UPDATED! Meta Announces the Meta Horizon Operating System for Future Third-Party VR/AR/MR Headsets, and Partnerships with ASUS, Lenovo, and Xbox (Also: Reports of Slower-Than-Expected Sales for the Apple Vision Pro)

WARNING: This blogpost goes off on a couple of tangents, including a recent report on faltering sales of the Apple Vision Pro, plus a new update at the very end with some very insightful commentary on Meta’s Horizon Store plans and how they might negatively impact the VRChat in-world creator economy, which is still in beta test.

On April 22nd, 2024, Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) made an announcement titled A New Era for Mixed Reality:

Today we’re taking the next step toward our vision for a more open computing platform for the metaverse. We’re opening up the operating system powering our Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware makers, giving more choice to consumers and a larger ecosystem for developers to build for. We’re working with leading global technology companies to bring this new ecosystem to life and making it even easier for developers to build apps and reach their audiences on the platform.

This new hardware ecosystem will run on Meta Horizon OS, the mixed reality operating system that powers our Meta Quest headsets. We chose this name to reflect our vision of a computing platform built around people and connection—and the shared social fabric that makes this possible. Meta Horizon OS combines the core technologies powering today’s mixed reality experiences with a suite of features that put social presence at the center of the platform.

Of course, this also includes the Meta Quest Store, which will apparently be renamed the Meta Horizon Store:

Developers and creators can take advantage of all these technologies using the custom frameworks and tooling we’ve built for creating mixed reality experiences, and they can reach their communities and grow their businesses through the content discovery and monetization platforms built into the OS. These include the Meta Quest Store, which contains the world’s best library of immersive apps and experiences—we’re renaming it to the Meta Horizon Store.

And, as you might expect with a company whose profits still largely derive from social media based on surveillance capitalism, you’d best believe that Meta wants to make sure that it inserts itself into all the social aspects of this technology, as it licenses the tech to other companies:

The Horizon social layer currently powering Meta Quest devices will extend across this new ecosystem. It enables people’s identities, avatars, and friend groups to move with them across virtual spaces and lets developers integrate rich social features into their apps. And because this social layer is made to bridge multiple platforms, people can spend time together in virtual worlds that exist across mixed reality, mobile, and desktop devices. Meta Horizon OS devices will also use the same mobile companion app that Meta Quest owners use today—we’ll rename this as the Meta Horizon app.

It looks very much as though the word Quest is going to be replaced by the word Horizon throughout (much as Oculus was replaced by Quest previously). I guess those Meta marketing people need to justify their paycheques by constant rebranding! Gotta keep it fresh! Personally, I think they should have stuck with Oculus… 😉

Also part of this announcement are three key partnerships with third-party hardware developers:

  • ASUS and its Republic of Gamers subsidiary “will use its expertise as a leader in gaming solutions to develop an all-new performance gaming headset.”
  • Lenovo will apparently focus on education and the workplace: “Lenovo will draw on its experience co-designing Oculus Rift S, as well as deep expertise in engineering leading devices like the ThinkPad laptop series, to develop mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment.”
  • Meta will also be working with Xbox to create a limited-edition Meta Quest (Microsoft and Meta also worked together recently to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Quest).

Reactions to this new on Reddit have varied. One person on the r/VisionPro subreddit (hardly an impartial source!) commented, “Feels more closed than Apple. And also less developer friendly.” (As if Apple doesn’t have its own walled-garden approach to its technology.)

Also mentioned in Meta’s announcement was that software developed through the Quest App Lab will be featured in the newly-renamed Horizon Store:

As we begin opening Meta Horizon OS to more device makers, we’re also expanding the ways app developers can reach their audiences. We’re beginning the process of removing the barriers between the Meta Horizon Store and App Lab, which lets any developer who meets basic technical and content requirements ship software on the platform. App Lab titles will soon be featured in a dedicated section of the Store on all our devices, making them more discoverable to larger audiences.

I think that this is good news for smaller developers, who often struggle to get word out about their products. (Of course, Meta will get a cut of any sales through its store!)

In an Engadget report by Devindra Hardawar, she writes:

Think of it like moving the Quest’s ecosystem from an Apple model, where one company builds both the hardware and software, to more of a hardware free-for-all like Android. The Quest OS is being rebranded to “Meta Horizon OS,” and at this point it seems to have found two early adopters. ASUS’s Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand is working on a new “performance gaming” headsets, while Lenovo is working on devices for “productivity, learning and entertainment.” (Don’t forget, Lenovo also built the poorly-received Oculus Rift S.)

As part of the news, Meta says it’s also working on a limited-edition Xbox “inspired” Quest headset. (Microsoft and Meta also worked together recently to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Quest.) Meta is also calling on Google to bring over the Google Play 2D app store to Meta Horizon OS. And, in an effort to bring more content to the Horizon ecosystem, software developed through the Quest App Lab will be featured in the Horizon Store. The company is also developing a new spatial framework to let mobile developers created mixed reality apps.

Devindra does have a good point; Apple has long been opposed to opening up its hardware to third-parties (and it would appear, based on recent media reports, that sales of the eyewateringly-pricey Apple Vision Pro are not as brisk as the company had hoped):

Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has “fallen sharply beyond expectations.” As a result, Apple is expected to take a “conservative view” of headset demand when the Vision Pro launches in additional countries.

Kuo previously said that Apple will introduce the Vision Pro in new markets before the June Worldwide Developers Conference, which suggests that we could see it available in additional areas in the next month or so.

Apple is expecting Vision Pro shipments to decline year-over-year in 2025 compared to 2024, and the company is said to be “reviewing and adjusting” its headset product roadmap. Kuo does not believe there will be a new Vision Pro model in 2025, an adjustment to a prior report suggesting a modified version of the Vision Pro would enter mass production late next year.

According to Apple industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, initial sales of the high-end Apple Vision Pro have “fallen sharply beyond expectations.”

I find it an absolutely fascinating time to be working in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and spatial computing! While Apple has aimed for the high-end with its US$3,500 headset, Meta has focused its attention on the low end, with a wireless headset that is seven times cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro! (Of course, you could also use the Quest 3 as a PCVR headset, but most people don’t do that.)

I never would have predicted that we’d have two firmly-set goalposts at each end of the field, instead of companies releasing a mass of options in the middle of the field! This leaves a huge gap between the ultra-low-end Meta Quest 3 and the ultra-high-end Apple Vision Pro, and I do believe that there is certainly opportunity for companies to fill that gap, with existing hardware (e.g. the Valve Index, the Vive Pro 2, etc.), as well as some new devices which fall in between the two extremes.

I think that Meta is very smart to partner up with third parties who already have some experience in this space (notably Lenovo), and from those partnerships, new products will spring up to address that gap. While it will likely not be until 2025 or 2026 until we see the fruit of these new partnerships, interesting times are ahead!

UPDATE April 26th, 2024: I sometimes post my blogposts to the various virtual world and virtual reality Discord servers I belong to, in order to drive a bit more traffic to my blog (I don’t do it nearly as often as I used to, though). And PK, on the MetaMovie Discord server, made the following insightful and thought-provoking comment on this announcement from Meta/Facebook:

I want someone to dig into what sort of access Meta would have to data on these third-party headsets, potentially, through various software that would be required. I think it’s existential that we need to keep metaverse data out of their hands.

Even now, having failed with five or six different social VR attempts so far, they still manage to collect 1/3 of every virtual transaction in VRChat, at least those using Quest headsets, which is the majority of users now. Their [i.e., VRChat’s]creator economy is only in beta so far, but thanks to Facebook and Steam, and Apple for pushing this model, we don’t have the thriving virtual economy we would have had by now, because even taking 1% of every transaction just for monopolizing app downloads, that would be too much. A third is robbery, but because [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg could afford to make mobile headsets affordable without worrying about profits so far, they’re now cornering commerce in this space. I don’t think it’s safe to trust them with our future, and so I’m very skeptical about these sorts of initiatives.

PK is correct; it is troubling that the walled-garden gatekeepers like app store owners (Meta, Google/Android, and Apple) are each taking a cut of any in-world transactions. It has a chilling effect on anybody trying to make money within VRChat (of course, the social VR platform has long had a booming economy going on outside of VRChat, with places such as the Virtual Market series of avatar shopping events and the VRCMods Discord server, where avatar buyers and sellers can connect).

Linden Lab was luckily able to avoid this entire mess by creating its own in-world economy within Second Life well before the advent of Google Play and Apple’s App Stoe—but now that they are actively working on a new mobile Second Life app for Android and iOS, it will be interesting to see whether Second Life, too, will be impacted by other players like Meta wanting to take their cut. (Probably not, since you can do things like buy Linden dollars directly from the Second Life website.)

Interesting times lie ahead! As drag queen RuPaul likes to say on her hit reality TV show, RuPaul’s Drag Race (and my guilty pleasure!):

Mama Ru raises her opera glasses and says, “I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

Thank you to PK of the MetaMovie Discord, for giving me permission to quote them directly!

UPDATED: Major Avatar Apparel Creator Blueberry May Leave Second Life: Are There Greener Pastures Elsewhere?

People are often mystified as to why I continue to write about the now-twenty-year-old virtual world of Second Life, when there are so many other, newer metaverse platforms which I could discuss and dissect on my blog. I attempted to answer that question in 2019: Editorial: Why Second Life Is the Perfect Model of a Mature, Fully Evolved Virtual World for Newer Social VR Platforms to Emulate. There’s quite a lot to learn from Second Life’s rich history; ignore it at your peril!

In today’s SL lesson, we learn that there may, indeed, be greener pastures than venerable, long-running Second Life—even for those creators who got their start on the platform! And it would be wise for the newer metaverse platforms, too, to ponder the possibility that their current user base might depart for more lucrative opportunities in other virtual worlds, or even from some unexpected competition!

As usual, I am a little late to report the recent news that major women’s avatar apparel brand Blueberry has decided to, at the very least, hit the pause button, and quite possibly, leave Second Life altogether.

Nobody seems to know the future of Blueberry…

To make a real-world comparison, it would be as if Zara or H&M—or, here in Canada, the ubiquitous Reitmans—suddenly decided to go out of business. Blueberry has been a phenomenally successful store in Second Life, easily earning over a million dollars a year in revenue, according to this October 2022 business article from the Observer. Blueberry might well be the single biggest creator of womenswear in Second Life. In other words, this is major news.

In a mid-April Facebook post by Blueberry’s proprietor, Mishi (the text of which was also posted in an April 13th, 2024 notice to the Blueberry store group in SL):

Hi fam ❤
I’m very sorry to say that I will be taking a break from SL. Blueberry does not plan to release any new items for the foreseeable future. At some point, I will share an update. Right now I need this time to reflect.
I do consider all of you berries as my forever family and I am eternally grateful for your support and understanding. Thank you for all of your love.

The store group notice goes on to add:

Please send all questions regarding credit to blueberryxx in a notecard and any other questions to [a URL, which unfortunately which appears to have been cut off by the character limit in the message]

Somebody suggested that the URL shortner redirect might be to the contact page on the House of Blueberry website, which is here: https://www.houseofblueberry.com/contact.

Okay, first, let’s deal with the practical matters in the wake of this news. Then, I’m going to pull back for a bigger picture.

If you have ever been a customer, you should go to the Blueberry store, as soon as possible, and head for the Information Wall in the front entrance to the store (exact SLURL):

The Information wall at the Blueberry store in-world

First, if you have made any purchases from Blueberry in the past, hit the Redeliver sign, follow the website link, and get redeliveries of everything you’ve bought over the years (for some of you, it’s a lot!). If the store shuts down (as is indeed possible), you will want to have backups of your purchases in your inventory, since you won’t be able to get any redeliveries.

Secondly, Blueberry has always been very generous with gifts of store credit over the past dozen years (since its founding in 2012), particularly during shopping events such as the regularly-occurring Shop and Hops. Click on the blue Check Store Credit sign to see what your current level of unspent store credit is, and spend it now.

All right, now that that’s done, let’s dig a little deeper into what’s happening here. From the long and growing discussion thread on the topic on the Second Life Community forums, started by Persephone Emerald, I will share only a few quotes:

  • “It was repeatedly reinforced by the CSR’s [customer service reps] in group chat that the store would be closing, no idea when, but if you have any store credit you should use it pretty sharpish.”
  • “The Blueberry Discord [server] seems to have disappeared too.”
  • “I don’t think it’s also been mentioned here that the group moderators said in the group that they were basically laid off, but were continuing to support users as best they could for the sake of the Blueberry customers and group members.”
  • “The store is closing in SL. The CSR’s have announced that in group and her Discord group is gone as well.”
  • “They have no more CSRs, only recently laid off employees. Those people are saying they do not know whether the store will stay or go, but they know that for now, no new releases. No support provided, buy at your own risk. Whatever was said three days ago is vague, and it still remains a mystery on what is happening with this brand.”

In fact, there was so much speculation (some quite unfounded), that Mishi posted a second message to Facebook:

I want to stress once again that this is not a goodbye.

I need a minute to reflect on the changes I want to make to the future content I want to create.

Please allow me some time to think in peace. This isn’t just a business for me, it has been my passion. This platform specifically has been my passion. The people have been my passion.

So I ask of you, please, to take my word at face value here. I don’t want to make promises to anything because I don’t know what changes I want to make as yet.

So, aside from closing the Blueberry Discord server, and letting their customer service representatives and group moderators go, we really don’t know anything at this point. We’re just going to have to wait and see. (But don’t wait if you had your eye on something in the store, or if you have unspent store credits. Do it now!)

But I now want to focus on the bigger picture here, and speculate a bit about what’s possibly happening with Blueberry. Blueberry and its owner, Mishi McDuff, started off small, as the Observer noted in its 2022 article:

Mishi McDuff, founder of House of Blueberry, or Blueberry for short, attended a 2011 virtual concert in Second Life, an online gaming platform some call the first metaverse. She had wanted to see Sean Ryan, a Texas-based singer and songwriter, perform. McDuff joined the platform for the first time and attended the concert with her starter avatar. But alongside characters dressed as fairies, warriors and supermodels, she felt out of place. For her second virtual concert, she wore a polka dot dress she created in Photoshop, and concert attendees asked to buy her design for their own avatars. 

McDuff founded Blueberry knowing Second Life users were willing to spend money on their digital identities. Its first year, Blueberry recorded $60,000 in sales according to McDuff. By 2016, its yearly revenue hit $1 million with a team of three, designing virtual clothing for Second Life.

But, like many creators who got their start in SL, Mishi started looking at creating wearables for other platforms:

Last year [2021], McDuff decided to expand the team and scale the company as interest in the metaverse swelled. It has now entered the Roblox metaverse and sold more than 20 million virtual assets total. In addition to digital clothing, their portfolio includes accessories, hair styles, pets and pet clothing.

As one person commented in the previously-mentioned Second Life community forums thread:

“Roblox revenue last year was 2.2 billion dollars. And they’re moving to more realistic avatars.”

Take a scroll through the House of Blueberry website, and it’s very clear where the emphasis is! (There is precious little mention of Second Life at all on their website!)

As one commenter stated on the SL Community Forums:

We know that there’s a massive number of daily and monthly users on ROBLOX (70.2 million daily and over 216 million monthly active users)… but according to Zepeto’s numbers, they have around 300 million users worldwide.  Go ahead and look, I did so myself.

Compare those numbers to what the daily and monthly numbers are for SL, and you’ll understand why this was more or less a business decision.

House of Blueberry was also front and centre in a mixed-success initiative called the Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW), and last year they received some $6 million in funding for digital fashion initiatives, according to a VentureBeat article dated January 16th, 2023. (I also wrote about Blueberry’s heavy involvement in the Metaverse Fashion week in a February 2022 blogpost on my blog.)

While blockchain metaverse platforms and NFT-based avatar wearables have largely crashed and burned since their heady heyday only a few short years ago, they are far from the only game in town. Non-blockchain platforms and apps, such as Roblox, Zepeto, and Snapchat, all have far larger markets for avatar customization, and they absolutely dwarf the user base of Second Life.

And the user base for Snapchat, Roblox, and Zepeto also skews significantly younger than Second Life’s, another important consideration to anybody looking at the metaverse marketplace. While it’s true that older users tend to have more discretionary money to spend, they also—sad to say—have a tendency to grow old and even die! Second Life’s user base keeps adding just enough new people to replace those who retire (or die), but not at a rate that makes it grow significantly (pandemic bumps notwithstanding).

Also, factor in that popular avatar clothing designers in Second Life have to deal with constant changes and additions to the various brands of mesh bodies which they are often asked to make apparel for. For example, take the recent decision by Maitreya to replace its ubiquitious Maitreya Lara 5.3 mesh body with the retweaked LaraX, which is just different enough to require some rerigging work (although things like shoes and rings should still work).

It takes a lot of work to rig clothing properly for a single brand of mesh body; multiply that work by the number of mesh bodies you are being asked to support by your customers. It quickly becomes obvious that the amount of work required (rigging an article of clothing for five or six or seven or eight of the most popular brands of male and female mesh bodies), to serve a user base which has stayed pretty much the same size for the past decade, poses a rather serious workload problem.

Some stores, such as Spoiled in this image, rig for as many as nineteen or twenty mesh body variations! This is INSANITY, and yet new mesh bodies and add-ons multiply in Second Life.

So, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest that Mishi of the House of Blueberry, and whoever is on her team, have scouted out the field, done their research, checked their spreadsheets, and decided to cut their ties to Second Life, and focus on the much more lucrative opportunity to create avatar apparel for those games and apps that boast millions of users. It just makes economic sense.

The truly worrying thought is: how many other Second Life content creators are also looking at places where the grass is greener, and are willing to jump ship? (Go ahead, call the mixed metaphor police. I dare you. 😜 )

Blueberry just might be the most public case to date, but I somehow doubt that they will be the last. And the lesson here for all metaverse platforms is: be good to your content creators, or they might desert you for better profits elsewhere! What is your platform doing to attract and keep the talent that brings in new users?

UPDATE April 25th, 2024: I forgot to mention that the Blueberry store also has a group gifts wall, opposite the Information Wall in the front entrance hall. If you are a member of the Bluebeery group, don’t forget to pick up all the gifts!

However, I have just been informed that you can no longer join the Blueberry store group to pick up these group gifts. I take this as yet another troubling sign that Blueberry is planning to leave Second Life.

Entering the RadyVerse: A Look at Five VR and AI Projects for Training Healthcare Workers at the University of Manitoba’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences

One of the virtual reality labs being used to train nursing students in the College of Nursing at the University of Manitoba

As many of my readers already well know, I am the computer science and agriculture librarian at the Jim Peebles Science and Technology Library at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and I have been writing about “news and views on social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse” (as the tagline of the RyanSchultz.com blog states) since July 31st, 2017. I have now been actively and avidly reporting on this space on my blog for almost seven years, sharing news and events in the rapidly-evolving metaverse!

So it was that I had already written on my blog (albeit somewhat in passing) about the University of Manitoba’s College of Nursing, which has been training new nursing students using the UbiSim software since the Fall 2022 term. Here’s a one-minute YouTube video about that work:

However, today I wanted to give you all an update on some newer innovations in the use of VR (and AI!) in healthcare education at my employer, the University of Manitoba.

Yes, the RadyVerse launch even had a cake! Carbs take priority, people!!! 😉

One month ago, on Friday, March 15th, 2024, I attended a special afternoon event located at the University of Manitoba’s Bannatyne Campus (the downtown, health-sciences-focused campus, next door to Winnipeg’s main hospital complex, the Health Sciences Centre). This event was the official launch of a new initiative of the Max Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, called the RadyVerse. According to the announcement:

The RadyVerse is an exciting initiative of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences that combines virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence and machine learning to create immersive and controlled simulations for students, educators and clinicians. The integration aims to empower an interprofessional community, promote collaboration and enhance skill development in a risk-free setting.

Dr. Nicole Harder speaking at the RadyVerse launch event (with Dr. Lawrence Gillman, seated)

In an article published in UM Today, the University of Manitoba’s online newspaper, one of the speakers at the launch described the purpose of the event, and the benefits of using VR in the College of Nursing programs:

Dr. Nicole Harder, associate dean, undergraduate programs and professor in the College of Nursing,  and Mindermar Professor in Human Simulation, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, described the launch event as a “technology fair” that will give faculty, staff and students the opportunity to participate in interactive demonstrations.

“People will be able to try on the VR headsets and step into the immersive world. We’ll also have monitors where we can screencast and show others what they see in the VR, and how this will be used as an educational tool,” Harder said.

“VR has been used in other universities for some time, but not to the same extent. In the College of Nursing, it is embedded into our curriculum.”

The college recently expanded its VR simulation training to its programming in The Pas and Thompson through a partnership with the University College of the North. This allows students from different parts of the province to work together on a simulated clinical case in one virtual room.

As more disciplines become involved, interprofessional teams will not even need to be in the same physical space when collaborating, Harder said.

“VR is a great tool for learning clinical decision-making, problem solving, empathy and communication.”

One of my Libraries colleagues tries out the UbiSim nursing simulation software
Kimberly Workum of the College of Nursing, at the Bodyswaps demonstration workstation

The launch event had five stations intended to showcase how the faculty is using virtual reality and artificial intelligence to educate and train the next generation of healthcare professionals: doctors, nurses, pharmacists, rehabilitation therapists, etc. U of M faculty, staff, students, reporters, and the general public were invited to try out the technology for themselves, and get a taste of how it works. The five stations were:

  • The previously mentioned UbiSim VR software, used for training nurses in simulated but realistic nursing scenarios, where students can practice their skills within a safe and controlled environment;
  • Bodyswaps, another initiative of the College of Nursing, which provides experiential, soft-skills training (e.g. how to talk with patients and family members in various scenarios);
  • An artificial intelligence (AI) tool called OSCE GPT, which uses a specially-trained large language model (LLM) to simulate patients, in order to allow healthcare professionals to practice their patient interview skills, and give them feedback on how to improve it;
  • Lumeto, social-VR-based roleplay software for up to 4 users at once, used to train healthcare workers in interprofessional collaboration skills; and
  • Acadicus (a VR program for education which I had written about in 2019 on my blog), which is being used by Dr. Lawrence Gillman. According to the UM Today article:
People could try out the Acadeicus software, being used by Dr. Gillman’s team to train doctors

One of the stations will be led by Dr. Lawrence Gillman, associate professor of surgery at the Max Rady College of Medicine and director of the Clinical Learning and Simulation Program at Bannatyne campus.

Gillman has a crisis-based simulation and trauma resuscitation program in development that he will soon be using to teach his residents. At the launch, he’ll demonstrate what trainers and learners will be able to do.

“This VR program is basically a playground where you can create your own sim lab in a virtual environment. You can create whatever scenarios or places you want, and people can participate together in person, or even from a distance,” Gillman said.

“Basically, we create medical crises that people can practice in and then make mistakes in simulation rather than real life.”

A user tries out Lumeto

I visited all five workstations, and had an ample opportunity to test out most of these applications first-hand, and speak to my U of M coworkers about these projects. In fact, you can even catch a glimpse of me standing behind Dr. Gillman as he guides a user through the Acadicus software, in the video attached to this CTV News report of the RadyVerse event (see the red arrow in the screen capture I took from that video):

(I didn’t even know about this until a friend who watched CTV News told me!)

There’s just so much exciting stuff going on right now! There are so many VR initiatives taking place on campus, oftentimes in isolation, which is a shame. For example, I wonder how many of the healthcare professionals at the RadyVerse launch were aware that the UM Libraries is working on setting up a VR lab for faculty, staff, and student use (an initiative which is now well underway). And that the Department of Computer Science also has plans to set up a VR lab for its students. And I believe that the university’s Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning is also working on something to do with VR…like I said, there’s a lot going on.

Therefore, I hope to be able to use some of my own “soft skills” and abilities to help set up improved communication channels and venues at the university, so we can all learn from each other as we beaver away on our separate projects and programs! I believe that there is much so in-house expertise and experience which we can share with each other. I know that I would benefit from this, and I suspect others would as well. We can all learn from each other.

The RadyVerse event was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about some of the other virtual reality and artifical intelligence work taking place at the University of Manitoba, and I hope to report on future developments in this exciting edtech as it rolls out across campus. These are exciting times to be a VR and AI enthusiast at the University of Manitoba!

Social VR Platform Glue Announces Bankruptcy: Sign of the Times?

The Glue website

Glue, a corporate collaboration social VR platform I first wrote about in November 2019, has declared bankruptcy. In a post dated April 10th, 2024 on the Glue website, Glue’s CEO, Jussi Havu, writes:

We regret to inform you that the company responsible for Glue has been declared bankrupt on 8 April 2024 by decision of the District Court of Helsinki. Despite our best efforts to prevent this outcome, we were unable to find a timely solution.

During the next two weeks, we are dedicated to exploring all options to secure a successor for the Glue service. As we cannot promise a definitive solution, users should prepare for the possibility that the Glue service may soon be discontinued.

The process to sell the assets of the company is undergoing and, at this stage, the bankruptcy estate cannot provide any further information on whether the company’s business operations can be sold to someone who would be willing to continue the business. Unless a successor can be found, the company’s business operations will be discontinued within the course of two weeks or even earlier if the service providers for the company’s servers decide to shut the servers down or deny access due to unpaid invoices.

We sincerely apologize for this disappointing outcome.

While updating my comparative spreadsheet of social VR platforms, I had already noticed a distressing number of platforms I had written about in 2019 were no longer around as of 2024, among them popular services such as AltspaceVR, which shut down almost exactly one year ago today, on March 10th, 2023. The category of platforms which I jocularly refer to as YARTVRA (an acronym standing for Yet Another Remote Teamwork Virtual Reality Application) has seen a number of companies come and go during the recent boom-and-bust metaverse hype cycle. Now that the hype over the metaverse has moved on to artificial intelligence, it would appear that the venture capitalists have followed, so it is no suprise to me that firms such as Glue have struggled to find a viable business model.

One thing which any person or company which uses a social VR app for remote teamwork, meetings, and conferences needs to keep in mind: don’t put all your eggs into one basket! Investigate multiple platforms, and be flexible. That way, you won’t be caught off-guard when a company whose product you have been relying on goes under.

Sadly, I just noticed today that the XR Collaboration website, which used to offer a very useful searchable directory of workplace social VR platforms, has folded (the website address appears to have been sold to another user, who is primarily posting articles about how to find out if your boyfriend or husband is cheating on you!). This is yet another sign that the entire YARTVRA space is in difficulty.

(And no, despite my best efforts, YARTVRA has not taken off as an acronym…)

Thank you to Carlos Austin for the heads-up!