PhD researcher wanting to interview residents about in-world shopping habits

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

14 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

one wouldn’t do a PhD in quantum physics without having a solid knowledge of physics

To be fair, quantum physics has been a fairly well established field for some time now, meanwhile the metaverse is still barely more than a concept.

16 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

Doing a PhD in “metaverse shopping habits” without playing around in a “Metaverse” of some kind

Depending on your definition of the term "Metaverse" it could be argued that playing around in one would be impossible since it has yet to be invented.

It seems that any attempt to analyze or quantify shopping in the (as yet entirely theoretical) metaverse is going to be mostly conjecture based on existing trends in online shopping combined with a lot of insightful postulation on the possible impact that technologies such as mixed reality and artificial intelligence will have on current shopping habits.

[Krystina Ferraris]

6 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

To be fair, quantum physics has been a fairly well established field for some time now, meanwhile the metaverse is still barely more than a concept.

Depending on your definition of the term "Metaverse" it could be argued that playing around in one would be impossible since it has yet to be invented.

It seems that any attempt to analyze or quantify shopping in the (as yet entirely theoretical) metaverse is going to be mostly conjecture based on existing trends in online shopping combined with a lot of insightful postulation on the possible impact that technologies such as mixed reality and artificial intelligence will have on current shopping habits.

You’re quoting me when in fact I am borrowing the use of the term “Metaverse”, in this context, from the OP, hence “quotes”.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

9 hours ago, GuliaMCR said:

I am a phd researcher

Hi there Gulia. I filled in the survey.

Just out of curiosity, are you a Post-Doc or tenured researcher, or a graduate student doing research to get a PhD degree?

Long ago, in a previous millennium, I used to visit Milan for an interview, when I applied for (and obtained) an EMBO fellowship. It's a beautiful place. And I had the best cup of hot chocolate in the world right there.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Scylla Rhiadra]

33 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

Based on the above response, i am just saying that one wouldn’t do a PhD in quantum physics without having a solid knowledge of physics. Doing a PhD in “metaverse shopping habits” without playing around in a “Metaverse” of some kind and being a newbie at it seems the same as attempting a quantum physics PhD without understanding how quantum mechanics works. 

I have no idea on the basis of the OP's statement what she knows, or where she is coming from. This might be course work for a PhD (in my program, we had two years of residency before starting the thesis), in which case it might very well be something new! Or, maybe she has a background and interest in eCommerce or economics that is leading her in this direction because it seems fascinating and new and important? Whatever . . . there's no way of knowing.

I'd agree that undertaking a PhD in subject one knows nothing about seems odd. But it would be even odder for an institution to admit her to a program in which she had absolutely no background -- so I'm going to assume that she does have a foundation in a subject that is related and relevant. And I'm going to applaud her for being willing to explore something new. That is, in fact, what a PhD is supposed to be about, even if one is starting from a solid foundation.

[Krystina Ferraris]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I have no idea on the basis of the OP's statement what she knows, or where she is coming from. This might be course work for a PhD (in my program, we had two years of residency before starting the thesis), in which case it might very well be something new! Or, maybe she has a background and interest in eCommerce or economics that is leading her in this direction because it seems fascinating and new and important? Whatever . . . there's no way of knowing.

I'd agree that undertaking a PhD in subject one knows nothing about seems odd. But it would be even odder for an institution to admit her to a program in which she had absolutely no background -- so I'm going to assume that she does have a foundation in a subject that is related and relevant. And I'm going to applaud her for being willing to explore something new. That is, in fact, what a PhD is supposed to be about, even if one is starting from a solid foundation.

Ok I rest my case, I might have misunderstood the author based on my own personal experience.
Yes a PhD is supposed to be research, i.e. something new which is the same in all areas, including mine. Maybe medicine is different, so my perspective might be skewed, but I surely wouldn’t research into a branch of which I have summary knowledge of.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

32 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

You’re quoting me when in fact I am borrowing the use of the term “Metaverse”, in this context, from the OP, hence “quotes”.

Yes, and the OP borrowed the term from Neal Stephenson but I fail to see how any of that is relevant.

I was addressing your assertion that one could play around in a metaverse and pointing out that, if you adhere to the current popular definition of the term, the metaverse technically doesn't even exist yet so gaining practical experience of one is impossible.

[Krystina Ferraris]

5 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Yes, and the OP borrowed the term from Neal Stephenson but I fail to see how any of that is relevant.

I was addressing your assertion that one could play around in a metaverse and pointing out that, if you adhere to the current popular definition of the term, the metaverse technically doesn't even exist yet so gaining practical experience of one is impossible.

OK I'd rather not make this thread about myself if that's ok, as I was stating MY opinion on the OP's author's assertion which I quoted above.

It is the OP's author, not I, who used the term "metaverse" saying that she has no experience of any metaverse platform and she is here trying to gain some. So it is relevant and so your assertion on why it is impossible to gain experience in any "metaverse" should be directed at the OP and not me.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

6 hours ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

I was stating MY opinion

6 hours ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

so your assertion on why it is impossible to gain experience in any "metaverse" should be directed at the OP and not me

Why would I direct my response to your opinion at the OP and not you?

[PheebyKatz]

8 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

To be fair, quantum physics has been a fairly well established field for some time now, meanwhile the metaverse is still barely more than a concept.

Yeah it's well established because a lot of people did actual research instead of expecting others to do it all for them.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

7 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

Yeah it's well established because a lot of people did actual research instead of expecting others to do it all for them.

Or perhaps its because the field of quantum physics has been around since the early 20th century (with records of far earlier experiments in the field dating back as far as the 17th and 18th century) while the term "metaverse" wasn't even coined until the late 1970s and a "metaverse platform" has yet to be launched.

[sirhc DeSantis]

Fascinating. What with all (lets check) 53 logged in here. Yep sounds like totes phd research to me

https://community.secondlife.com/online/?filter=filter_loggedin

and just checked - 40k inworld.

https://api.secondlife.com/datafeeds/homepage.txt

And you all rise to the bait.

Edited December 3, 2022 by sirhc DeSantis

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

Fascinating. What with all (lets check) 53 logged in here. Yep sounds like totes phd research to me

https://community.secondlife.com/online/?filter=filter_loggedin

and just checked - 40k inworld.

https://api.secondlife.com/datafeeds/homepage.txt

And you all rise to the bait.

You're of course correct.

Really, what she should be doing is going where the people are!

I'm sure that IMing patrons at Frank's and Fogbound with a link to her survey would result in an absolute flood of data.

[Akane Nacht]

13 hours ago, GuliaMCR said:

Just as you mentioned, functional value is less relevant for virtual worlds (however, sometimes people buys NFTs for investment purposes), but emotional and social value are super important. What is interesting, what is more important-emotional or social attributes of the virtual products?

But virtual stuff is functional in a virtual world. As well as emotional and social. Perhaps the question you're really asking is why people are in the virtual world to begin with? That would make a cool PhD paper - why do some people totally "get it" (ie virtual worlds) and some totally don't. What we buy once we are there is kinda irrelevant and what people said already - we buy what we like.

[Odaks]

15 hours ago, GuliaMCR said:

In my research I will try to demostrate that people purchase virtual goods to obtain social and emotional value, just like goods in real life.

This may have been inadvertently misworded.

A far more open proposition would be something like. "To investigate the reasons that people buy non-essential goods in both the real world and virtual worlds, and to determine if any corellations can be drawn".

I cannot help feeling a little uncomfortable when a researcher openly declares the desired outcome at the commencement of their research!

Edited December 3, 2022 by Odaks
spelling correction

[HeathcliffMontague]

Gotta hand it to Zuch, he has a lot of people believing he actually coined the term metaverse.

[Drayke Newall]

Funny to think that people/students seem to think that a grouping of virtual worlds like VR-Chat, Second Life etc is the metaverse or laughable still that one virtual world is. The fact that the OP has stated that they are looking at the virtual consumption of people on the metaverse shows that they have not researched the topic far enough unless they are looking at the habits of virtual world users to determine the possibility of what the metaverse consumption would be.  So the OP really should think of a different term for their paper.

The metaverse does not exist, nor is Second Life a metaverse. All Second Life is, is a virtual world that has the possibility of being the metaverse could be in its basic form i.e. the platform to host the metaverse (Second Life the platform and the individual regions being their own virtual world). World of Warcraft is a virtual world as well of which people spend money on and in, but it isn't considered a metaverse either.

Now if all of those virtual worlds 'talked' to each other in that you can virtually interact between all those worlds from 'one metaverse' then that's a different matter. As of yet though, no virtual world interacts with another.

To put the metaverse in simpler terms, think of a single website as a virtual world. The metaverse is the collection of all those website virtual worlds linked together and accessed by one platform 'the internet'. This is what Zuckerberg, Sweeny, et al are wanting to create, Web3.0. This is also why they are receiving backlash as, the only way a metaverse can exist is for one company (or person) to host that metaverse/platform (control it).

Ironically, the closest we have to a metaverse is actually OpenSim as through their Hypergrid (link one opensim or platform to another and transfer/communicate between them), but it is never mentioned in any form in relation to virtual worlds or the metaverse. Because you know... it's opensim.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Drayke Newall

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

This is also why they are receiving backlash as, the only way a metaverse can exist is for one company (or person) to host that metaverse/platform (control it).

While I agree with the majority of your post I'm not sure the above statement is entirely accurate.  It's true that the majority of companies seem to be investing in trying to create a single virtual world/platform that they claim will be "the metaverse" but there are some that seem to be more focussed on creating the infrastructure, tools and other foundational building blocks necessary to link multiple worlds/platforms together which is, as you pointed out, the real key to creating a metaverse.

[Drayke Newall]

39 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

While I agree with the majority of your post I'm not sure the above statement is entirely accurate.  It's true that the majority of companies seem to be investing in trying to create a single virtual world/platform that they claim will be "the metaverse" but there are some that seem to be more focussed on creating the infrastructure, tools and other foundational building blocks necessary to link multiple worlds/platforms together which is, as you pointed out, the real key to creating a metaverse.

You are correct, however such infrastructure, tools, etc in some ways are irrelevant as the key players of the supposed metaverse (those with the backing and cash to make it happen) are the same companies that are focused on creating the world as well as the tools and only allowing a company to build in that platform. Additionally, said tools etc would easily be sold to the larger players for cash.

Take Meta for example, they are looking at not only the hosting side of the virtual worlds but also building the metaverse etc to link those worlds. Likewise Epic is creating through unreal engine their own hosting platform to utilise as a go to place where you build in their world and link to their world on the condition that you agree to their rules and terms.

Epic are ahead of the game in some respects as they through their unreal engine can already link multiple existing worlds created through their engine, for example the new Archage 2 game due to be released next year is made in unreal 5 the same engine that epic is focused on their virtual world platform at the moment. Moving to linking Archage to say Epics Matrix example world wouldnt be that hard.

Second Life is in a similar position however what is holding Second Life back is the dated graphics engine it runs on in that not only is it subject to to many polygons and you get lag but also region size.

That all said, I agree with Philip Rosedale in what he said last year. The metaverse as proposed in both snow crash and in the hopes and dreams of these companies will never happen. A form of it may happen but not a true metaverse.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

You are correct, however such infrastructure, tools, etc in some ways are irrelevant as the key players of the supposed metaverse (those with the backing and cash to make it happen) are the same companies that are focused on creating the world as well as the tools and only allowing a company to build in that platform. Additionally, said tools etc would easily be sold to the larger players for cash.

Take Meta for example, they are looking at not only the hosting side of the virtual worlds but also building the metaverse etc to link those worlds. Likewise Epic is creating through unreal engine their own hosting platform to utilise as a go to place where you build in their world and link to their world on the condition that you agree to their rules and terms.

Epic are ahead of the game in some respects as they through their unreal engine can already link multiple existing worlds created through their engine, for example the new Archage 2 game due to be released next year is made in unreal 5 the same engine that epic is focused on their virtual world platform at the moment. Moving to linking Archage to say Epics Matrix example world wouldnt be that hard.

Second Life is in a similar position however what is holding Second Life back is the dated graphics engine it runs on in that not only is it subject to to many polygons and you get lag but also region size.

That all said, I agree with Philip Rosedale in what he said last year. The metaverse as proposed in both snow crash and in the hopes and dreams of these companies will never happen. A form of it may happen but not a true metaverse.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with Nvidias Omniverse platform but if you haven't been keeping up with its development I'd recommend taking a look at some recent articles.  I would say that Nvidia definitely qualify as a key player and having already invested heavily in development it seems unlikely that they would simply sell out to another company.  Also, while their enterprise licensing is obviously still a paid for service, currently a lot of the tools they've developed for working with and creating content for use with Omniverse are free.

I haven't heard much about Epic trying to develop infrastructure upon which to run interconnected platforms but both Unreal Engine and Unity (soon™) offer connectors enabling the software to integrate with Omniverse so I'm not sure if you're referring to Epics involvement in that project or if Epic are attempting to develop their own competing product while simultaneously supporting Nvidias.

I'm not sure if dated graphics and lag are Second Lifes largest stumbling blocks when it comes to being a part of the metaverse, I personally suspect that the issue of interchangeability of content between SL and other platforms may be equally problematic although their plans to incorporate compatibility for more industry-standard formats is promising (at first glance the .gltf format may seem like a competitor to .USD but the current Universal Scene Description format has support for .gltf interoperability which means you can reference .gltf assets from within USD scenes so they are essentially compatible).

As for whether the metaverse Neal Stephenson described in Snow Crash will ever be a reality, having read the book a few times I personally hope that's not where we end up, it wasn't exactly a utopian wonderland after all.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[Sid Nagy]

On 12/3/2022 at 5:11 AM, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Or perhaps its because the field of quantum physics has been around since the early 20th century (with records of far earlier experiments in the field dating back as far as the 17th and 18th century) while the term "metaverse" wasn't even coined until the late 1970s and a "metaverse platform" has yet to be launched.

Quantum physics is a relatively easy playground compared to the complexity of Second Life IMHO.

[Cinos Field]

I filled it in. Please post the results when you've completed your work, I'm always curious about academia. :3

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I'm not sure how familiar you are with Nvidias Omniverse platform but if you haven't been keeping up with its development I'd recommend taking a look at some recent articles.  I would say that Nvidia definitely qualify as a key player and having already invested heavily in development it seems unlikely that they would simply sell out to another company.  Also, while their enterprise licensing is obviously still a paid for service, currently a lot of the tools they've developed for working with and creating content for use with Omniverse are free.

Nvidia's omniverse is a key player in it as well yes, but it isn't looking at achieving the same metaverse outlook as the others. Their idea is founded on collaboration between experts in that, for example, a person can design a house in Autodesk Revit whilst another renders it in 3DS Max and another looks at lighting and energy efficiency all in real time with no lag. This is more akin to a cloud collaborative world which is what they describe it as themselves.

This is also why Epic offer connections to it due to that being the nature of the collaboration and the ability for a cloud based collaboration between game developers, scripters etc in real time rather than save, send, review, edit, save send which is the current collaboration method both in development and architecture.

2 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I haven't heard much about Epic trying to develop infrastructure upon which to run interconnected platforms but both Unreal Engine and Unity (soon™) offer connectors enabling the software to integrate with Omniverse so I'm not sure if you're referring to Epics involvement in that project or if Epic are attempting to develop their own competing product while simultaneously supporting Nvidias.

Epic are looking at building an actual metaverse whereby they are the platform and people build their virtual worlds within their system using unreal engine. Think of Ready Player One. That is what they are looking to build using their engine and extensive game development resources and contacts to make it possible. It is also why they have opened up their fortnite creation system to allow for actual other game development alongside fortnite.

2 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I'm not sure if dated graphics and lag are Second Lifes largest stumbling blocks when it comes to being a part of the metaverse, I personally suspect that the issue of interchangeability of content between SL and other platforms may be equally problematic although their plans to incorporate compatibility for more industry-standard formats is promising (at first glance the .gltf format may seem like a competitor to .USD but the current Universal Scene Description format has support for .gltf interoperability which means you can reference .gltf assets from within USD scenes so they are essentially compatible).

The interchangeability of content between sl and other platforms are tied to their graphics and their engine. That said interchangeability is a moot point if Second Life becomes the platform rather than the other business's like Epic. As then with a better engine and less lag and better scripting, People can build virtual worlds inside Second Life and become a true metaverse.

2 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

As for whether the metaverse Neal Stephenson described in Snow Crash will ever be a reality, having read the book a few times I personally hope that's not where we end up, it wasn't exactly a utopian wonderland after all.

I agree. Sadly, human nature and greed ensures that a utopian wonderland cant happen.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

18 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Nvidia's omniverse is a key player in it as well yes, but it isn't looking at achieving the same metaverse outlook as the others. Their idea is founded on collaboration between experts in that, for example, a person can design a house in Autodesk Revit whilst another renders it in 3DS Max and another looks at lighting and energy efficiency all in real time with no lag. This is more akin to a cloud collaborative world which is what they describe it as themselves.

This is also why Epic offer connections to it due to that being the nature of the collaboration and the ability for a cloud based collaboration between game developers, scripters etc in real time rather than save, send, review, edit, save send which is the current collaboration method both in development and architecture.

Epic are looking at building an actual metaverse whereby they are the platform and people build their virtual worlds within their system using unreal engine. Think of Ready Player One. That is what they are looking to build using their engine and extensive game development resources and contacts to make it possible. It is also why they have opened up their fortnite creation system to allow for actual other game development alongside fortnite.

Nvidias focus certainly seems to be primarily on creating a real-time collaborative platform for business purposes but (as is often the case) how that technology is eventually adapted and what purposes it actually gets used for is obviously still undetermined, and due to the real-time nature of the platform there's definitely a lot of Omniverse modules that would be equally applicable to the creation of virtual worlds for entertainment purposes.

I don't really know enough about Epics current efforts to comment on them but since their business is essentially providing a platform for those who create games and 3D environments it makes sense that they would be trying to corner the market as the platform to create virtual worlds on.

30 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

The interchangeability of content between sl and other platforms are tied to their graphics and their engine. That said interchangeability is a moot point if Second Life becomes the platform rather than the other business's like Epic. As then with a better engine and less lag and better scripting, People can build virtual worlds inside Second Life and become a true metaverse.

As much as I would like to be optimistic about the idea of Second Life evolving into the metaverse, I'm just not sure LL has access to the amount of resources it would require for SL to advance to that stage.

32 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

I agree. Sadly, human nature and greed ensures that a utopian wonderland cant happen.

The implication here would seem to be not that the metaverse can't be a utopian wonderland but that in order to become one it shouldn't be created or populated by humans.... perhaps one day AI will advance to the stage where it creates a metaverse in order to escape it's human overlords. 🤣

[Lindal Kidd]

One important difference that people (including, I think, the OP) fail to make is that virtual worlds, even linked virtual worlds like OpenSim, are not "The Metaverse" as envisioned by Zuckerberg et. al.

The reason is that virtual worlds are divorced from the Real World. All the millions of virtual products sold in Second Life are just that...virtual. They have no existence and no utility outside of the virtual world.

What Zuck&Co. are envisioning is a digital duplicate of the the Real World, where real companies advertise and sell real products. We may use avatars to browse the stores of The Metaverse, but our purchases will be delivered to our doors in real life.

Zuck&Co. have no use for games, they're dreaming of real commerce. Some real companies (L'Oreal, Nike) tried using Second Life for that back in 2007 and failed miserably, because their customers were buying things for the virtual world, not for RL.

[MadameGloom Ravenwood]

On 12/2/2022 at 1:01 PM, Robberinthemuseum said:

For all the same reasons you buy unnecessary items that give you joy ^^. There really is no difference. Also, I have a bottomless inventory. 

Edit: no time to do the survey ㅠㅠ

You need to be more careful then if you are losing all your bottoms.😁