Lab Gab host Strawberry Linden with Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) and Linden Lab executive chairman Brad Oberwager (Oberwolf Linden); image is a screencapture from the YouTube video
Have you heard the news? Second Life founder Philip Rosedale is back! With today’s announcement about High Fidelity’s investment in Linden Lab, we’re excited to welcome back Philip Rosedale in the all-new role as Second Life strategic advisor. Philip is a recognized metaverse pioneer who led the early days of Second Life to help form and inform the now-mainstream concepts of virtual economies, cultures, and communities. In his new role, he will bring his vast virtual world experience and vision to help shape the future of Second Life.
And today Linden Lab released a pre-recorded hour-long episode of their popular talk show, Lab Gab, hosted by the ever-capable Strawberry Linden (formerly known as the SL blogger Strawberry Singh, and now a Linden Lab employee herself):
As I have often said before, Philip is a very articulate and highly informed speaker with many years of experience in virtual reality and virtual worlds, and of course Brad is no stranger to the microphone himself! I only caught the last few minutes of the streaming video on YouTube myself, but I will be sure to go back later this evening and watch this in full! Enjoy.
Strawberry Linden (formerly known as the popular SL blogger Strawberry Singh), has released a new Bakes on Mesh tutorial video on YouTube:
Given her years of experience making tutorial videos, this is essential viewing if you want to understand all that Bakes on Mesh has to offer! Seriously, Linden Lab was so smart to put her on the payroll. She has an innate ability to explain complicated things in an approachable, easy-to-understand way.
There has been no shortage of shows about the virtual world of Second Life over the 16 years of its existence! One example is the long-running, popular Designing Worlds show with its co-hosts Saffia Widdershins and Elrik Merlin, where they talk about design and interview designers in Second Life.
We’re excited to announce our very first live-streaming show – “Lab Gab” with Xiola and Strawberry Linden. We’ll be coming to you live on YouTube every two weeks or so, starting Wednesday, August 28th at 3 pm SLT/PT. You can join us for these live streams on our Official YouTube Channel here when we go live! (We’re working on bringing Lab Gab to more streaming platforms in the very near future – so stay tuned!)
What’s Lab Gab? Well, it will be a variety show of sorts – we want to explore Second Life, answer your questions, talk to Residents from all over the world, and stream it through the internet and into your homes, phones, and wherever you get your quality entertainment.
In our first show, we’ll be introducing ourselves, talking a little bit about what Lab Gab is, and interacting with you through YouTube live. In the future, we will invite special guests to come visit us on the set and talk about events and issues that impact the communities in Second Life.
As long-time Residents and now Lindens, we can’t wait to get gabbing!
Tune in at 3 pm SLT on Wednesday, August 28 for our launch and stay tuned to our social media and blog for updates about future shows.
Knowing both Xiola and Strawberry well from their time spent in Sansar (Xiola was for a time the community manager for Sansar, and Strawberry was co-host with Draxtor Despres on the long-running series Atlas Hopping in Sansar), I am delighted to see them launching a new show together! I plan on tuning in regularly.
My comparison chart of social VR platforms (full-size version available here)
I think what I will do (rather than throw my lot in with the entrepreneur and try to make money off my labour) is try to work something up for publication in a research journal instead. Working for a university, I tend to have more of an academic than an entrepreneurial bent anyways. Then I could add it to my résumé for the next time I apply for a promotion at work (assuming I do so before I decide to retire).
Which beings me to today’s topic: people making money off the metaverse. I’m actually already making a little money in two ways:
serving advertising from WordPress’ WordAds and Google’s AdSense on my blog (which brings in anywhere from $5 to $35 per month);
my Patreon page (currently bringing in $13 a month from 7 supporters—thank you!).
This money earned goes toward my blog hosting costs with WordPress (I have their Business plan at $33 a month, billed annually). Every little bit helps!
Other people are generating income by creating content for the metaverse: mesh buildings, trees, and furniture, avatar clothing and attachments, animations, etc. In fact, some Second Life content creators actually are able to make a decent living wage from their work (but they are definitely in the minority; most creators earn only a secondary income from SL, and some do it just for the creative outlet).
A few people like Bernhard Drax (a.k.a Draxtor Despres) have been able to parlay their video-making work into a lucrative side hustle, working for companies such as Linden Lab to help promote their products. Strawberry Singh, who is well-known for her pictures and videos of Second Life, even landed up getting hired by Linden Lab! And who’s to say that what happened to Drax and Berry can’t happen to you, too?
While I seriously doubt that anybody is making a living wage off the various social VR platforms so far (except for the people working for companies creating the platforms, like High Fidelity and Linden Lab), we can expect that at some point in the future, individual entrepreneurs will generate a good income from social VR. The big questions are where and when it will happen, not if. Many people are waiting on the sidelines, honing their skills and biding their time, to see which social VR platforms will take off in popularity. There’s no sense dumping a lot of time and money into a platform if nobody’s using it.
What do you think of all this? Do you think that we are still years away from people earning a living off the metaverse? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments section, or better yet, join the RyanSchultz.com Discord server, the first cross-worlds Discord where people discuss and debate the issues surrounding social VR and virtual worlds. We’d love to have you with us!
