Jo Yardley is pointing us to an article about Project Sansar that appeared in Variety. Variety magazine, according to Wikipedia, was a weekly magazine published from the East Coast covering entertainment. In 1933 they started also publishing a daily from the West Coast. Of course they have an online version.
Jo thinks this is great coverage for Sansar and Second Life. See: Variety writes about Project Sansar. She works with entertainment people from time to time helping them get their period pieces historically correct. So, she may know something or maybe it’s just she likes the people in the industry.
The Variety article is a light-weight-FYI piece. See: Second Life Maker Linden Lab Wants to Build the WordPress of Virtual Reality. When people from outside the Second Life™ world hear about Sansar they often hear things we don’t.
People like the article’s author Janko Roettgers, may be technically oriented but, they are not writing for a technically oriented audience. So, the comment that Sansar will render at 90 frames per second (FPS) to provide a smooth VR experience does really convey the technical difficulty. Sansar will literally have to generate 90 images each for left and right eye, 180 FPS.
An interesting twist Janko points out is Second Life is about the Second Life world. A difference planned for Sansar is to make it about individual VR experiences. We have heard this before but in other words.
Second Life was originally conceived as a game development platform. It looks as if Ebbe is using that idea as the template for Sansar. I am guessing they hope is Sansar will be like WordPress or Apache web hosting, software that billions use every day. Ebbe has mentioned the WordPress idea before.
In this article again we hear that users will be able to hyperlink into VR from web browsers but, they still have to have the Sansar software installed. That has been a problem for Second Life use. Hamlet has published Why Media Coverage of Second Life Can’t Grow SL Usage in which he points out how few people make it from signup to in-world.
Installing software has been a problem for SL. Some people can’t figure out how to do it. It is just too much for them. But, billions have installed Flash and JAVA. The way Flash is embedded in web pages, it self loads if it is not already installed. Will an install process like Adobe Flash’s be created for Sansar? I am guessing that might be what happens.
Janko is quoting Ebbe as saying a Sansar 1.0 might release by the end of 2016.
Janko points out something that some of the SL peeps have pointed out. Success of VR depends on how many people buy VR headsets. The assumption is also often made that the success of Sansar depends on the success of VR headset sales. I think VR success will have a major influence on Sansar. But, Ebbe has pointed out that one will NOT have to have a VR headset to use Sansar.
I can imagine how many more people might use Second Life if it were not for the signup-download-login process. If I could click a link on a web site and be in SL in 5 to 15 seconds… I think that is what they are planning for Sansar.
Janko talks about ‘brands’ using the word to sort of mean companies with brands. So, brands are Kelloges, General Mills, GM, Disney, etc. Janko wonders how many people want to deal with a world dominated by, say, Toyota. I suspect few.
On the other hand Toyota might love it. As it is now automotive manufactures spend a huge amount of money to present their products on the web. A considerable portion of the advertising budget goes toward pictures and 3D imaging. I have no doubt that being able to put a VR web experience of their cars online would be a major attraction for them. We could sit in the car and look around. We could open the hood or trunk and look in. With VR it would be almost like having the unit in front of us.
The automotive manufacturers already have the computer models. Their design process is full on CAD… every part, assembled… So, moving those to VR is going to be a matter of data conversion.
As it is now, automotive web sites have that popup chat thing. But, Sansar would let them do voice and talk to the potential customer. Their avatar could point to features. Auto dealers are going to love the idea. How well the public accepts it is a matter of how many people have microphones (most now), and VR headsets.
My basic point is Janko may be under estimating brand interest in Sansar from looking at the user side, as in user-experience-visitor verses user- experience-owner. I doubt many will hang out in a Ford virtual world. But, potential customers looking for a new vehicle will provide a steady stream of visitors to such a world/experience. That will make it attractive to dealers and manufacturers.
Sansar is heading into new territory. Like the New World of the 1600 and 1700’s the potential is incredible. Now it is just a matter of what can be realized.
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For more Project Sansar specific information click the Sansar Category. The link is always available in the upper right of any page in this blog. Even more is available by clicking the Tag SL 2.0 at the bottom of this article. Or you can bookmark the pages by saving this link: Tag SL 2.0.