Tag: metaverse

It’s Sad That My Dream Of A Usenet-Inspired ‘Twitter Killer’ Will Never Happen

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the end, I think all my dreams of someone cherry picking the best bits of the Usenet UX to design a “Twitter Killer” said more about my dissipated youth than anything else. No one was ever going to listen to me and the only way it was ever going to become reality was if I learned to code and showed people my vision in a practical manner.

As it is, lulz.

So, in a sense, it was all a huge waste of time. And, yet, I also think the same foolish and obsessive element of my personality that led me to rant about my dream of bringing back Usenet in some form has helped me when it comes to working on a novel.

There is that, I guess.

Anyway, I only even mention it again because someone from California did a Google search that led them to some of my writings about the Usenet UX. I have no idea who they were or their motives, but it reminded me of what we lost in social media UX over the last 30 years.

The funny thing about it all is, of course, that we’re zooming towards a whole different era in technology based around the metaverse and AI (AGI?) So, yeah. I need to stop dwelling on Usenet and throw myself into working on my first novel before even novel writing has been co-oped by the ravious chatbot revolution.

Undead Gawker & The Dog That Hasn’t Barked



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What a curious state of affairs. Not only is rock dead, but it seems as though snark is, too. I occasionally look at Undead Gawker and am taken aback. That’s it? Undead Gawker is extremely boring. It doesn’t have any of the spunk (or punk) of the living Gawker.

Oh well.

It makes me wonder if This Is It. No matter how many vibe shifts we may have, because of modern sensibilities — and technology — we’re just never going to have what I thought we would always have — a snarky publication of some sort that comments on the day’s events.

It could be that if it happens, it will happen in the Metaverse. Now isn’t that going to be something. I have a feeling us Poors don’t appreciate how much Silicon Valley is sitting on its hands when it comes to investments as it waits for the kinks to get out of the Metaverse.

So, here we are.

No new Late Night With David Letterman. No new Spy magazine. And no new Gawker. We just have to wait until, maybe, until we’re all being snarking virtually with no legs.

It’s all very disheartening. Even more so when I know that I have the vision to pull off a new, real reboot of Gawker, but for, well, waves hand. Everything else in my life besides vision.

Anyway. I have five novels to develop and write.

What The Success Of The Internet Can Tell Us About The Possible Future of The Metaverse


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When I was in college at JMU, I was obsessed with the Internet revolution that was going on around me, to the point that I studied every little morsal of news about it thinking I might see something unexpected about to take off. If I had had any ability to learn software, there’s a chance I could have become some sort of dotcom billionaire before the whole thing was over.

The kids of Meta.

But, sadly, just like how I’m not fond of little kids who aren’t mine and they aren’t all that fond of me, either, I’m a writer of words, not code. This, however, did not stop me from ending up my college newspaper’s first online editor.

The interesting thing, and the thing we can learn the most from, is how it was not inevitable that cyberspace’s endgame would be the public Internet and, not, say, AOL, CompuServ, Prodigy or even AT&T / Ziff Davis’ Interchange. There definitely was a huge amount of momentum that was in the public Internet’s favor in the mid to late 1990s, but nothing is inevtiable.

It could be suggested that because the rise of the Internet was a unique thing event unto itself that it was given a breaks that it otherwise would never have gotten. If the powers that be — especially in the media — had truly understood how “disruptive” the Internet would ultimately have become, they likely would have tried to throttle it while they still had the opportunity.

So, this brings us to the Metaverse.

Meta is playing the part of 1990s Microsoft in this example of history repeating itself. This go round, because of what happened with the Internet, the Powers That Be know the potential power of this very disruptive concept and, as such, want to make it closed and proprietary so they can control it.

If you wanted to make yourself feel better, you would believe that despite this willful sabotage, all we might need some scrappy startup to use existing open standards for Web 3.0 (if they exist) in such a way that what happened to the Web when Netscape was released will happen to the Metaverse.

Or not.

It could be that Facebook, er Meta, will always control the Metaverse and that will be that. It will be interesting to see how things play out going forward.

Jesus Christ, Is Meta Thirsty About Being Considered Hip


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of my fucking severely broken right ankle being in the process of healing, I’m stuck on the couch writing, developing, reading — and watching TV.

While I love the idea that, essentially every waking hour is now going to be focused on working on one of my four thrillers, or a scifi pandemic novel or a scifi screenplay or a short story, I fucking hate watching TV.

I keep seeing Meta’s fucking thirsty ad begging for hip POC to give them street cred. This, of course, is never going to happen. That ship has sailed. It’s all about Tik-Tok now. And should the “metaverse” take off, it’s more likely to be some small startup with really cool features that blows up and gets the street cred that Meta is begging for.

Ok, guys, we get it.

The reason why the Meta ad is so thirsty is this: they have a group of young men and women POC who are seduced by the amazing potential of the Meta platform. We see their faces in EXTREME CLOSE UP, giving us the sense that they’re about to cum because of how great and wonderful Facebook — I mean Meta — is.

It’s so over the top and transparent that, ugh, it’s just very dumb and a waste of time. Meta, however, does have a lot of money. So I guess it’s at least possible that through sheer force of will provided by a few billion dollars of marketing over a few years that they might get their wish.