The creator of one of the earliest and most enduring virtual worlds is returning to his roots. Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life, will rejoin the company he founded in 1999 as a strategic advisor after High Fidelity, the spatial audio company he co-founded in 2013). The deal includes a cash investment, relevant patents, and some members of its development team.
No one has come close to building a virtual world like Second Life. Big Tech isn't going to create a magical, single digital utopia for everyone. Second Life has created a positive, enriching experience for its residents and built a thriving subscription-based business at the same time. Virtual worlds don't need to be depressing.
As companies like Meta launch their own visions for the metaverse, Rosedale has remained a vocal critic of some of the dynamics that underpin the current era of online life.
Many of the concepts that have only recently been promoted under the umbrella of the "metaverse" were pioneered by the virtual social platform of Rosedale. Digital identity, virtual real estate, digital economies, and online multiplayer ecosystems were explored in Second Life back in the early 2000s.
According to the company, Rosedale is already in contact with the executive chairman of the platform, Brad Oberwager, but will greatly increase his involvement in the platform's product plans in the new advisory role. High Fidelity's current work is relevant to Second Life's second life, as a number of social platforms recently added spatial audio to create more immersive experiences, and some of them, like Clubhouse, are licensing High Fidelity's code to pull it off.
Oberwager said that Philip's approach to Second Life has stood the test of time and positioned it for the future. I can't wait to exploit the vast opportunity in front of us because he and the High Fidelity team have unparalleled experience.
Voice chat is coming to Roblox.
It sounds like the Linden Lab is interested in tapping into that early magic. Second Life has a long way to go before it is relevant again. Major companies such as Meta, Unreal, and Roblox are betting big on a near future of virtual worlds populated by digital identities with endless lucrative virtual goods on offer. It will be interesting to see how someone who has been thinking about these issues for 20 years envisions the virtual worlds that companies are suddenly so keen on all of us moving into.
Users will feel like they are in the room with the spatial audio effects.
Skittish is what you would get if you crossed Animal Crossing with a club.
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