Can anybody provide me with information on any social VR platforms not listed here, or correct any errors I have made? Thank you in advance for your help in compiling this information! I plan to write up a journal article on this and actually get it published somewhere, so I need this information to be as correct as possible.
You can contact me via any of the social VR Discords we share, via the Contact Me page on this blog, or just leave a comment on this blogpost, thanks!
I thought I would set aside some time today, on a somewhat lazy Saturday, brew myself a large pot of black coffee, and attempt to categorize all the social VR platforms I have written about on this blog into some sort of taxonomy. No small feat! But at least I have a full day to tinker with the project. (I might turn this into a journal article and get it published somewhere.)
I decided to first try and organize the wide variety of social VR platforms by primary purpose by creating this Venn diagram using Canva.com (the following diagram is available to view and download in various sizes from Flickr, up to 1024 by 768 pixels, just click on it):
And, this is finally my opportunity to compile a somewhat complete list of what I collectively call the YARTVRA platforms (an acronym I coined, which stands for Yet Another Remote Teams Virtual Reality App). This is currently a hot market for social VR, as corporations struggle to try to provide immersive, remote workteams support to employees working from home during the global public health crisis of the coronavirus pandemic.
Plus a whole bunch I still haven’t gotten around to blogging yet, like Connec2, Sketchbox, Softspace, etc.
Yes, I am going to make the YARTVRA acronym a thing (WORK. WITH. ME, PEOPLE!)
UPDATE May 11th, 2020: Based on feedback I have received, and after doing a little more thinking, I have made some adjustments to version 1.0 of this Venn diagram, and I have now updated it version 2.0. Thank you to everybody who took the time to reach out to me! Summary of changes made is here.
UPDATE May 12th, 2020: I also wanted to add to this blogpost some thoughtful comments by the Voices of VR podcaster and VR expert Kent Bye, who retweeted this blogpost to his followers on Twitter with the following comment:
Conceptually, any sufficiently robust virtual world will be able to handle multiple contexts ranging from going on a date, hanging with friends, playing games, learning, working. I see context is more driven more by the culture and people using it, more than the platform itself.
Infographic by Kent Bye
He added:
I use the lens of qualities of presence: Active Presence: Rec Room Mental & Social Presence: AltSpaceVR, Mozilla Hubs, Engage Embodied Presence: VRChat Emotional Presence: Wave, Museum of Other Realities All of these are always happening to different degrees in social VR, but there’s combos and a center of gravity.
Four Qualities of Presence in Social VR (from a presentation slide by Kent Bye)
