News
Snapchat knows you want to see what you’d look like in the metaverse // TechCrunch
Hundreds of Snapchat lenses are released monthly (and we sometimes share them as we did in issue 33), and one of the latest lenses recently made a splash as it turns you into a Metaverse avatar better than any we've seen thus far.
The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour // The Guardian
The popularity of Roblox is due to the trust and massive userbase, who are also on average under 15 years of age. This article delves into some of the not so great aspects of a for profit company using a community of miners to generate content as their primary profit base. As a stockholder of Roblox and parents we are fairly concerned, and this has us rethinking our position on the platform.
Second Life founder returns to revamp his original metaverse
Second Life was an early example of what the Metaverse could accomplish, creating shared worlds, an economy, and virtual existences back in 2003 (the same year that Meta was founded). Philip Rosedale, Founder of Linden Lab and Second Life, is returning to the company and bringing the vision that the platform needs to reclaim its once former glory. Though with more than 73 million accounts made since launch and over 900,000 active users it feels more like they need to start with marketing.
Video Games Already Do What the Metaverse Just Promises // Wired
As we venture into embracing new technologies and paradigms for social interactions let's not forget that these are not new concepts created in the 21st century. Video games have been provided connected experiences for decades without much hype or fanfare that modern tech companies garner. Tech definitely has better marketing teams.
Reading
Why AR, not VR, will be the heart of the metaverse // VentureBeat
In terms of both ease of adoption and smaller hardware requirements it makes sense that AR has advantages over VR. We can't say that we wholly agree that VR will lose out to AR since they have different places where each tech shines. But we can understand that if general consumer adoption is your goal AR does currently have a much easier path.
Development
Creating a Privacy Policy for Your VR App - Privacy Policies
Any experience where you can gather information about your users requires an appropriate privacy policy. Sadly a lot of companies are still unclear as to what kinds of assurances they should be giving their VR users. The good people behind one of the Internet's best privacy policy generators recently published a great article covering the kinds of things you should know about how to best communicate what you won't (and will) be doing with their data.
One More Thing
Adventure Lab | virtual adventure with a live performer
We're large advocates for shared in-person immersive experiences, and it was great when we heard about how Adventure Lab is pushing at the boundaries of what a group of people can do together within VR and live entertainment. Hosting up to 8 people (we only had 6 when we played) and paring them with a game master to play through hilarious escape room scenarios. Be sure to book well in advance if you're thinking of giving this a try, as we had to wait a week because they filled up all their sessions.
Commentary
Businesses adopting the Metaverse has grown sharply in the last year in part due to remote work and the pandemic. Though that certainly added to the news about how companies reacted to remote work the groundwork and technologies put to use have been in the works for decades. As we also begin to see the push toward bringing employees back to offices the technologies that enabled remote collaboration will not be going away, and the momentum to adopt it further does not appear to be slowing.
Last December in his annual "Year in Review", among all his outlooks on the world, Bill Gates wrote that the majority of meetings will take place in the Metaverse within the next three years. In past issues we've covered companies making the path toward bringing the VR into the workplace easier to manage, and don't see any large problems with more companies capitalizing from an enhanced workplace within the Metaverse.
The only thing I can see getting in the way is when the coffee break also enters the Metaverse, and employers become paranoid about what they can't monitor. With reports of corporate spyware up 50% in 2021 only time will tell if we will also see an increase in companies offering monitoring services within VR.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and we'll see you next week!
— Other Realities Directory | Other Realities Journal | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube —
Other Realities