Jason Gholston Speaks About Sansar at the Augmented World Expo

Jason Gholston, the Product Director for Sansar at Linden Lab, gave a presentation at the recent Augmented World Expo held in Santa Clara, California from May 30th to June 1st, 2018.

One of the very surprising facts that came out of Jason’s talk was that Sansar users have already created over 16,000 experiences to date! That’s much higher than I expected. If you check the Sansar Atlas, there are only about 1,000 published experiences. This means that only 1 out of every 16 Sansar experiences are published and accessible via the Atlas! A lot of people must have created test experiences which they did not wish to share with the public.

He said that Linden Lab was really excited about esports applications of Sansar, and then he stumbled and said “High Fidelity” when he meant to say “high quality” (Freudian slip?).

When asked if he was surprised by anything that the Sansar community has created so far, he mentioned the very popular Atlas Hopping series hosted by Draxtor Despres and Strawberry Singh (now up to Episode 46!). I agree that a really strong community has developed among the Atlas Hoppers!

Jason talked about how there is no “magic bullet” for dealing with trolls and griefers in virtual worlds. He said that Linden Lab is still building out the moderation toolset in Sansar, but that this work is a high priority.

When asked if he has any favourite memories or stories about Sansar, he mentioned people who met through the platform and even got married (congratulations to Ria and Loz!).

When asked what people could do to help promote social VR, he suggested people inviting their friends into Sansar and other social VR platforms:

Use it like you would use a hangout or a video chat or a phone call. Next time you want to play a game, go exploring place to place, invite friends.

The Telegram Discussion Groups for the Various Blockchain-Based VR Projects Have Been Endlessly Entertaining…

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There seems to be some sort of rule that blockchain-based virtual world projects must have a discussion group on Telegram Messenger. I am a member of the Telegram discussion servers for various blockchain-based VR platforms:

And the endless stream of discussion, argument, and sometimes outright vitriol has been quite entertaining at times. For example, one impatient wag posted this animated GIF to the VIBEHub channel:

There appear to be a lot of disgruntled VIBEHub investors and spectators, who are upset with the lack of communication from the company on product development.

And then you get the endless propositions from people who are peddling cryptocurrency and ICO promotion schemes:

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I’m glad that I don’t have to field all these requests …it’s overwhelming!

Then you get the flat-out spammers:

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If you’re interested in following the ongoing circus, you can find links to the Telegram servers from each of the companies’ official websites (there’s usually a link to all their social media near the top or bottom of the page, just look for the paper airplane symbol):

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Of course, you don’t have to subscribe to all these groups; you can just subscribe to my blog instead! I promise to keep you all up-to-date on the latest shenanigans in this area. I’ve just updated my blog to make it easier to subscribe.

If you’re not already a blog subscriber, just look for the FOLLOW RYANSCHULTZ.COM VIA EMAIL section on the left-hand side panel of my blog (right under the Search box), enter your email address, and press the black FOLLOW button. Then you will receive an email message every time I make a new blogpost to this blog. Easy as pie!

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Wizard of Oz

I know, I know, this is completely off-topic for this blog, but I could not resist sharing this absolutely GENIUS picture which I saw being shared on Google+:

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Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

And, since we’re already off on a tangent here, let’s appreciate this wonderful protester’s sign from Donald Trump’s recent U.K. visit:

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