Skip to content

Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

    • About

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

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Cajsa’s Choices: A Whole Flickr Group Devoted to Second Life Cows, Bulls, Bison & Buffalo is Udderly Amazing

    May 15, 2025

    Cows... of course


    //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

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

    It’s that time of year when my Facebook feed is filled with pictures of calves, colts, kids, lambs, chicks, and ducklings. That’s what happens when most of your real life relatives are farmers. It seems only fair to be checking out the farm fauna of Second Life as well, which led to to Siobhán Muintir’s Flickr group, Cows Virtual Bulls Bison Buffalo. 

    So, I absolutely had to choose “Cows…of course” from Azure Bleu and not just because of the title. It was one of the few with a calf, the whole inspiration for this post. This is a lovely mother and child picture though we are always told we should not anthropomorphize animals’ emotions. I generally think those people haven’t spent enough time around animals or even watching animal videos on YouTube.  

    For more virtual bovine pics, click here:

    (more…)

  • Ex-Meta Director Helps Confirm What Went Wrong With Horizon Worlds: “No One Loved the Product”

    May 14, 2025

    Originally published on my Patreon

    Kelly Stonelake is a 15 year veteran of Facebook/Meta, who recently filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging a series of highly serious charges around sexual assault, denied promotions, and a culture of discrimination. 

    While her lawsuit has been covered elsewhere, her last role at Meta included Director of Product Marketing of Horizon Worlds, which deserves special focus here. As I wrote back in March, a former Meta developer speaking on condition of anonymity described a workforce for Horizon who were mostly disinterested in virtual worlds or even VR.

    Kelly Stonelake, speaking on the record with me, is able to shed more light on what went wrong with Horizon Worlds — once touted as Meta’s early entry into the Metaverse, which the company even promoted with a Super Bowl commercial. 

    Seen that way, her insights also addresses a criticism I’ve come across often in recent years: If the Metaverse is supposed to be so important, why couldn’t Meta, one of the wealthiest companies in history, succeed in creating it?

    Because, Stonelake suggests, few people at Meta ever actually cared deeply about the product that was meant to help build it. 

    Asked to review and comment on my article, for instance, her point of view largely gels with what I wrote in March:

    (more…)

  • VRChat Unveils In-App Avatar Marketplace As Expected; Here’s Some Mixed-to-Positive Reactions from Creators

    May 14, 2025

    As I blogged last week, VRChat the company just unveiled an official in-world avatar marketplace where creators can sell their avies. This is a pretty huge move by VRChat, which has been deliberately slow to expand its UGC player economy. There's already thousands of VRChat creators selling avatars on third party platforms. 

    One of them, Krample (who I profiled a few years ago here) already has a successful side business of furry avatars on Gumroad, and is tentatively positive on this move:

    "I just applied for [the program to join the marketplace]," they tell me. "I do agree with a lot of the points they make about how rough it can be to sell source files on Gumroad and having to walk people through the import workflow… if this really will offer a click-buy-wear solution, rather than needing newbies to work through Unity and Blender to get characters up and running, it'll be great."

    A longtime VRChat player / content creator has a mixed opinion:

    (more…)

  • Casja’s Choices: Astonishing SL Imagery by an Artist Called Starlight

    May 14, 2025

    Starlight SL avatar photo

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

    Starlight is a Second Life artist whose pictures in Second Life are astonishing in their beauty. This headshot is stunning. She projects such strength and power. Authentic don’t mess with me power, like she probably kicks ass and takes names over breakfast. I mean, if someone gave me that look, I would listen. 

    You can see more of her work at an exhibit in-world at the Ganadara Gallery on the Elmira Sim. Here is the teleport [Click to teleport]

    For more of her astonishing work, click here:

    (more…)

  • Seed MMO Allows Players to Choose Their Colony’s Governance System. So This Early Player Group Chose… Dictatorship.

    May 13, 2025

    Seed, the highly ambitious MMO long in development, was conceived as a high-minded "rebuild society from scratch" planetary colonization sim, with players even able to create their own constitution. (Pioneering Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig helped develop the political framework for them game, the first MMO he's consulted on since advising Linden Lab on Second Life's IP rights policy.) I even consulted briefly on the project for a time, blogging that Seed seemed to be the first interactive, playable version of John Rawls' Theory of Justice:

    The Seed [player] community is the closest thing we have to people in Rawls’ hypothetical Original Position. Players have a very rough idea what the world will be; some probably have vague plans for what they want to do there, once the game is open. But none yet know what strategic and leadership talents they’ll need to succeed, let alone dominate or successfully survive.

    So I was somewhat surprised to see that an early Seed player community, given the chance to choose their political organization, chose… a benevolent dictatorship.

    Watch above, with one player insisting, "It's not as evil as people think it is." Well OK then!

    Mundi Vondi, CEO of Seed developer Klang Games, tells me that this isn't necessarily because players want dictatorship per se, except perhaps in this early stage of gameplay:

    (more…)

  • Deadpool & Wolverine Opening Dance Officially Available in Second Life

    May 13, 2025

    NICK PAULEY "BYE BYE BYE" DEADPOOL DANCE


    //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

    As it turns out, the Deadpool dance from the opening of Deadpool & Wolverine is officially available in Second Life:

    Nick Pauley aka "Dancepool" shares the moves he did in the opening scene of "Deadpool x Wolverine" movie. The dance is based off of the 2000 MTV video music-award winning choreography "Bye Bye Bye" by NSYNC's choreographer Darrin Henson. This dance went viral on social media, and now in Second Life, we are bringing you the actual Dancepool himself so your avatars can embody the real deal! 

    Or to put it another way: Meta merc with a mouth meets the Metaverse. (Compare and contrast with the movie version below.)

    As for how to get your own copy of the animations for your avatar, there's a promotional giveaway here from Paragon Dance Animations, the LA-based dance studio which has been creating/selling these RL mocap dances in Second Life for quite some time.

    (more…)

  • Cajsa’s Choices: Rimgal Kirax’s Pics Expand the Endless Possibilities of SL

    May 13, 2025

    54482701804_3e8804a332_c

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

    Rimgal Kirax came back to Second Life last year after a thirteen-year hiatus. He blogs on Flickr with complete credits and SLurls. However his blog is not the ordinary kind of Flickr microblog. As he wrote on his About page, “There is no limit to creation on SL, and it's so sad just taking model pics while all our dreams can come true on SL.” 

    And so he creates scenes that will make you smile, perhaps even laugh out loud, perhaps guffaw with pleasure. I mean, take a look at “Old Bathroom Full of Life” with the somewhat decrepit fixtures, the COVID-sized pile of toilet tissue, and a room full of critters. I mean, look at that cat fascinated by the scale, probably watching the numbers go back and forth before settling. Rimgal is fishing in a tub full of ducks – live ducks. It’s all so much fun.

    For more of Rimgal’s antics, click here:

    (more…)

  • Patreon Member Survey: What Kind of Content Do You 1000+ People Most Want to Read/Watch?

    May 12, 2025

    Wagner James Au NWN Patreon

    I'm gratified to announce that my Patreon now has over 1000 members.

    If you signed up recently: Thanks for supporting my writing, both there and here on New World Notes!

    If you've been a member since last year: Thanks for sticking around!

    If you're still thinking about joining, consider doing so to take this survey where I ask what specific virtual world topics you're most interested in reading. It will definitely shape the focus of future articles/content.

    While you're at it, please consider becoming a paying subscriber with extra benefits — up to and including business/marketing/media consulting sessions with me, and your virtual world brand featured here on New World Notes, where it'll be seen by tens of thousands of regular readers!

  • Top 5 Posts Including VRChat Adding Creator Economy for Avatars, Second Life Collaborating With Community to Grow World & a Sneak Peek at Stars Reach’s Early Player Community

    May 12, 2025

    • Stars Reach: Why Raph Koster's Upcoming Sandbox MMO is Already a Wonder-Full Escape from the Internet's Gen AI Slop (Guest Post)
    • Cajsa's Choices: Hilarious Retirement Home Group Photos By French SLers
    • Linden Lab’s Creator Partnership Program Part of Company's Daring New Pivot to Grow Second Life With SL's User Community — Here’s How
    • VRChat Working on In-Platform Creator Economy for Custom Avatars
    • Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2025年4月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan
  • This Weekend, Why Not Ride a Flying Whale With a Tree On Its Back?

    May 9, 2025

    Flying whale SL Sasaya kayo Slurl

    I first spotted it on Flickr years ago, and it's been my Peak Metaverse mental image ever since. So I finally just did. Ride the whale, that is, while chilling out to a phonograph down below playing old timey 1920s music.

    Click here to teleport to ride the flying whale yourself. It's the creation of Sasaya Kayo, hosted on the sims of Nix Onyx  Ziki Questi and Kinnaird Mainlander [see update here].

    Hat tip to Garbage Princess, who shot a video of her own ride recently (video below), part of an art project she launched after a battle with cancer: 

    (more…)

Previous Page Next Page

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Wagner James Au / New World Notes
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Wagner James Au / New World Notes
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar