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VOICE ARCHIVE

Wagner James Au

@slhamlet
31 posts
2025-02-21
@Techmeme @benz145 This creator fund is basically Meta's open admission Horizon Worlds as a metaverse platform is fundamentally *not fun*. Successful platforms like Rec Room, VRChat, etc. are rich with amazing content created by the user communities themselves for FREE. https://nwn.blogs.com/...
2025-02-21 View on X
Road to VR

Meta announces a $50M creator fund for Horizon Worlds; CTO Andrew Bosworth reportedly told staff that 2025 is a make-or-break year for Meta's XR ambitions

they are making a long-term play.  rather than put money into supporting VR for adults, productivity, etc. — they're investing in a generation that will have *grown up* with VR X: ...

2025-01-29
Am I missing something or does Bosworth not cite a single hard sales number... even in an “internal” memo?  —  He did NOT say Meta grew sales “>40% YoY” BTW.  —  He actually says “growing *RL sales* >40% YoY”.  —  I.E., VR/XR sales in stores.  Which isn't impressive if (as likely) 2023 was slow for retail. …
2025-01-29 View on X
Business Insider

In an internal memo, Andrew Bosworth says Meta's Reality Labs beat nearly all its sales and user targets for 2024, growing sales “>40% YoY overall”

He did NOT say Meta grew sales “>40% YoY” BTW.  —  He actually says “growing *RL sales* >40% YoY”.  —  I.E., VR/XR sales in stores.  Which isn't impressive if (as likely) 2023 was ...

2023-09-28
Here's my take on the Quest 3 launch announcement, which mentions VR once - and “mixed reality” FIVE times. But Pokemon Go aside, there's little proof of a mass market of consumers who actually want mixed reality — let alone strapping it to their face. https://nwn.blogs.com/...
2023-09-28 View on X
Bloomberg

Meta debuts the $500 Quest 3, featuring a 30% higher resolution than the Quest 2, double the processing power, new lenses, a thinner design, and new controllers

- New mixed-reality headset to start at $500, a $200 increase  — Apple to launch rival device, Vision Pro, early next year

2023-09-12
I feel like the “Generative AI will totally transform Hollywood and all media!” hype is sorta undercut by the small matter that it can't be copyrighted? https://www.reuters.com/...
2023-09-12 View on X
Reuters

The US Copyright Office denies protection for an AI-made image that won an art competition, despite Adobe Photoshop alterations and 624+ text prompt revisions

thus nothing could be granted to him. [image] @glynntarrant : It's good to see Jason is still struggling with trying to copyright this AI generated image. Also, since he was and st...

2023-04-27
Maybe we think Meta is moving its focus away from a metaverse vision because your own CTO's “Why we still believe in the future” vision statement from Dec. 2022 didn't mention “the Metaverse” even once? https://nwn.blogs.com/... https://twitter.com/...
2023-04-27 View on X
TechCrunch

Mark Zuckerberg disputes the narrative that Meta is moving its focus away from a metaverse vision and sees AI tech working in tandem with the metaverse

Things are looking up for Meta.  The company beat revenue expectations, reporting an increase in year-over-year revenue for the first time in three quarters.

2023-01-30
It never ends. Major media stories about the Metaverse depicted by people with headsets for some reason. https://www.nytimes.com/...
2023-01-30 View on X
New York Times

South Korea's K-pop industry is embracing the metaverse, expanding on commonplace virtual counterparts for artists, including by creating the virtual band Mave

In the world's testing ground for tech, K-pop singers are being spun up out of pixels and doing battle in a virtual universe.

2023-01-18
So between $800 to $1,600. IE 2x to 4x the price of a Quest. 👌🏼🙄 https://twitter.com/...
2023-01-18 View on X
Bloomberg

Sources: Apple indefinitely postpones its lightweight AR glasses due to technical difficulties and is instead planning a lower-cost MR headset for 2024 or 2025

Apple Inc. is still planning to unveil its first mixed-reality headset this year, but an even more important follow-up product …

2022-10-15
Pretty jaw-dropping aside by Carmack for why the Quest 2 price was raised! Meta developed it to grow the market for its metaverse platform. Instead, Quest 2 owners are going in droves to FTP @VRChat & @recroom — leading metaverse platform competitors. https://t.co/I8Yqni6X1o
2022-10-15 View on X
Kotaku

Meta says the segment at Connect 2022 announcing the addition of legs to Horizon World avatars in 2023 “featured animations created from motion capture”

Parmy Olson of Bloomberg was not impressed with Meta's announcements at Connect 2022: James Troughton / TheGamer : Meta's Virtual Leg Update Was Actually Motion Capture Jonathan Va...

2022-10-14
Pretty jaw-dropping aside by Carmack for why the Quest 2 price was raised! Meta developed it to grow the market for its metaverse platform. Instead, Quest 2 owners are going in droves to FTP @VRChat & @recroom — leading metaverse platform competitors. https://t.co/I8Yqni6X1o
2022-10-14 View on X
Ars Technica

Meta adviser and ex-Oculus CTO John Carmack expresses heavy skepticism at pushing for avatar fidelity, focusing on the Quest Pro to drive VR adoption, and more

Pretty jaw-dropping aside by Carmack for why the Quest 2 price was raised! Meta developed it to grow the market for its metaverse platform. Instead, Quest 2 owners are going in droves to FTP @VRChat & @recroom — leading metaverse platform competitors. https://t.co/I8Yqni6X1o
2022-10-14 View on X
Kotaku

Meta says the segment at Connect 2022 announcing the addition of legs to Horizon World avatars in 2023 “featured animations created from motion capture”

A subsequent statement from Meta says ‘the segment featured animations created from motion capture’

2022-07-28
@MikeIsaac This is a really bizarre injunction, on first glance. Within has a tiny userbase, while the most active usage of its Quest headsets are on competing metaverse platforms Rec Room & VRChat — which have far, far, far more users than Meta's own Horizon. https://nwn.blogs.com/...
2022-07-28 View on X
New York Times

The FTC files to block Meta's acquisition of VR company Within, saying Meta “chose to buy” instead of compete, the first antitrust lawsuit filed under Lina Khan

Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. Lauren Feiner / CNBC : Facebook lawsuit delivers on FTC chair Lina Khan's progressive agenda Josh Sisco / Politico :...

@MikeIsaac My take on this. Rec Room has about 3-5x more active users than Supernatural on Quest 2 alone & RR's user community can already create a “good enough” version of anything on that app. (Just like a Rec Room user created a version of Beat Saber years ago.) https://nwn.blogs.com/...
2022-07-28 View on X
New York Times

The FTC files to block Meta's acquisition of VR company Within, saying Meta “chose to buy” instead of compete, the first antitrust lawsuit filed under Lina Khan

Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. Lauren Feiner / CNBC : Facebook lawsuit delivers on FTC chair Lina Khan's progressive agenda Josh Sisco / Politico :...

2022-05-18
NEW: The Times contacted 10 celebrities who've promoted major crypto projects, asking for an official comment, now that crypto has imploded, hurting countless investors, many of them fans of these figures. Not a single one responded. https://www.nytimes.com/...
2022-05-18 View on X
New York Times

Celebrities have been criticized for hyping crypto without highlighting the risks after this month's sell-off, as Crypto.com and FTX scale back on ad spending

Crypto boosters such as Matt Damon, Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow have been criticized for hyping virtual currency without highlighting the risks. Tweets: @katie_robertson ...

2022-04-13
Selling Quest units at a huge loss to grow consumer market share while hitting grassroots creators using the Quest with heavy commission fees is an interesting way to make a metaverse platform. https://nwn.blogs.com/... https://twitter.com/...
2022-04-13 View on X
CNET

Meta's plan to take up to a 47.5% cut of each virtual transaction on Horizon Worlds draws criticism from NFT proponents; OpenSea takes a 2.5% cut

Meta, previously known as Facebook, is figuring out how to monetize the metaverse. … It's been nearly six months since the company formerly known …

2022-04-12
Meta opens up its metaverse platform to user-generated content sales, but takes nearly half (!) the revenue. Seems way too early to launch a marketplace, as Horizon doesn't have much of an active community. Also. why take huge losses on Quest sales but gouge user creators? https://twitter.com/...
2022-04-12 View on X
The Verge

Meta rolls out a test for some creators to sell virtual items and effects in Horizon Worlds, which will take a 25% cut of any sale after app store fees

Horizon Worlds will take a 25 percent cut of any sale after app store fees  —  Meta is testing new features to let creators …

2022-02-18
Good scoop from @alexeheath. If you're wondering if 300K users are impressive, here's a data point: To this day, about 300K new Second Life accounts are created every month. So Horizon usage is comparing well to... a 19 year old metaverse platform. https://www.theverge.com/...
2022-02-18 View on X
The Verge

Meta confirms the combined monthly user base for Horizon Worlds and Venues has grown to 300,000 people, up 10x since launching in December

That's a 10x increase in about three months.  But can the growth continue?  —  Facebook has bet its future on virtual reality and the metaverse …

Important to also track Horizon's user ratings in comparison to its leading competitors on the Oculus store, VRChat & Rec Room. Horizon now has a 3 star average from 500-600 Quest users - VRChat & Rec Room have 4 star avgs. from 10K-15K Quest users. https://nwn.blogs.com/... https://twitter.com/...
2022-02-18 View on X
The Verge

Meta confirms the combined monthly user base for Horizon Worlds and Venues has grown to 300,000 people, up 10x since launching in December

That's a 10x increase in about three months.  But can the growth continue?  —  Facebook has bet its future on virtual reality and the metaverse …

2022-01-03
Today I learned there are more people who own unique virtual items in Second Life (about 500K now) than own NFTs (360K). This is bonkers. Second Life hasn't been “hot” in the tech world since 2008, but its virtual economy is still larger than the supposedly hot NFT market? https://twitter.com/...
2022-01-03 View on X
Financial Times

Chainalysis: users spent nearly $41B on NFTs in 2021, with <$10K transactions accounting for more than 75% of the market; 32.4K wallets hold 80% of the value

Financial Times : Tweets: @carnage4life , @julianklymochko , @abatukaraali , @mshannahmurphy , and @slhamlet Tweets: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : The unintuitive thing about th...

2022-01-01
A key mistake many make when thinking about the Metaverse is assuming that it's essentially the web but in 3D. But the essence of the Metaverse is immersion, which implies avatars, which implies communities, which implies “walled gardens”, i.e. protective & protected spaces.
2022-01-01 View on X
Washington Post

Metaverse products from Meta, Microsoft, and others are just 3D virtual social spaces, and lack key features of the metaverse concept, chiefly interoperability

theoretically interesting idea in search of a mass market use case. “I want to use my Elder Scrolls Online sword in Minecraft” is not anything actual gamers say & give actual game ...

IBM put tremendous resources into creating an interoperable Metaverse protocol that bridged Second Life with its open source spinoff OpenSim. It attracted roughly zero consumer / enterprise interest & introduced new problems (esp. IP infringement). Benefits still remain unclear. https://twitter.com/...
2022-01-01 View on X
Washington Post

Metaverse products from Meta, Microsoft, and others are just 3D virtual social spaces, and lack key features of the metaverse concept, chiefly interoperability

theoretically interesting idea in search of a mass market use case. “I want to use my Elder Scrolls Online sword in Minecraft” is not anything actual gamers say & give actual game ...