Tag: Video

EDITORIAL: Two Recent YouTube Videos Take Aim at Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, and Meta’s Virtual Reality Hardware and Software Development

Horizon Workrooms get savaged in a highly critical review video by The Verge, a sign of the growing antipathy toward’s Meta virtual reality hardware and software strategy

This is worth negative ten billion dollars. I would pay ten billion dollars to never use this again. I wanted to have hope that we could do this, and it would be fun, but I mean, you guys agree that this one of the most buggy software experiences, ever.

—Alex Heath, The Verge (transcribed audio excerpt from the video below)

I’m still percolating, alas, but I did want to share with my readers a couple of YouTube videos which caught my attention.

The first, a 15-minute editorial video by The Verge‘s Adi Robertson, discusses Meta’s new Quest Pro VR headset and its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms social VR experiences. She and her colleagues did not hold back in their criticisms of both, particularly the Horizon platforms (the quote at the top of this blogpost comes from another writer for The Verge, as a group was kicking the tires on Horizon Workrooms).

The Verge staff make it very clear that they are less than impressed with what is on offer from Meta, and that they do not believe that remote workteams will be using either the Quest Pro or Horizon Workrooms, over a Zoom call.

The popular virtual reality YouTuber ThrillSeeker goes even further in the following 15-minute video, which has already racked up over 400,000 views:

In it, he takes Mark Zuckerberg and his team at Meta to task for dropping the ball with their virtual reality hardware and software strategy to date:

How in the hell did it go so wrong that Meta and Horizon have become the laughingstock of hundreds of videos and publications, and that Quests, for the most part, are just sitting on shelves collecting dust?

Meta, I understand that you are a massive corporation…and that running a business like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus is probably incredibly difficult.

But you have somehow managed to turn one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life, into one of the lamest jokes in tech.

—ThrillSeeker

Among many other criticisms, he accuses Meta (rightfully) of focusing on wireless VR headsets to the exclusion of high-end PCVR (that is, headsets like his and my beloved Valve Index, which require a good desktop computer with a powerful graphics card, and can run a lot of applications which wireless headsets would struggle with.

What I find so fascinating about both these videos is that they are emblematic of a rising tide of antipathy against Meta, as it tries to repivot to become a metaverse company, sinking tens of billions of dollars a year into a VR/AR strategy that might take a decade or longer before it goes truly mainstream (that is, beyond the early adopters and the hardcore gamers). Both videos mention the recent massive layoffs at Meta, a further sign that all is not well with the company as it struggles to find the next big thing after social networking.

Mark Zuckerberg is placing a very expensive bet on virtual and augmented reality and the metaverse, but will that big bet pay off, and when? Stay tuned.

Video: Matthew Ball Talks About the Metaverse Road Map in Breakroom

On Thursday, October 21st, Matthew Ball, author of the influential Metaverse Primer and lead creator of the Ball Metaverse Index, was joined by Gene Park of the Washington Post and virtual world blogger Wagner James Au for a fireside chat in the virtual world of Breakroom. The chat covered a wide range of topics, including key trends to watch for, the mainstream adoption of the Metaverse, and the broader impact on society. Near the end, metaverse pioneer Philip Rosedale was also invited up on stage. You can read more about the event here.

Matthew Ball is a well-informed, articulate, and insightful speaker about the metaverse, and I highly recommend you watch the following 50-minute video of the well-attended event:

Please note that, as you watch this video, both Adam Frisby and Rohan Freeman of Sine Wave Entertainment, senior executives of the company who make Breakroom and Sinespace, were the ones responsible for spawning the dizzying array of items on and around the stage as the panel members spoke to the assembled audience.

I certainly don’t blame Adam and Rohan for wanting to flex the dynamic editing capabilities of their platform, especially in front of an audience full of big names in the metaverse! However, at first I thought it was a griefer attack! (I even DM’ed Adam to report the “griefer”, not knowing that it was him! How embarrassing.)

Anyways, I learned a lot from Matthew’s talk, and there were some great questions afterward from the audience, so I thought I’d share the video here with you. Stay tuned for news of the next in this free series of Fireside Chats in Breakroom!

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

Two Videos Which Show the Variety and Beauty of Sansar’s Many Worlds

I admit it: I still have a soft spot in my heart for the early social VR platform Sansar.

I joined Sansar which was then in closed beta test, in January 2017, and I began this blog in order to write exclusively about Sansar (in fact, the original name for the RyanSchultz.com blog was the Sansar Newsblog). Over time, I slowly expanded to write about other platforms, but Sansar was my introduction to social VR.

In my opinion, Sansar (built by Linden Lab, opened to the public on July 31st, 2017, and later sold to Wookey in 2020) still boasts some of the most breathtakingly beautiful worlds in the metaverse (thanks in large part to their advanced lighting model). I wanted to reshare two of my favourite videos to give those of you, who might never have set a virtual foot in Sansar, a taste of those worlds.

First is a video by Wurfi, compiled in 2019, showcasing numerous worlds in Sansar. Watching this brings back so many happy memories!

And second is the following YouTube video by Daisy Winthorpe, made in 2020, which also shows off numerous Sansar worlds:

I do hope that these two videos will inspire you to download the Sansar client, and go do some exploring! Many if not most of these worlds are still up and running. Here’s a step-by-step guide for newbies I wrote up in 2019 (although I cannot guarantee that parts of it are not a bit out-of-date).

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.)