Wagner James Au
About Wagner James Au
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Making a metaverse that matters | Wagner James Au interview/podcast
Wagner James Au has been covering the idea of the metaverse for decades. He was the first embedded journalist inside the world of Second Life, the early virtual world from Linden Lab. And now he’s back with his own book about the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One
Neal Stephenson isn’t giving up on the metaverse—or crypto
The author of ‘Snow Crash’ and co-founder of Lamina1 talks about the novel’s long-delayed Hollywood adaptation, and why he finally decided to develop a real-world metaverse of his own.
Remember Second Life? That Could Be Facebook’s Future
A Q&A with Wagner James Au, author of “The Making of Second Life,” on why the short-lived success of the first virtual world has lessons for the metaverse.
Weirdly, Taylor Swift Is Extremely Close to Creating a True Metaverse
Taylor Swift has released a new album called Midnights. Over the past several weeks, Swift has presided over a meticulous online rollout: Ahead of the album’s drop, she launched “Midnights Mayhem With Me,” a TikTok video series wherein she released the 13 track names one by one via bingo. This week, she went as far as to release a full launch schedule for fans via Instagram that detailed exactly what would happen at which times and where online—including a “special very chaotic surprise” at 3 a.m. ET last night.
There Will Never Be Another Second Life
The virtual world, a strange cross between Burning Man and Neal Stephenson’s metaverse, marks its 20th anniversary with no true corporate competitor in sight.
Books by Wagner James Au
“Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For” (2023)
Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For
“Game Design Secrets” (2012)
Wagner James Au.
“The Making of Second Life” (2009)
The wholly virtual world known as Second Life has attracted more than a million active users, millions of dollars, and created its own—very real—economy. The Making of Second Life is the behind-the-scenes story of the Web 2.0 revolution's most improbable enterprise: the creation of a virtual 3-D world with its own industries, culture, and social systems. Now the toast of the Internet economy, and the subject of countless news articles, profiles, and television shows, Second Life is usually known for the wealth of real-world companies (Reuters, Pontiac, IBM) that have created "virtual offices" within it, and the number of users ("avatars") who have become wealthy through their user-created content. What sets Second Life apart from other online worlds, and what has made it such a success (one million-plus monthly users and growing) is its simple user-centered philosophy. Instead of attempting to control the activities of those who enter it, the creators of Second Life turned them loose: users (also known as Residents) own the rights to the intellectual content they create in-world, and the in-world currency of Linden Dollars is freely exchangeable for U.S. currency. Residents have responded by generating millions of dollars of economic activity through their in-world designs and purchases—currently, the Second Life economy averages more than one million U.S. dollars in transactions every day, while dozens of real-world companies and projects have evolved and developed around content originated in Second Life. Wagner James Au explores the long, implausible road behind that success, and looks at the road ahead, where many believe that user-created worlds like Second Life will become the Net's next generation and the fulcrum for a revolution in the way we shop, work, and interact. Au's story is narrated from both within the corporate offices of Linden Lab, Second Life's creator, and from within Second Life itself, revealing all the fascinating, outrageous, brilliant, and aggravating personalities who make Second Life a very real place—and an illuminating mirror on the real (physical) world. Au writes about the wars they fought (sometimes literally), the transformations they underwent, the empires of land and commerce they developed, and above all, the collaborative creativity that makes their society an imperfect utopia, better in some ways than the one beyond their computer screens.
At a glanceWagner James Au
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