Jan 27Generative AI tools are the Clipart of the 2020s, and that’s a good thingHere is an actual statement from 1998: “Clipart collections will be the end of designers.” To understand that statement, you need to remember (or imagine, depending on your age) a world where no internet image search existed. Stock photos came as print catalogs that you would order disks from, and…AI3 min readAI3 min read
Jan 20The iPhone ruined my perception of innovation cyclesIt’s good practice to review your predictions and see which you got right and where you went wrong. Here is a retrospective of one of my predictions that I got wrong, plus some learnings. Soon after the Oculus DK1 was released in 2013, I made the prediction that within the…5 min read5 min read
Jan 13Three things to avoid when predicting technology futuresIt’s the start of a new year, which means: Prediction time for a lot of people and organizations. I have read many, many technology predictions over the last couple of weeks: Some good ones, but unfortunately also many (very) bad ones. …Future4 min readFuture4 min read
Dec 8, 2022Three predictions on the Metaverse in 2023 you haven’t read yetCurrently everybody is doing their 2023 predictions. As somebody in the strategy field I love reading (and writing) these, but after a while they become repetitive. …Metaverse10 min readMetaverse10 min read
Nov 18, 2022Web3 and the Metaverse don’t need BlockchainsThis article is a kind-of, sort-of follow-up to “Why I don’t believe in the Web3 narrative” and “Why I don’t believe in the Blockchain technology narrative.” It’s more of a provocation. If you want the rational articles, read the above links. Because I work on and around the Metaverse, people…Metaverse7 min readMetaverse7 min read
Nov 15, 2022The Web3 Business Use Case Reference ListThis list of Web3 use cases is periodically reviewed and updated. If you have feedback or input, please either write a comment or send a message to @dirksonguer. Thank you! Last update: Dec 5, 2022. Index & direct links [Metaverse, Interoperability, Gaming] Web3 is required to provide interoperability for the Metaverse so that users…Web 319 min readWeb 319 min read
Nov 3, 2022Why even Big Tech’s Blockchain narrative doesn’t make any senseThis is a kind-of, sort-of follow-up to “Why I don’t believe in the Web3 narrative” and “Why I don’t believe in the Blockchain technology narrative.” I wrote this thing about how Blockchains are not a scale technology and that their narrative is mostly driven by criminals and investors. Now Meta…Meta4 min readMeta4 min read
Published in Fieldnotes from the Metaverse·Oct 26, 2022Fieldnotes from the Metaverse — A Declaration of the Rights of PlayersIn January 2000, Raph Koster pondered the question: “Do players of virtual worlds have rights?”, leading to his seminal essay: “A Declaration of the Rights of Players.” Setting the scene Raph Koster was the lead designer for Ultima Online: The Second Age until 2000, when he joined Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) in Austin…Metaverse7 min readMetaverse7 min read
Aug 19, 2022Why I don’t believe in the Blockchain technology narrativeThis is a kind-of, sort-of follow-up to “Why I don’t believe in the Web3 narrative” Because I work on and around the Metaverse, people often ask me about blockchains and are quite surprised when I dismiss them as extremely limited technology, surrounded by false narratives. Why is Blockchain? To explain my opinion, I…Blockchain9 min readBlockchain9 min read
Published in Fieldnotes from the Metaverse·Aug 16, 2022Fieldnotes from the Metaverse — MetaplaceIn 2006, several virtual world veterans created Metaplace as a platform to democratize the development of virtual worlds in the spirit of the open web. Setting the scene Web2.0 was a perceptional shift in how the web operated. Instead of a publisher-reader relationship, websites turned into platforms where everybody could be a publisher. …Metaverse10 min readMetaverse10 min read