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In 2006, some of the globe’s top minds in technology met in California to talk about a new thing called “the metaverse”. People talked about virtual worlds and how to make them a reality, and during the conference, a roadmap was created. Now in 2022, the Metaverse is all the rage. Following Meta’s vast investments into their conception of the metaverse, and various other companies wanting to weigh in as well, it looks like the ideas born in that 2006 conference could become a reality. But how right were the predictions of the mid 2000s? And what did the early proponents of the metaverse create back then?
In this episode of Playing With Reality, we take a look at the past and present of the metaverse, to get a broad view of where it is going in the future.
Today’s guest, Philip Rosedale is a serial entrepreneur who founded Linden Lab in 1999, a company which would soon create Second Life, an avatar based, online multimedia platform. After leaving Linden Lab in 2010, Philip Started High Fidelity, a company which is developing a next-generation virtual reality platform with a current focus on spatial sound. In 2007, Philip was included in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in The World, and has won various other awards for his work in inventing groundbreaking technology.
Jochen Hummel is an entrepreneur, director and mentor with a background in coding. In 2006, he founded Metaversum, a company who created Twinity, an early virtual online world where avatars and their spaces were based on real people and real cities, which he led until 2010. Since then, he has worked in various other realms in the tech space, and is now the CEO of Coreon & ESTeam – a Multilingual AI and LangOps platform.
