblox, Horizon Worlds, Rec Room, and (yes!) Second Life, which I'm helping finalize as a longtime consultant. While I'm somewhat biased, I do believe this is the most ambitious effort to created a unified experience and knowledge base spanning all virtual worlds past and present. Here's the officially vision:

    Our vision was to build dedicated museum exhibits and hubs inside these virtual worlds as places where the culture of each platform could be explored and mapped… Each hub is an anchor point in a growing map of immersive experiences that will soon be connected to our six core exhibits

    The Roblox hub, for instance, was created by VWM volunteer and Roblox builder Joshman, and takes you through a Time Machine where you can travel through the nearly 20 year evolution of the platform. (Here's its official Roblox page.)

    Go here for more info for exploring all the hubs. More details on the Second Life hub soon!

  • Cajsa’s Choices: Lovely SL Travel & Romance Photos by Alorra Bloodrose

    May 28, 2025

    Screenshot (1618)

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Alorra Bloodrose’s “Sundog” is a beautiful shot of brilliant sundog. It’s gorgeous, though it seems unseasonal. Sundogs, or parhelia, happen when sunlight refracts off ice crystals in the air so it’s rare they are seen in Summer, but it’s not impossible. However, the thing about Second Life is you can have sundogs in any kind of weather, even without clouds to hold ice crystals in the air. I like that in addition to providing a link to visit the site in her description, she also tells us what sky setting she used. 

    For more from Alorra, click here:

    (more…)

  • Despite Mobile, Streaming, Etc., Second Life Peak Concurrency in 2025 Down Somewhat From 2024 Levels

    May 27, 2025

    Second Life CCU 2024 2025

    Note: "Population" in this context refers to peak concurrent users online

    Reddit /SecondLife host "0xc0ffea" recently posted some fairly surprising data, citing numbers scrupulously documented by longtime SL blogger Daniel Voyager: The number of peak concurrent users in SL every month this year are consistently down somewhat from 2024, a loss from 2,687 to 3,954 month over month. (See chart by "0xc0ffea" above.)

    Yes, a few thousand less users online is not a significant loss — except this loss has been consistent, and has been happening despite a wave of improvements and additions to the platform, as they note:

    The peak monthly population this year has dropped by several thousand compared to this time last year, this is probably worse than it looks with increased botting (including LL's own AI experiment), the mobile mania promotion (which ran most of February during the steepest drop) in addition to paying users L$ rewards for using the mobile app and Project Zero.

    Read it all here. l'll be following up with Linden Lab on these numbers, of course. It's quite possible the loss would have been even sharper, were not it for the addition of mobile, Project Zero, etc. Also, it's too early to say what impact the Creator Partnership Program will have on user growth.

    Indeed, someone else on /SecondLife just posted about their own first-time user experience in SL, praising Mad Pea's game quest system from the program in particular:

    (more…)

  • Gen AI Impressively Improves the Quality… of My Blog Comment SPAM

    May 27, 2025

    Gen AI blog spam  1While I'm still skeptical that Gen AI platforms have categorically* improved much of anything in our lives, LLMs sure seem to have improved the quality of my blog comment SPAM. At first I actually thought the above comment was from a genuine reader, genuinely excited about William Weaver's new Second Life viewer.

    But no, reading further, it's artificially excited about selling sub sandwiches.

    But this is an impressive improvement from the usual comment SPAM, which for 15+ years, would pretty much be a blatant "buy sub sandwiches <link>" promotion. So, progress!

    I'm not quite sure what's going on in the comment above, but my guess is the Spammer has automated a ChatGPT prompt along the lines of, "Read this post and produce a comment praising its most important points, while also organically incorporating [MY CLIENT'S BRAND] as part of the comment."

    Which would be a giant step in the all-important SPAM industry! 

    Here's another one:

    (more…)

  • Cajsa’s Choices: Movie Tributes & Politically Provocative Imagery by SL Artist Damien “Tag” Taggart

    May 27, 2025

    Screenshot (1609)

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Damien "Tag" Taggart has a fascinating photostream. When I saw this pic, “One Tin Soldier” I was thrilled that someone remembered the song of the same name. It’s not like it gets played on Golden Oldies stations. I have it on my “Favorites” playlist and sing along whenever it plays. That military truck driving away with a “Peace on Earth” sign reminds me of George Carlin’s quip “Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.” 

    For more of his interesting work , click here:

    (more…)

  • Top 5 Posts Including: A Shockingly Huge Roblox Farming Game, ChatGPT Still Distorting My Writing, and a Radically New Second Life Viewer

    May 26, 2025

    Aperture TPV screenshot Surrealia Hexem

    Above: Raw, untouched Aperture screen capture by Surrealia Hexem — more on her Primfeed

    • Nine Things Second Life Merchants Want Their Own Customers to Know
    • Inside Grow a Garden, the Ridiculously Popular Roblox Game Made by a Teenager That Could Be Making as Much as $5 Million+/Month
    • Cajsa Choices: Stunning Photos from Aquilonia, a Second Life Roleplay Community Set in Ancient Rome During the Rule of Marcus Aurelius
    • All About Aperture: Why William Weaver Created a Whole New Way of Seeing Second Life
    • ChatGPT Improves Its Summary of My Writing — But Still Adds Serious Errors!
  • SURVEY: Which of these suggestions to Linden Lab will MOST benefit the Second Life Economy / Merchants? (Patreon Only)

    May 23, 2025

    SL merchant survey economyNow on my Patreon (and only on my Patreon), I'm surveying 14 specific suggestions to improve the Second Life economy for merchants. These recommendations are taken from my anonymous poll of Second Life creators, so it reflects issues they're dealing with regularly.

    Next week, I'll present the top three-five with the most votes to Linden Lab, to get their feedback on when/whether/how these proposals can be implemented. For instance (to take three at random):

    – Integrate Marketplace with the mobile app.

    – Allow users to share accounts between business partners.

    – Marketplace and Caspervend (gifting, deliveries, single listing).

    Go here to take it. To prevent ballot stuffing and as a benefit my Patreon community, I'm going to keep voting access limited to members. (Speaking of which, join my Patreon for free!)
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