Hello Metaverse
Annie Zhang
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Top 10 Hello Metaverse Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Hello Metaverse episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Hello Metaverse for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Hello Metaverse episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Rex Woodbury: Evolution of Digital Identity
Hello Metaverse
08/25/21 • 40 min
Digital identities have far evolved beyond a simple username and emoticon or a profile photo and personal page. It’s become a way that people can express themselves in a wide spectrum of ways and find meaning in new online communities.
In this episode, we explore how Gen Z has different trends in how they display their identities online compared to Millennials. Whereas Millennials approached online identity in a more curated and performative manner, Gen Z shows a strong desire for authenticity and embracing imperfection. Moreover, identity and status is more rooted in context to a community rather than purely through broadcasting on social feeds.
Beyond that, people have started to tap into experimentation with new forms of identity, such as through the use of synthetic media and transhumanism. An example of synthetic media is CodeMiko, which is an avatar mapped to the person’s real life actions and expressions. Transhumanism pushes the boundaries further through creations of purely virtual identities and personalities such as Lil Miquela who has amassed 3M followers on Instagram and has done multiple collabs with brands and celebrities despite being a purely digital creation.
Finally, we explore the proteus effect (how online personas affect real world identity and perceptions) and the new roles and use cases to be expected for people to take on online. Rex predicts that the metaverse will help democratize access to goods and experiences in a way that the offline no longer can and enable people with more agency and autonomy to pursue their true interests.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Rex is a Principal at Index Ventures, a global venture capital firm, where he invests in consumer internet and consumer software businesses. He’s particularly interested in how people and tech intersect, including online communication, creators, and digital economies. He shares his thoughts on his blog, Digital Native. Before Index, Rex worked on go-to-market at Airtable, impact investing at TPG’s Rise Fund, and was a Knight-Hennessey Scholar at Stanford.
TIMESTAMPS
[1:30] Online identity for Millennials vs GenZ
[6:20] Experimenting with new identities through synthetic media
[9:10] Reasons for wanting to be fully anonymous online
[11:20] Reality privilege and proteus effect
[14:40] Transhumanism
[20:30] Decade of status to decade of community
[21:20] New roles and responsibilities in the metaverse
[31:35] Challenges to watch out for as we embark on creating the metaverse
1 Listener
Say hello to the Metaverse!
Hello Metaverse
08/25/21 • 1 min
Our lives are becoming more and more digitally native. As we have fewer physical barriers to socialize, work, learn, entertain, express ourselves and create, growing aspects of our lives will become untethered from the physical world.
This reality might excite you or it may induce fear and anxiety. Either way, I believe we shouldn’t just wait and watch for this mysterious future to unfold. Rather, we should seek to explore how to positively define and shape the future we want to create on the internet, together.
Each week, episodes will help demystify what the Metaverse is or could be and explore its implications on our culture and society.
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John Linden: Making NFT Games Mainstream
Hello Metaverse
11/29/21 • 43 min
NFT games is the new topic that’s been gaining major momentum in the metaverse/web 3 conversation. The fundamentals of NFT games is that the ownership model of game assets are user owned and transactions are encoded on the blockchain. This creates a utility value for NFTs where it can actually live in an environment where it brings tangible value to people, rather than just being say a jpeg piece of digital art that’s hard to show off.
The magic of NFT games shows through the economic opportunities that it creates for people. A simple example is Axie Infinity which is the most popular NFT game right now. In the game, people can buy these axies, which are these adorable pet creatures that you can train to get better and better at battles. As your axie wins more battles, it appreciates in monetary value. Based on the work you do ‘training’ axies, you can make money off of your hard earned work (through the appreciation of that asset). In fact, a huge fraction of the population in the Philippines have started to rely on playing axie infinity as their main source of income.
While the Axie example is straightforward, as you can imagine, for more sophisticated games and experiences, the infrastructure to power these transactions gets more complex. In this episode, we will explore the building blocks to help foster the NFT game ecosystem for developers, players, brands, influencers, etc.
ABOUT THE GUEST
John Linden is the CEO of Mythical, a next-generation game technology studio creating universal economies driven by player ownership of NFTs with utility. Prior to Mythical, John was the President of Seismic Games (acquired by Niantic Labs), developer of Marvel Strike Force and Magic the Gathering: Valor’s Reach. Prior to Seismic Games, he was a Studio Head at Activision Blizzard on the Call of Duty and Skylanders franchises.
Before entering the games industry, John was the Co-Founder / CTO at Adknowledge and at OpenX and built his own startups, Planet Alumni (acquired by Reunion.com) and Litmus Media (acquired by Think Partnership)
SHOW NOTES
[5:50] What are NFT games and how do they make games better for people?
[13:10] Understanding collectables culture
[16:10] Economic engine behind NFT games
[18:00] How to have zero gas fees
[23:15] Developer interest in building game economies on the blockchain
[25:50] Focusing on assets over tokens
[29:10] How can NFT games live on the Apple Store?
[31:10] New roles and jobs that NFT games can create
[36:55] Why are NFT games becoming mainstream now?
Philip Rosedale: How Cultures and Societies Emerge Online
Hello Metaverse
09/12/21 • 44 min
While most of us are active participants of social networks where we share ample detail about our personal lives, much fewer of us lead active lives in persistent virtual worlds where that life is completely deviated from the one in the real world.
Second Life, created by Philip Rosedale, was an online virtual world platform that took the world by storm in the 2000s. Astoundingly enough, the platform still maintains about one million regular users who, for a lack of a better way to put it, live a second life there. Different from other massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), Second Life never set out to be a game, but rather an organic world where any set of possibilities can happen. As a result, true life, culture and societies started to form.
In this episode, I explore with Philip what were the elements and factors that enabled such a unique occurrence to happen. Moreover, why other major social consumer products that also birthed from that era, the likes of Myspace, FB, Instagram, never took the trajectory that Second Life did.
We discover the importance of enabling people with capabilities that make them feel truly human. Things like photorealistic avatars, having last names, and the ability to build beautiful and useful everyday objects. We learn that culture emerges once there’s curiosity between people and what each other are doing. Philip cites that when people started to build architectural structures like homes in Second Life, they grew invested in their lives in the virtual world and the idea of having neighbors and a community. Finally, contrary to popular belief, it’s quite difficult to maintain multiple lives in the online world, and that many of those who became dedicated to their lives on Second Life felt it hard to balance with their real lives.
Finally, Philip provides an overview of his thoughts on the various mediums and technologies that are powering virtual experiences. A shrewd insight on why VR adoption has not taken off is that it’s impossible to wear it for long enough to truly establish a connection with someone new. He’s excited about spatial audio as a communication medium that promotes more empathy, and he believes AI will play a crucial role in world development in the metaverse, although they won’t and should not replace the role of humans.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Philip Rosedale is the founder of Linden Labs which created Second Life. He is currently the co-founder of High Fidelity, which is focused on designing rich 3D audio spaces that mimic real life experiences, but more broadly aims to build technology that helps people be together online in the most natural way possible. He is a serial entrepreneur, having previously built and sold FreeVue and was a Time 100 recipient. He holds a physics degree from University of California, San Diego.
07/27/22 • 43 min
The number of successful consumer applications in the web 3 space is still few and far between. Against all odds, Audius, an open source and decentralized music discovery and community platform was somehow able to strike a chord and gain mainstream adoption.
They have racked up 7M monthly listeners and 50,000 artists, including heavy hitters like deadmau5, Nas, Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki and many more. So what exactly is Audius and how were they able to gain so much traction?
Initially, it looks just like any other web 2 music discovery and streaming product, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. All data on Audius is open source, which means as a developer you can take the music library and build your own unique music application.
Beyond that, listener data is open as well, which means that artists can have unfettered access to their fan base and use it like a CRM. They can create fan clubs, share exclusive streams, but more critically, if a platform like Spotify or Soundcloud goes down or changes their algorithms, artists will still be able to have a direct channel to their listeners.
Finally, the governance structure of the Audius community is unique and Robust. Audius the startup is just one small piece of the entire ecosystem. There is also an Audius token, which is managed by the Audius Foundation, and stimulates the economic activities and incentives of the ecosystem. Finally, contribution and decision making is all done by the community in a decentralized manner.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Roneil Rumburg is co-founder and CEO of Audius, a digital streaming service that connects fans directly with artists and exclusive new music. Audius is fully decentralized, owned and run by a vibrant, open-source community of artists, fans, and developers all around the world. Founded in early 2018, Audius serves millions of users every month, making it one of the largest crypto applications ever built.
Prior to Audius, Roneil most recently co-founded Kleiner Perkins' early-stage seed fund, KPCB Edge. At KP, he was responsible for seed investments into Blockchain and AI companies, including Lightning Labs. Roneil attended Stanford University and previously co-founded a Bitcoin peer to peer payment company called Backslash.
SHOW NOTES
[2:45] Audius’ role in disrupting the music industry
[6:45] Components of Audius platform (listeners, artists, network contributor)
[10:35] What does it mean to be the CRM for artists’ fanbase
[15:00] How artists use Audius vs. other platforms
[19:55] Enabling 3P developers to build new listening clients
[23:05] Key drivers of growth
[26:15] Distributed vs. centralized listening experience
[30:25] Governance structure of Audius network
[33:45] Role of CEO for a decentralized network
[37:45] What it means run a ‘startup’ that has no concept of existing or having an IPO
Alex Zhang: Mayor of FWB
Hello Metaverse
08/28/22 • 40 min
If you’ve been plugging into the world of DAOs lately, you’ve certainly heard of FWB (Friends with Benefits DAO). In many ways, FWB is the cool kid on the block, the connector that taps into all the right scenes. It’s brought creatives, artists, technologists, builders, and anyone who’s in the intersection of culture and web3 together. What differentiates FWB from any other social clubs or scenes, is that like any other DAO, its members have a shared bank account, powered by the blockchain. It makes decisions on how they want to operate, what initiatives they want to pursue, and how they want to spend their money collectively as a community.
Alex Zhang, who has probably the coolest job title I know, is the Mayor of FWB. With extensive experience as a community builder, particularly for global communities with large budgets and corporate structures, he’s eager to disrupt that existing model and define what a more organic member driven governance structure looks like. He takes inspiration from fields like urban planning, architecture and organizational design to inform what a more robust, organized, and well-run DAO could look like.
In the episode, we talk about the genesis story of FWB, how it became such a successful social club. We also explore future possibilities for DAOs, including how it can expand more into facilitating irl (in real life) connections, building vertically integrated tools, and growing to become more like cities rather than intimidating Discord channels.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Alex Zhang is the mayor of FWB DAO, a worldwide group of cultural creators, thinkers, and builders who convene digitally and IRL to collaboratively shape Web3’s future. Previously, he was the president of Summit, an ecosystem that connects and nourishes global creatives, entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. He aspires to be the Jane Jacobs of DAOs.
SHOW NOTES
[2:00] What is FWB and its genesis story?
[8:45] What experiences and skills help shape you for this role?
[16:00] Urban planning principles and how it applies to DAOs
[20:30] If DAOs become governed like cities, where does decentralization come into play?
[25:40] How important is the physical/irl presence of DAOs?
[31:30] What social tools are FWB building? Could they ever replace existing social media platforms?
[35:20] How to attract people to a social club? What does it mean to sit in the intersection of culture x tech x people?
[38:30] Highlights of FWB thus far
Jacob Navok: Computing and Network Needs of the Metaverse
Hello Metaverse
11/04/21 • 42 min
Jacob Navok is the co-founder and CEO of Genvid, which is the leader in interactive streaming technology. They are working on one of the most interesting problems in the pursuit of the metaverse vision which is, how do you get millions of people to concurrently be participating and interacting in one live experience with no latency (delay or lag)? This is as opposed to what’s happening right now with server sizes of around 50 people in say Fortnite concerts.
Jacob was the co-author of the networking and compute articles in Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer series. There he outlined the technical and infrastructural limitations and challenges we have today to make the metaverse a reality.
Beyond the buzz around what kinds of new use cases and consumer experiences the Metaverse will enable, it’s important to think about the foundations. What is the infrastructure and computing power we will need to actually power this future? This is not something that will be solved by any company alone, but a collective effort of all the builders of the internet.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Prior to founding Genvid, Jacob led worldwide business development and strategy at Square Enix Holdings, reporting to the CEO. He also built their cloud gaming division, Shinra Technologies, where he met many of his Genvid colleagues.
SHOW NOTES
[5:20] Definition of the Metaverse
[7:20] Why VR is not representative of the Metaverse
[13:05] Concurrency and the challenges of hosting live, synchronous events with millions of people
[17:35] Twitch as the first example of massive multiplayer concurrent gaming
[19:40] Rival Peak, Genvid’s Live Interactive Multiplayer Reality Show with AI contestants
[22:50] Hacks for the concurrency problem
[25:30] Why decentralized systems don’t work well for live 3D experiences
[27:15] Future use cases of live synchronous events
[30:30] Social platforms like FB, Twitch, Discord as identity systems of the Metaverse
[37:15] Why FB keeps investing in AR/VR
[39:10] How will life in the Metaverse be different from the real world?
10/21/21 • 42 min
The creator economy, crypto, and the metaverse have been probably the buzziest concepts of this year (or in tech at least), and Kyla Scanlon straddles all three of these worlds on a visceral level. She is a content creator who focuses on financial education, which entails explaining to people hard to grasp concepts like crypto and other vehicles for decentralization. And by being a creator, she naturally occupies a majority of her life in the online world, aka, the Metaverse. As a GenZ (or as she’d like to say, a Cusper, which are are GenZ folks on the cusp of being a Millennial) and an online creator, she has forged a livelihood online through her work, and as a result, has made many rich relationships with people online, even more so than offline. In her own words, she is a prototype for the concepts that she creates content around.
This is what made my conversation with her so interesting and meta. Foremost as an educator, Kyla explains and unbundles difficult web3 concepts such DAOs, NFTs, Social Tokens and Defi. From her creator perspective, she explores how these emergent concepts directly impact her life and her work. Finally, as a GenZ, she muses about why these concepts (especially this desire for decentralization) are emerging for her generation and what it might be a cultural reaction to. We explore some real issues for GenZ such as the growing sense of loneliness, the dark and exhausting elements of creator culture, and the repercussions of growing up with information overlap and no room for processing and introspection.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Kyla Scanlon is a popular financial content creator and educator. She started options trading in high school, previously worked at Capital Group and was a participant in the TAP program. She is now building a financial education company to onboard people to the world of investing. You can subscribe to her financial content on substack, Youtube, TikTok or wherever you like to consume your content.
SHOW NOTES
[3:55] The power and influence of creators
[8:30] DAOs as a community organizing vehicle
[13:50] NFTs, digital ownership, and how they can serve creators
[20:40] Social Tokens and the idea of monetizing every aspect of yourself as a creator
[23:55] The loneliness of being a creator
[25:40] Living life more online than offline
[27:40] The Metaverse as a solution to information overload
[30:20] Loneliness
[32:35] How to create the right education framework for younger generations
[34:35] Defi and the future of finance
[36:10] Why decentralization matters for GenZ
[38:00] The Debt Ceiling, economic collapse, the Fall of Rome
Kenshi Arasaki: Psychology of Games and NFTs
Hello Metaverse
10/07/21 • 40 min
The best games are often built by those who have developed a mastery over human psychology and motivation and Kenshi Arasaki one of them. He is the creator of multiple hugely popular mobile, free-to-play games, and he shares his principles and insights on what makes games enticing to players and sustains traction.
We deep dive on why a master of psychology and human incentives is the recipe for creating good games. We’ll cover how to create an environment for interesting emergent social behaviors, capturing the full spectrum of human emotion as a means to create true community bonds, and what it means to create a perfectly competitive environment where people are motivated to progress.
After all his experiences in gaming, Kenshi is most bullish on the opportunities NFTs are able to unlock for the industry. We explore the economic implications of the evolving vertical of play-to-earn games and how it can make spending time in virtual worlds a worthy and legitimate investment of time. We’ll talk through some of the challenges that NFTs are facing as well as what it means for gaming and virtual experience beyond, to have a real mechanism to enforce digital rights.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Kenshi Arasaki is the CEO and Co-founder of A Thinking Ape Entertainment, a gaming company that has produced some of the top free-to-play mobile games It was recently acquired by the Embracer Group. He is an angel investor and jpeg/nft enthusiast, and is the primary author behind US patent 8918725 for systems and methods to support real-time chat on mobile devices.
SHOW NOTES
[4:30] How to create initial traction for games and effective mechanisms
[11:00] Importance of helping people express their full emotional spectrum in virtual experiences
[17:00] Maintaining a balanced virtual economy
[21:10] Tapping into fundamental human motivations
[27:20] Play-to-earn games
[29:50] NFTs, digital ownership, and interoperability
[33:20] Creating native containers for NFTs
[37:40] What NFT would Kenshi want to build
Jon Lai: Why Gaming is Becoming Mainstream
Hello Metaverse
09/21/21 • 44 min
Games are now becoming the most popular place for kids and young adults to hang out today. This phenomenon became very evident during this pandemic, where time spent on popular games like Fortnite, League of Legends, Animal Crossing and Roblox exceeded that of other popular apps like Youtube and Instagram. Moreover, gaming platforms like Twitch and Discord have begun to replace traditional social or communication platforms as the primary way in which people socialize.
What’s more astounding is that people are starting to use gaming platforms for much more than gaming. High production value digital concerts like the Travis Scott or Lil Nas X concerts took place inside of Fortnite and Roblox. People started to have business meetings and school graduations in Animal Crossing. And watching streamers and influencers play Among Us on Twitch became this cultural phenomenon that mimicked a purely digital, real-time, reality show.
In this episode, I explore with Jon Lai, who has been an instrumental figure in bridging the gap between the gaming and consumer tech industries, the factors that are making gaming become mainstream and his predicted trends of the trajectory of the industry.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Jonathan Lai is a partner on the consuming investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, focusing on games, next gen social, and the creator economy. Jon serves on the board of Singularity 6, StarStock, Elodie, and Mountaintop. Before a16z, Jon led the North America business development & investments team at Tencent. Prior, Jon was a product manager at Riot Games, the developers of League of Legends, before the company was acquired by Tencent. Jon is a lifelong gamer and can often be found roaming the fields of justice after hours.
SHOW NOTES
[6:20] Historical context of gaming, what does a gamer looked like before and now
[9:00] Why stereotypes around gaming changed
[10:30] Core elements of game psychology and gameplay
[16:40] Rise of streaming and why it’s so appealing
[21:45] Capturing and sharing content gaming and virtual experiences
[27:30] User generated content’s role in building the metaverse
[29:40] Blockchain and NFT games, Play-to-Earn model
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FAQ
How many episodes does Hello Metaverse have?
Hello Metaverse currently has 18 episodes available.
What topics does Hello Metaverse cover?
The podcast is about Social, Metaverse, Nft, Society & Culture, Crypto, Gaming, Reality, Podcasts and Technology.
What is the most popular episode on Hello Metaverse?
The episode title 'Say hello to the Metaverse!' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Hello Metaverse?
The average episode length on Hello Metaverse is 42 minutes.
How often are episodes of Hello Metaverse released?
Episodes of Hello Metaverse are typically released every 18 days.
When was the first episode of Hello Metaverse?
The first episode of Hello Metaverse was released on Aug 25, 2021.
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