towards the end of SL's heyday, we were trying to make an open metaverse with OGPX, MMOX and VWRAP. alas, the company ran out of money before we could complete

towards the end of SL's heyday, we were trying to make an open metaverse with OGPX, MMOX and VWRAP. alas, the company ran out of money before we could complete the work (and IBM kind of stiffed us on some IP issues.) it's interesting to note that cory and babbage and beez and a raft of other lindens wound up at FB between 2009 and 2011. i went to pitch the idea of continuing the "open metaverse" and try to get FB to fund the VWRAP work, but no dice. 2010-2011 was way too early for virtual worlds or augmented worlds to be on the FB radar. at linden, at the end, we wanted to build a shared world which could be fed with real or made up geo data and with a common protocol different organizations could use to cause a consistent, shared experience be delivered to end users. the key here is "different organizations." by the end we were trying to build an open protocol linden could be a key player in, but not own it as a walled garden. i think the prime difference here is FB wants to own the venue (walled garden) and sell different data layers to different communities. i would be very surprised if they weren't working on an AR experience where advertisers could buy a data overlay identifying most likely consumers for specific services. so you're minding your business at the mall and someone walks up and says "excuse me ma'am, i notice you bought floral print shirt last week. we're having a sale on slacks that would complement that shirt and your colour pallette." not to mention strossian "cop space" or a raft of less intrusive layers for different communities. so... "own the venue" and "sell distinct value-added layers to different parties"