OK, I have shared a first draft of the following infographic to as many social VR Discords as I could find, and I got a fair bit of feedback, so I’m reasonably certain that this will stay Version 1.0 for a little while longer than my thrice-updated Venn diagram of social VR platforms by purpose (here, and the original blopost is here).
As with the previous infographic, I have set this one to CC BY 2.0 CA. Feel free to reuse and remix this, just give me credit, please.
Please note that this is an updated and expanded version of the information from the last three columns of this table (my original blogpost). I really need to update that table too, especially since things are evolving so quickly in the social virtual reality marketplace.
As always, comments and corrections are welcomed. Thanks!
I created this infographic using Canva.com, which happens to be a great tool for this sort of thing.
Okay, more feedback, more thinking, more changes to my Venn diagram (as before, the following diagram is available to view and download in various sizes from Flickr, up to 1024 by 768 pixels, just click on it):
Summary of the changes this time around:
I decided that NeosVR, after all, was not primarily a business, conference, and remote workteams platform after all (sorry, guys!).
I have been told that Mozilla Hubs is used by some educational institutions, so I needed to move it.
I have seen art galleries in Sinespace, so I moved it over to join Sansar.
And finally, in response to a request/complaint, I have replaced the pesky copyright symbol with a Creative Commons-BY licence. Feel free to reuse and remix, just give me credit, please.
I am happy with Version 2.1…for now. I have also updated my original blogpost with this new infographic. (Check back tomorrow, when I will no doubt release Version 2.2, with yet more changes. Then again, maybe I’ll stop fiddling with it for a while.)
Over the past two days, I have received feedback on the first version of my infographic, and I have also been doing some thinking on my own, so I have made some adjustments to it, and I now present version 2.0 to you now (I have also updated my original blogpost here). The following diagram is available to view and download in various sizes from Flickr, up to 1024 by 768 pixels, just click on it:
If you are looking for an up-to-date list of YARTVRA platforms, you can find it here.
Here is an explanation of some of the changes. First, you will notice that NeosVR now occupies the centre spot on this Venn diagram. Yes, the people at NeosVR have actually convinced me that their platform can actually be used for all five of the major purposes! I had forgotten that NeosVR was originally an educational platform, and it is being used by several universities, including the University of Oxford and the University of Sydney (a topic I hope to cover in more detail in a later blogpost).
NeosVR is also used for art (in particular, I remember a wonderful three-dimensional recreation of one of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings). And, of course, the MetaMovie project is the perfect example of a live event in VRChat (another project I need to write an update on). So, for me, NeosVR comes the closest to checking all the boxes.
I also moved Ceek from Live Music to Media Consumption, since I do not believe they actually offer any live performances, just video recorded previously (somebody correct me if I am wrong, since I am not bothering to purchase their branded VR headset, and I am not really interested in cellphone-based VR, anyway). Meh.
I have also decided that Engage can host live events as well as business conferences, so I have moved it. While I really don’t consider Engage a general purpose platform, they do fit into the other four categories.
Likewise, I have moved VRChat, since I forgot that they do have business and conferences. The recently concluded Virtual Market 4 was a prime example of that!
I think those were the only changes I made from version 1.0. As always, please feel free to let me know if you think I have grievously miscategorized any particular platform. Thanks!
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!
