Tag: Philip Rosedale

UPDATED! Adam Frisby and Philip Rosedale in Conversation: Some Notes from Today’s Campfire Talk in Breakroom

If you think Second Life was hard to get into, wait until you buy your first NFT and try to show it to a friend.

—Philip Rosedale.
Philip Rosedale’s and Adam Frisby’s avatars in Breakroom at the Campfire Talk:
Adam admits he has become very attached to his bunny rabbit avatar 😉

Today, Philip Rosedale, the founding CEO of Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life) and the current CEO of High Fidelity, had a chat with Sine Wave Entertainment’s Adam Frisby in Breakroom (the corporate cousin of the Sinewave platform), who was also heavily involved with the development of OpenSim.

In fact, I learned before the event started from Adam Frisby that Breakroom had implemented the High Fidelity spatialized audio system, just before the event! A crowd of about 50 avatars gathered in a custom virtual world created by Adam himself, which reminded me strongly of the great Canadian north!

Here are a few quick notes on just a few of the topics from that conversation today (I hope to be able to add a video of the complete event later):

  • Rohan Freeman of Sine Wave Entertainment gave an introduction, mentioning that their business had started in Second Life
  • Wagner James Au of the blog New World Notes had a few audio difficulties, but eventually was able to speak, thanking everyone for coming, and mentioned a few features of the web-based Breakroom app (including emojis and hand-raising)
  • What is a metaverse? Adam said it is a powerful blank canvas, allowing people to create and express themselves. Philip said that the older he gets, and the more he contemplates virtual worlds, the less sure he becomes about what the “metaverse” is. He defines it as “the digital space between us”, a creative space that consists on our shared agreement on the space between us (based on consensus). That space is the metaverse.
  • The nature of virtual worlds includes the idea of the person/individual/avatar, a concept that is missing from the internet, which mainly exists to connect information
  • Most surprising or humbling thing about user creativity? Philip said the infinite creativity of people building upon each others’ work over and over again, and how far Second Life has come in its history, which is inspiring to him. Adam said the game-building that has taken place in Sinespace, how people continually subvert the rules of the platform and make amazing things like first-person shooters
  • What aspects of SL user creativity should newer platforms learn from? Philip is proud of SL, particularly the economy and the ability to creative derivative works/derivative rights, which he says still really hasn’t been replicated elsewhere. Adam said the financial and legal work required to enable that economy and operation, allowing people to create and sell their goods, calling it a “self actualization economy”.
  • Adam: you can succeed in building a virtual world without an economy (cites VRChat), but if you want to get people to invest, you want to attract professionals who expect to be able to earn money, let them run free, which makes them more popular (e.g. Roblox)
  • Is the metaverse limited to younger people? Philip said no, but the youngest generation which has the most time and energy, determine whatever happens next. Second Life started off with a younger userbase, which has aged over time. (Many people tell Philip that they got their start in SL.) Adam talked about the pivot to Breakroom during the pandemic, which has had huge adoption in areas such as banking conferences and events (something that he would not have previously predicted). Adam got his start in Active Worlds, when he had lots of energy! Different people want different things: socialization, creativity, etc.
  • How important is the adoption of VR headsets? Adam said that it is still too easy to “break the spell” when in virtual reality, and thinks that VR might reach 30% of households at some point. VR per se will not make or break a metaverse. Philip said he learned that it’s still to early: the VR headset is still not going to be a replacement for something like the smartphone anytime soon (e.g. the awkward workarounds for typing in a headset). “We’re absolutely not there yet.” Divisive with respect of the people willing to wear an “electronic blindfold” (creates an imbalance in the social fabric). Despite this, he is still enthusiastic about VR, despite his pragmatism based on his experience with the old High Fidelity social VR platform.
  • Cryptocurrency and NFTs: Philip said that there are still many challenges to face, saying that cryptocurrencies tend to concentrate wealth even more rapidly than regular currencies. Neither do NFTs. “If you think Second Life was hard to get into, wait until you buy your first NFT and try to show it to a friend.” Adam is NOT a fan of crypto, citing losing your passwords and losing access to your wallet as a serious problem (and customer service cannot help you!). These sorts of things are complete antithesis of something consumer-friendly, plus the environmental destruction caused by mining cryptocurrency. Philip thinks SL’s governance helped open up the conversation on how best to manage economies.

The event ended with questions from the audience. All in all, it was a wonderful event, with a great many people in attendance who are active in the metaverse!

UPDATE June 30th, 2021: As promised, here is the unedited, 80 minute-long YouTube video of the event:

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

Second Life 18th Birthday: Draxtor Despres Interviews Philip Rosedale and Dr. Tom Boellstorff

As one of the dozens of events celebrating the 18th birthday of Second Life, the irrepressible host of The Second Life Book Club, Bernhard Drax (better known by his SL name, Draxtor Despres) interviewed a couple of special guests:

  • Philip Rosedale, the founding CEO of Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life) and CEO of High Fidelity; and
  • Dr. Tom Boellstorff, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine who has written extensively about the culture of Second Life (previous blogposts about Tom here).

This is a must-watch one-hour video, if you are at all interested in social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse! Both Tom and Philip are excellent, articulate speakers on the topic, Drax deftly steers the conversation in many directions, and there are so many great quotes in here! This video is a gem, and the fact that it only has a little over 400 views so far is criminal, people. So go watch it!

Don’t forget that Philip is also speaking today in Breakroom at noon PST...he seems to be on a continuous speaking tour lately! He’s always a great listen, so be sure to register for the Breakroom event and attend (you’ll receive instructions via email).

P.S. Have you seen the latest one-minute promotional video for Second Life? Second Life’s new owners spent some serious coin on this! The future looks bright, indeed! (Fun fact: did you know that the same Waterfield investment group that now owns Second Life also owns Goldman Sachs? Check out the “Waterfield Network” listing of companies at the bottom of that last link.)

UPDATED! Collective Dreams: The Metaverse As a Shared Imagination, Taking Place in Breakroom on June 24th, 2021

On Thursday, June 24th, 2021 at noon PST/8:00 p.m. BST, the following four speakers will be taking part in a panel discussion titled Collective Dreams: The Metaverse As a Shared Imagination. The event takes place on the social VR platform Breakroom (created by Sine Wave Entertainment, the makers of Sinespace).

  • Philip Rosedale: Founder of Second Life and CEO and co-founder of High Fidelity
  • Adam Frisby: Co-founder of Open Simulator and Sine Wave Entertainment
  • Rohan Freeman: CEO and co-founder of Sine Wave Entertainment and Breakroom
  • Wagner James Au: Blogger (New World Notes) and author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets

According to the official announcement:

Since its inception in the early 90s, the Metaverse has inspired our wildest imagination — even if the technology to fully realize that dream has seemed just out of our grasp. But now, with advances in edge computing, VR, and 3D graphics/audio, nothing seems impossible. Given such powerful tools at our fingertips – what could this look like?

Join Metaverse pioneers Philip Rosedale, co-founder and CEO of High Fidelity, and Adam Frisby of Sine Wave Entertainment, for a candid, interactive fireside chat about virtual worlds, their past, present, and the shared creative vision for what they could be — live and onstage in the highly immersive virtual world of Breakroom.

You can register for the event here. It promises to be a fascinating discussion. See you there!

UPDATE June 24th, 2021: When you register you will receive an email message with a special link you have to click on to load the web-based Breakroom app in your web browser. Here is the schedule for the event:

– 12.00pm/8.00pm:  Arrival and Networking
– 12.10pm/8.10pm:   Fireside Chat with Philip and Adam
– 12.40pm/8.40pm:  Q&A
– 1.00pm/9.00pm:     After Party & Networking
– 1.30pm/9.30pm:     Event Closes

Adam Frisby worked personally on the venue for the event and it is simply gorgeous, strongly evocative of the great Canadian north! See you there!!

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

Notes from The Metaverse: A Glimpse into the Future of Work, with Charlie Fink, Cathy Hackl, Alex Howland, and Philip Rosedale, Held in VirBELA on May 13th, 2021

Charlie Fink (at podium) addresses an audience of over 160 avatars in VirBELA

Today, four well-known people in the metaverse shared a virtual stage in VirBELA to talk about how the metaverse will impact the future of work. (I was not in-world, but I did receive a special livestream link on YouTube to follow the proceedings at virbe.la/metaverse-stream, which I hope works for you as well. Here’s a second link if the first one doesn’t work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH6Lj1AKi3o.)

Author and columnist Charlie Fink was moderator, asking questions and guiding the wide-ranging conversation among the panelists:

  • Alex Howland, the founder and CEO of VirBELA
  • Cathy Hackl, VR/AR/XR columnist and author of the new book The Augmented Workforce, who used to work at Magic Leap
  • Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab (Second Life) and CEO of the spatial audio firm High Fidelity

Some of the interesting things from the panel which caught my ear were:

  • Cathy Hackl stated that the “metaverse” is not just limited to Ready Player One, but also Pokémon GO (even though I personally do not agree that cellphone-based “AR” is true augmented reality). She doesn’t want to see everything in one walled-garden marketplace like Oculus. She works a lot in the crypto space and wants to support decentralization, such as the portability of avatars between metaverses.
  • Philip said that COVID-19 introduced everybody to the idea of virtual worlds, or shared virtual spaces.
  • Alex was an organizational psychologist who got his original idea for VirBELA to create environments for business leaders to learn from each other, practice leadership skills, and to observe behaviour.
  • Philip recognized Second Life when he visited VirBELA, and really enjoyed walking around the virtual campus. He feels there is still a lot of work to be done to build platforms which allow people to be creative together.
  • Cathy sees ROBLOX and similar platforms as entry points for new generations of virtual world users. Her 12-year-old daughter’s friend is already making money creating and selling skins in ROBLOX.
  • Charlie commented on the fact that VirBELA lets you “lean in”, as opposed to more passive video-based services such as Zoom.
  • Philip talked about real-life use cases of his new company’s technology, High Fidelity, stressing how the three-dimensional, spatialized audio is better than a Zoom call. The company offers an SDK so that companies can integrate spatial audio into their products. High Fidelity works within the browser, and the company is working on native clients for iOS, Unity, etc.
  • Philip feels that avatars are extraordinarily important, saying that Second Life has a $600 million economy, with one of the largest segments being avatar hairstyles! But facial expression and lip movement are not yet there, and we are not yet across the Uncanny Valley effect (where avatars can appear creepy). Cathy notes that her daughter really cares a great deal about how her avatar looks in ROBLOX!
  • Alex talked about the FRAME platform, which he launched to pursue WebXR, to provide people ease of access from a wide variety of devices. There are tradeoffs between ecosystems (FRAME versus VirBELA), and they are still experimenting and innovating.
  • Cathy feels that VR/AR/XR is incredibly important to the development of the metaverse, in giving an enhanced sense of presence, and impact the way which we engage with environments. She encourages people not to restrict their thinking to just being in a VR headset.
  • Charlie asked Philip or Alex to explain what Agora is (a toolbox to allow you to build audio and video delivery into platforms, which is used in Clubhouse!). Philip noted that if the pandemic has happened even a decade earlier, it would have had a much bigger impact without services such as Agora.
  • Alex said that they has recently hosted a bar mitzvah in VirBELA, among many other unexpected uses (like speakeasies!).
  • Philip says that things are never going to be the same after the pandemic is over. It has now been shown that virtual events can be successful. New technology such as High Fidelity, starting with virtual events, are going to have many applications in future. There are also important cost and environmental aspects to holding meetings such as conferences in virtual spaces.
  • Alex notes that his company builds a lot of custom spaces for clients, and he notes that there are different approaches to world-building (i.e. building your own versus have someone build it for you).
  • Philip notes that Zoom and similar videoconferencing doesn’t have a natural network effect. If communications do embrace virtual worlds, then that will have network effects (i.e. more people want to join bigger networks, an example being Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Second Life). We still don’t know how everything is going to play out in the marketplace. A lot of CEOs are wrestling with the fact that many of their employees do not want to come back into the office, and how to build corporate culture in that new environment.
  • Philip advocated for a stable, cross-platform identity (not tied to your real-world identity), that serves to make us accountable for our behaviour.

Well, those are my rough notes. If you missed the talk, use one of the two links up top to watch and listen. It was an engaging one-hour conversation!