Future of the metaverse, and all that

[ChinRey]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The Army created its own opensimulator spinoff after the Second Life Enterprise program was cancelled by Linden Lab in Spring of 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Open_Simulator_Enterprise_Strategy

Ah, I never connected it to SL Enterprise since I assumed it took place much earlier. There must be something more to it though. LL did announce they would continue supporting exisitng customers when the scrapped SLE and even they didn't they surely cold have come up with some special agreement with the military if they really wanted to.

As for MOSES, that was the US military's name for their virtual reality project. They didn't have any special VR software though - just bog standard opensim and later Halycon - and that was what I was talking about this time.

[Drayke Newall]

4 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

I remember reading back in 2010 or possibly earlier that the US Navy had considered using SecondLife, but I haven't been able to recover the reference.

Probably cancelled it because all their sailors were getting nervous when they saw Linden water flooding the lower decks and they couldn't remove the water without magic prims that dont exist in RL. 😝

[Merlina21]

7 hours ago, animats said:

OK. Please pass the better items up to higher management. Like Chin Rey's post above. Some of us are trying to make SL better here. We'd like to see more action from LL in that direction. Thanks.

The new CEO of Lindens, Bradford Oberwager,  has only been in post since January of this year, and going by what he says on his LinkedIn profile, he seems like he would be open to listening to feedback and suggestions from what he describes as SL's 'incredible residents'.

[Selene Gregoire]

12 hours ago, Merlina21 said:

The new CEO of Lindens, Bradford Oberwager,  has only been in post since January of this year, and going by what he says on his LinkedIn profile, he seems like he would be open to listening to feedback and suggestions from what he describes as SL's 'incredible residents'.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 3/31/2021 at 4:29 PM, ChinRey said:

Ah, I never connected it to SL Enterprise since I assumed it took place much earlier. There must be something more to it though. LL did announce they would continue supporting exisitng customers when the scrapped SLE and even they didn't they surely cold have come up with some special agreement with the military if they really wanted to.

As for MOSES, that was the US military's name for their virtual reality project. They didn't have any special VR software though - just bog standard opensim and later Halycon - and that was what I was talking about this time.

I have to wonder if the US military has other virtual world platforms besides SL when I read this article.

And I know at one time they had a white label version of There.com even after it was closed to the public.

It's also possible that they have classified projects made by other companies we will never hear about.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 3/31/2021 at 10:08 PM, Merlina21 said:

The new CEO of Lindens, Bradford Oberwager,  has only been in post since January of this year, and going by what he says on his LinkedIn profile, he seems like he would be open to listening to feedback and suggestions from what he describes as SL's 'incredible residents'.

If he wanted suggestions, Linked In is not the place to put the offer, unless he only wants suggestions from one kind of constituent.

[ChinRey]

On 4/1/2021 at 4:08 AM, Merlina21 said:

The new CEO of Lindens, Bradford Oberwager,  has only been in post since January of this year, and going by what he says on his LinkedIn profile, he seems like he would be open to listening to feedback and suggestions from what he describes as SL's 'incredible residents'.

New CEO? I thought Oberwager was chair of the board of directors?

[Solar Legion]

5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

New CEO? I thought Oberwager was chair of the board of directors?

You are correct.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

New CEO? I thought Oberwager was chair of the board of directors?

My uncaffeinated mind saw that as him being A chair FOR the board of directors .. and followed up with "seems about right for SL".

[Merlina21]

8 hours ago, ChinRey said:

New CEO? I thought Oberwager was chair of the board of directors?

For the last 5 years he has been Chair of the board of directors for the Jyve corporation, but has been the Executive Chair of Linden Lab and Tilla as of January of this year. 

I presume 'executive' means he is taking some kind of active role in the running of the company, rather than just being on the board of directors?

[Solar Legion]

The Chair of a Board of Directors is not the same as the CEO of a given company. You can have both slots filled by the same person but the two are not the same position.

Further, even the most cursory of searches on the matter will include a link to a Linden Lab press release, at which point all you need do is go to their main About Page.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Solar Legion

[Merlina21]

11 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If he wanted suggestions, Linked In is not the place to put the offer, unless he only wants suggestions from one kind of constituent.

Looking at his profile just now and his postings, he hasn't been active on LinkedIn for the last 9 months. It is however possible for anyone who is also on Lindkedin to read and comment on his postings.

I would presume any director or manager of a company would welcome suggestions and feedback from customers of their product or service. Companies pay a lot of money to get that kind of feedback via market research and 'focus groups', and usually want to learn about how they can improve and stay ahead of their competitors.

Second :Life is clearly a bit different to other forms of entertainment and gaming platforms, given the amount of input from residents who use the platform, and the level of technical knowledge that people have, going by the postings on this thread.

He may not be expecting residents of Second Life to show up on LinkedIn, but if the aim is to get his attention it might be worth a try?

[animats]

Well, the Upland/Tilia people have made their big move: Trading cards!

New! Upland Collectables

Powered, somehow, by Linden Lab's Tilia. You can buy and sell these using a crypto coin called UPX. Upland FAQ:

Is UPX, the internal token, a cryptocurrency? When can I withdraw it?

Technically speaking, UPX is a fungible token on the EOS blockchain, similar to any cryptocurrency. We have elected, however, to use UPX strictly as a utility token. This means it can only be used inside Upland and cannot be withdrawn. By doing so, we avoid UPX being traded on external or decentralized exchanges outside of our control and possibly being deemed a financial security by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC). Maintaining compliance with United States regulations is one of our top priorities. However, as the platform does include a real economy, we have elected to partner with the financial division of Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) to allow a new feature, coming soon, called “fiat out”. Using this feature, you can choose to sell your virtual properties and items for either UPX OR fiat (e.g. USD).

You can currently buy UPX (1000 UPX for US$1), but through Paypal, not Tilia. Tilia talks about Upland, and Upland talks about Tilia, and the deal was announced 10 months ago, but as far as I can tell, there's no functioning money transfer system.

Upland's main product is a trading game. Imagine playing Monopoly on Google Maps. Here's a gameplay video, in German, on Twitch. Can't find an English one. They also have a retirement community for CryptoKiddies on a virtual Angel Island.

Upland has a usage statistics page, which I think was put together by a user. According to that, the most active Upland user has about US$5 in the system, and has visited 209 times.

Anyway, that, as far as I can tell, is what Tilia is doing, besides, of course, handling SL payments. If anyone from Tilia would like to clarify, please do so. The overall impression I get from reading the Upland and Tilia materials on this is somewhat confused. Am I missing something?

 

 

 

[Sid Nagy]

Isn't it possible you caught an April First joke in your net (a bit late?)

Edited April 3, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

Isn't it possible you caught an April First joke in your net (a bit late?)

https://www.one37pm.com/nft/gaming/blockchain-heroes-upland-nft-collaboration

https://www.upland.me/uplandcards

Sadly not.

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Something that Neal Stephenson doesn't get enough credit for is predicting the crypto-currencies and changes in trading: Cryptonomicon started it, but Diamond Age has an excellent exposition of why it's going to grow.

The trading cards is an excellent idea, get the young and impressionable on your side, then you can ignore the old jaded cynical diehard stick-in-the-muds who'e going to harp on about it endlessly on forums and never dig into their pockets...

[animats]

1 hour ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

The trading cards is an excellent idea, get the young and impressionable on your side...

There may be a market in this sort of thing. So far the successes involve monetizing some existing popular brand, such as NBA players or soccer teams or musicians or Marvel Overextended Universe characters. Upland is trying to do this without such a connection. “I think that 99% of the projects that are in the space today might not exist two or three years later, very similar to the ICO ("Initial Coin Offering") boom” - CNBC article.

(Correction: the "leader board" I mentioned above is not for all of Upland. It's by someone who has a system in Upland to build traffic by paying for visits.  Like those coin things in SL.)

[Prokofy Neva]

On 4/2/2021 at 1:00 PM, Merlina21 said:

Looking at his profile just now and his postings, he hasn't been active on LinkedIn for the last 9 months. It is however possible for anyone who is also on Lindkedin to read and comment on his postings.

I would presume any director or manager of a company would welcome suggestions and feedback from customers of their product or service. Companies pay a lot of money to get that kind of feedback via market research and 'focus groups', and usually want to learn about how they can improve and stay ahead of their competitors.

Second :Life is clearly a bit different to other forms of entertainment and gaming platforms, given the amount of input from residents who use the platform, and the level of technical knowledge that people have, going by the postings on this thread.

He may not be expecting residents of Second Life to show up on LinkedIn, but if the aim is to get his attention it might be worth a try?

Well, I don't know where this guy's head is at, except "snacks" is a good space to be in, especially in the pandemic, I'm all about snacks.

So inworld, his name is OberWulf Linden (I think I got that spelling right, like "top wolf" which is also a pun, his name means that it German as well). 

So I sent him some wolf snacks and a food bowl.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

17 hours ago, animats said:

Well, the Upland/Tilia people have made their big move: Trading cards!

New! Upland Collectables

Powered, somehow, by Linden Lab's Tilia. You can buy and sell these using a crypto coin called UPX. Upland FAQ:

Is UPX, the internal token, a cryptocurrency? When can I withdraw it?

Technically speaking, UPX is a fungible token on the EOS blockchain, similar to any cryptocurrency. We have elected, however, to use UPX strictly as a utility token. This means it can only be used inside Upland and cannot be withdrawn. By doing so, we avoid UPX being traded on external or decentralized exchanges outside of our control and possibly being deemed a financial security by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC). Maintaining compliance with United States regulations is one of our top priorities. However, as the platform does include a real economy, we have elected to partner with the financial division of Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) to allow a new feature, coming soon, called “fiat out”. Using this feature, you can choose to sell your virtual properties and items for either UPX OR fiat (e.g. USD).

You can currently buy UPX (1000 UPX for US$1), but through Paypal, not Tilia. Tilia talks about Upland, and Upland talks about Tilia, and the deal was announced 10 months ago, but as far as I can tell, there's no functioning money transfer system.

Upland's main product is a trading game. Imagine playing Monopoly on Google Maps. Here's a gameplay video, in German, on Twitch. Can't find an English one. They also have a retirement community for CryptoKiddies on a virtual Angel Island.

Upland has a usage statistics page, which I think was put together by a user. According to that, the most active Upland user has about US$5 in the system, and has visited 209 times.

Anyway, that, as far as I can tell, is what Tilia is doing, besides, of course, handling SL payments. If anyone from Tilia would like to clarify, please do so. The overall impression I get from reading the Upland and Tilia materials on this is somewhat confused. Am I missing something?

 

 

 

Well, good for Uplands,

BTW there used to be Linden trading cards. You can still find one old dispenser of them that still works, it's an Easter Egg.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Something that Neal Stephenson doesn't get enough credit for is predicting the crypto-currencies and changes in trading: Cryptonomicon started it, but Diamond Age has an excellent exposition of why it's going to grow.

The trading cards is an excellent idea, get the young and impressionable on your side, then you can ignore the old jaded cynical diehard stick-in-the-muds who'e going to harp on about it endlessly on forums and never dig into their pockets...

But we had them in the early days of SL, and yes, I have the very rare Exposition Linden card (the female alt of Corey Linden)

[animats]

For those into the business end of the metaverse, there's a conference coming up, the "Real Time Conference", April 26-28.  Online, free. Search for the title.

This is more about collaborative work than entertainment, although the usual suspects, including Epic and Disney, are presenting. Also, the NVidia people are going to talk about the roadmap for Vulkan and beyond.

Creators and some Lindens might want to attend. It's good to be aware of what's going on outside.

(SL ought to be able to support collaborative work. A few months back I ran into a new user who wanted to set up a co-working space in SL. I took him to some office-type spaces in SL, and we talked about how you could do things such as set up an open office where voice didn't carry from one section to another. He didn't actually do anything with his plan, though.)

[Merlina21]

On 4/4/2021 at 2:29 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

Well, I don't know where this guy's head is at, except "snacks" is a good space to be in, especially in the pandemic, I'm all about snacks.

So inworld, his name is OberWulf Linden (I think I got that spelling right, like "top wolf" which is also a pun, his name means that it German as well). 

So I sent him some wolf snacks and a food bowl.

 

Thanks for this. Perhaps then I should dress my Avatar in a red cloak??  Then again, maybe not, as I might end up as a 'snack'!

I've found out in the meantime that LindenLabs do have a presence on LinkedIn, and host a monthly event with an opportunity for Q & A, which sounds like it will be the best forum for raising the issues being discussed on this thread.

The April one has just been and gone, but I presume there will be another one around the same time in May.

Here's Linden Labs' own link to the page listing where they have a presence on social media, including on LinkedIn.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Community_Resources_Portal

 

 

Edited April 11, 2021 by Merlina21

[Stifftailed]

On 9/16/2020 at 6:44 PM, animats said:

There are some more new virtual worlds. Sandbox just turned on. Imagine Minecraft crossed with blockchain, with lots of land speculation. Land speculation is a big thing with some of the new worlds. In fact, it's sometimes bigger than actually spending time in world. Decentraland and Sominium Space work that way.

Voxel based worlds are now a thing. There are standard mesh objects, and you can place them in a 3D grid. Dual Universe and Sandbox work that way. You can't create new mesh objects. Kind of like Lego. If you saw the Lego movie and want to live there, voxel based worlds are for you.

All these are getting user counts in the thousands, but not tens or hundreds of thousands. So this generation is doing better than the Sinespace/Sansar/High Fidelity generation, all of which maxed out below 100 concurrent users.  The new ones are visually worse but scale better and have easy building. This bears thinking about for SL. Ease of use matters a lot.

 

 

I actually used to play High Fidelity,  What happened to it? Personally I think that they should have tried their hardest to migrate everyone from Secondlife to High Fidelity.  The scripting is better, interactivity is better, avatar movement, VR integration,  et cetera. Sl has tons of issues with it on a base level.  The problem is its mostly the only thing of its kind where you can go in, upload whatever you want, and script whatever you want.  The foundation of secondlife itself is beyond busted.

[Gabriele Graves]

14 minutes ago, Stifftailed said:

 

I actually used to play High Fidelity,  What happened to it? Personally I think that they should have tried their hardest to migrate everyone from Secondlife to High Fidelity.  The scripting is better, interactivity is better, avatar movement, VR integration,  et cetera. Sl has tons of issues with it on a base level.  The problem is its mostly the only thing of its kind where you can go in, upload whatever you want, and script whatever you want.  The foundation of secondlife itself is beyond busted.

It was VR only AFAIK or it only really worked with VR so for many SL users that is an instant no-sale.

[Stifftailed]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

It was VR only AFAIK or it only really worked with VR so for many SL users that is an instant no-sale.

Actually VR wasn't required.  I've never had vr before when I used it.