I interviewed XR Evangelists JoyReign Creator of Joy In The Morning Show and CEO of Onyx Leaf Media as well as JDun of the Getting Things Dun YouTube channel, Get’Em To The Metaverse Podcast, & Chief Metaverse Officer of Onyx Leaf Media, at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
Here’s the Question HDMI video that JDun mentioned in the podcast:
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Music: Fatality
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my coverage of MetaConnect 2024, today's episode is with Jay Dunn and Joy Rain, who have the Joy in the Morning show, the Getting Things Done YouTube channel, and the Get Him Into the Metaverse podcast. So they're both XR evangelists who also spent a lot of time in Meta Horizon Worlds within that community, but also starting to actually build out different worlds through their Onyx Leaf media. And so I always love to catch up with Jadon and JoyRan just to hear a little bit more of the updates that are happening within the context of Meta Horizon Worlds, the new avatars that just launched on October 1st, and also some of their perspective for all the different shifts that are happening within the context of meta essentially rebranding into the meta horizon so it's meta horizon store it's the meta horizon operating system and so it's essentially like all the different software layers are meta horizon now and then all the hardware layers are the quest it could be a little bit confusing just as you like buy the quest you have to now go into the meta horizon application in order to set it up and also You kind of have this situation where Meta Horizon Worlds is Meta's first party application, but all these third party developers are in some ways getting a little bit drowned out from Meta's own first party applications, but also like just being a little bit more hidden or buried within the context of, you know, where you even go to buy some of these different applications on the context of these mobile apps. So both Jadon and JoyRain were actually very optimistic for seeing how Horizon Worlds was not only being promoted by Meta in this way, but also just trying to explain a little bit more what Meta's vision might be for trying to have this like underlying social layer and more tight integrations between some of these different worlds within the context of Meta Horizon and being able to go off into some of these applications. So we'll covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Joy Rain and Jay Dunn have been on Thursday, September 26th, 2024 at MetaConnect in Menlo Park, California. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:21.075] JoyReign: Hi, my name is Joy Rain. I am an XR evangelist. I am a creator of Joy in the Morning. And also I'm the CEO of Onyx Leaf Media with my husband, Jay Dunn.
[00:02:35.355] JDun: And I am Jeremy Duncan, aka Jay Dunn. of Getting Things Done YouTube channel with my lovely wife, the Give Them to the Metaverse podcast, co-hosted by my lovely wife, as well as CMO, Chief Metaverse Officer on Honest Leaf Media, where we help non-profits, faith-based entities and businesses get into the metaverse.
[00:02:54.072] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:02:58.965] JoyReign: Yeah, so my journey, I first got exposed to the Metaverse from Jay Dunn here. It was during the pandemic, and so he purchased it first, and he came over to my house. And once I danced with the robot in first steps, I fell in love with VR. And I knew that this was going to be a platform that was going to impact us on all realms. And so I knew that I wanted to be invested in it.
[00:03:25.580] Kent Bye: And just a little bit more about your background as well, all the different things you're pulling together from your journey in this space as well.
[00:03:31.862] JoyReign: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a singer. I sing gospel music. And also, too, I have a finance and economics background. And so when I tell people that I'm in VR, they're like, how in the world does economics find finance finds XR? And it has its perks. And other background is just community building within the church and whatnot. And being able to put all those things together and bring it to the XR space has been incredible.
[00:04:06.483] JDun: All right. And I've been an all out nerd since the age of three. I've been into technology, of course, all the background that we have from being a creative pastor role at our church, doing content for church. Myriad of different projects, a little bit of film editing, movie editing, all kind of background. But basically, I've been in technology all my life, so that's kind of what led me down the path to VR. And then the point, I guess, of connecting all the dots to why we're so throttled into the metaverse is because of community. You know, like I said, in a church, it's a big community piece. And so when we came into the metaverse, we noticed that more people needed like some connection pieces. And so we just felt like as leaders in community, we wanted to be a part of that.
[00:04:50.990] Kent Bye: Great. And so we had a chance to catch up a little bit last year, get a little bit more of your story and all the stuff you're working on, both the content creation. But there was other things that you were just starting to get into, which was starting to actually produce different Horizon World experiences. And so maybe you could take a step back and tell me about your first entry points into Meta Horizon Worlds. And what was it about the Meta Horizons that were really drawing you to that platform?
[00:05:13.837] JoyReign: Yeah, absolutely. It was the people. It was everyone that was there getting together for a common goal as far as loving this platform and wanting to experience different things from all over the world. And so my take on it was that they were hurting people from everywhere. And people wanted to know that they're not the only ones going through this. And so that's why I formed Joy in the Morning to help people become more joyful, optimistic, and yearning for positivity and let them know that you're not alone, that you can talk with other people in the community and let them know, hey, you're not going through this alone. We can talk this out. We can make it through to get on the other side. So it's definitely the community that has kept us here and made us want to be a part of Horizon.
[00:06:04.204] JDun: Absolutely. And of course, another part of that, just not community, but connection. So because we were at the time getting the Quest 2s, getting into the Horizon Worlds was like, man, I really want to talk with more people. We were in the house a lot more. And so we started going to these little talk shows in there. Shout out to Things Live. And we started seeing other people and other communities sprout up. And like, wait a minute, we can have our own community in here as well. So that was one big portion of why we got into Horizon Worlds. tell you about the old worlds we had we will not talk about those horrible worlds we were building in the beginning because they will never see the light of day but one world we did eventually launch was the done verse getting to the done verse where we was actually trying to celebrate our youtube channel crossing over its first thousand subscribers we're definitely past that now but that was the idea for it and it's actually standing the test of time and so many people from the channel and subscribers come in just to say wow i'm in the done verse so there's a big part of it
[00:07:02.886] Kent Bye: Nice, and so I know that you also were starting to make different experiences, and so maybe you could talk about this other part of what you're doing within the context of XR, of actually helping brands and faith-based organizations actually get in to build different experiences or worlds within the context of Horizon Worlds.
[00:07:18.740] JoyReign: Yeah, we were fortunate enough to partner with FAMU, Florida Agricultural Mechanical University. It's an HBCU in Florida, and they were looking for an unconventional way to get their students involved and maybe recruit other students from all over the world that may not have the means to travel to Florida, but they wanted to see what the university was about, the culture, and also learn more things about the university. So we partnered, Onyx Leaf Media partnered with FAMU to actually bring their campus into Horizon Worlds. And so that experience, you'll be able to learn about the culture. You'll be able to learn all of the facts about this university. And they use it as a recruitment tool as well for people who may never have thought about attending an HBCU, but you learn all this information. So it's a great tool for recruitment.
[00:08:15.117] JDun: Yeah, and we also partnered with Durga Marshall College Fund and the Bureau of Creative Intelligence to bring in Campus One, which is a special portion for this thing called The Pitch that happens every year with Durga Marshall College Fund brings out HBCU students from across the globe. 42 HBCUs from all over the United States. Yeah, and so they're able to come into this space and actually, once again, do some forms of recruitment, some forms of exploration, some forms of explaining to them about the digital divide and understand, hey, there's more opportunities for more people that look like us out here in this space in technology. And so we do that every year and get a chance to do that. And we build a world in Horizon World called Campus One to kind of have a migration or a place that they can come in when they first get into the headsets.
[00:09:03.174] Kent Bye: Yeah, during the keynote this year, there was a number of different Horizon World announcements that were happening. And there was always a group of people that were behind me that were all hollering and just really enthusiastic. So maybe you could talk about the different types of excitement of people that were really excited about what they were talking about this year about Horizon Worlds at the MetaConnect keynote.
[00:09:21.906] JDun: One of the big reasons why it was so much excitement is because we know that Horizon Worlds is now no longer the ugly stepchild in the room anymore for meta. There was a time where it was like the joke. It was not from meta themselves, but just for the greater population of the metaverse and XR community saying, oh, I don't really get this whole thing that you guys are investing in. It's called Meta Horizon OS. It's Meta Horizon Worlds. It's the Meta Horizon app. You know, we're here. So we're very proud of that branding and why it matters. But the features that's about to come out for Horizon Worlds is by far, it's going to change the whole paradigm of what a metaverse world is. You heard a lot on the keynote about mobile first, having those experiences where people can build worlds that are going to be on mobile. where you can have worlds that are cross-platform. They call it cross-screens, where one person could be doing a specific task in VR, when another person, asymmetrical gaming, could be doing something inside of mobile. And we're going to have a lot more of that. And then, of course, with these new avatars, which that by itself is just so exciting. So I'll let Joy talk a little bit more about all of that.
[00:10:27.111] JoyReign: Yeah and also to the other part of the excitement is that a lot of these people have been people that are here at the very beginning of Horizon and so they've been through every high and low and to now hear all the exciting things that are coming now is like a sigh of relief and it's a sound of you know it's time that we can rejoice that our work wasn't in vain. you know, that we're gonna get the fruits of our labor and we're super excited to see all the new things that's coming.
[00:10:58.821] Kent Bye: Yeah, so Meta changed the name of like, it was originally the Quest app and then like the Meta Quest store and now it's the Meta Horizon app, which is sort of like what you need to use to hook up your headset, but it's also like when you search in the store for different experiences, it shows both. apps that are third-party developers, but also Horizon World Worlds. And so coming from the XR industry and listening to third-party developers that there's some concern that these third-party apps are getting drowned out, or at least there's less emphasis of that. Or if everything's being branded as Meta's first-party app, it's a little confusing. What used to be the Quest Store is now MetaHorizon, which is the name of their first-party app. And then there's Horizon OS, which is like the operating system. It feels like Meta's strategy to really emphasize MetaHorizon, which is great for the folks within the Horizon community, it seems on the one hand to be bringing a lot more attention to what's happening in Horizon Worlds. But on the other hand, it seems like it could be making it a little bit more confusing for people to find the existing app ecosystem. But I don't know if you have any thoughts on some of that.
[00:11:55.166] JDun: So this is actually something I'm really excited to talk about. The MetaHorizon mission is to get rid of all the extra layers. We saw Mark Rapkin could get up and talk about this, where the future vision is you bring 2D apps immersive apps into your experiences everywhere you go. So I think the thing is, is separating the whole idea that, oh, well, there's worlds and then there's immersive experiences and then there's 2D apps. No, they're just all cross-pollinated together. And I think right now is one of those changes that happens where it hurts today, but it's going to be so good tomorrow. You know, so it's almost like us when they changed from Oculus to MetaQuest. It's like, man, we all love the Oculus branding, but for a more... closer-knit family of devices. It's like Horizon is no longer just a social app. It's the social layer of everything. And I really believe that that's what they're going for. And I get, because we're part of the greater XR community as well, we get it on both sides. We understand. What we think is It's not about worlds. I think we removed the worlds piece completely out of it. It's really about just having a more bigger ecosystem that now we have this open store and everybody's almost equal on it. And now a Horizon developer who spends 80 hours a year building a world is just as equal as someone building an immersive experience. And I believe we're just at the first iterations of what that store is going to look like. And over time, we're going to start seeing those things intermingle. If you've checked out the Horizon feed, you'll see creator videos in there. You'll see reels in there. You'll see worlds in there. And you'll see applications in there. And so I think it's just the beginning. And I think over time, which I'm not a spokesperson for Metal, but over time, I do personally believe that those pain points will be addressed.
[00:13:46.019] JoyReign: I absolutely agree. I was going to touch on every single point. So you did it. I'm so proud of you. But as far as that Horizon feed, that is 100% what it is. It's integrating everything into one. So yes, if you have any questions about it, check out the Horizon feed and you'll see the integration of everything.
[00:14:06.522] Kent Bye: So I saw there was one clip at some point around portals, or at least this idea that maybe you're in Horizon Worlds with other people, but then you all want to jump into another experience, but then kind of jump over, and maybe you all jump into the app if it's a free app, or if it's something you have to pay for, maybe you buy it. So is that the idea, is that you have people hanging out in Horizon Worlds, but then are then jumping into these other experiences that are more, less of the kind of app store model where you're looking through the menu, but creating out this more spatial experience that allows people to emergently form groups and go exploring and world hopping.
[00:14:38.820] JDun: Absolutely. So there's actually a test of this in Horizon Worlds where you can do this thing called app travel. This was released APIs while back, just no one ever used it, where you can kind of use travel from app to app, not just experience. Basically, experience to experience. I could be in Walkabout and then go to Forever Bold if I wanted to without having to leave my party, without having to close out one app to go in it. No one ever used it. So what Horizon did was they did a test with the Asgard's Wrath 2 world. Well, you go into the world in Horizon. It's actually a beautiful world, so you would not believe you're in Horizon Worlds when you're in there. But you go through the experience, and at the end, you actually have to fight this boss, and there's a portal. When you walk through that portal, you actually walk into Asgard's Raft 2, the game. And so I believe what's the future just off those visuals, what we've been seeing is that eventually it's going to be like, oh, let's just go to walk about Minigolf. Like how, you know, the whole vision of the metaverse. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:15:34.460] JoyReign: That's what I was just about to say. It all comes down to the original vision that Mark gave way back when of the metaverse of being able to integrate into different types of experiences while still keeping that social connection with the ones that you love or the one, you know, your friends. And so it's incredible to see that we're getting just this much closer to his initial vision of what he had for the metaverse.
[00:16:01.250] JDun: Yeah. I think about... Ready Player One, when we begin to think about the whole idea of them going from portal to portal, place to place, different IPs, things like that, I believe that's the vision. It's not even Mark's vision. I think that's just the ultimate vision of what we all want to see is that Every app, every experience is like a website, and it doesn't matter what your browser is. Maybe our browser is Horizon Worlds. This person's browser is Rec Room. That one's just VRChat or something that we have, and we're hoping there's someone in their basement right now building the next level of what we think is the metaverse. I don't believe any big company at the moment is going to be ultimately the only one in the space. I think there's going to be people who are growing up in this who's like, no, I'm going to change the whole... thought process of what a metaverse is. But that's the idea. It's a website, and everyone can just go from one to one. It doesn't matter what browser you're on.
[00:16:54.426] Kent Bye: Yeah, and notice that there's a number of different portals into other types of experiences, like the venues, where you go into different concert type of experiences. I notice a lot of the top apps are these gaming type of experiences that people are having. And then there's all these other user-generated worlds that I feel like when I was really checking into what was happening with Horizon Worlds, it was almost like there was a top most popular list, but yet it was always kind of like the most popular things were always there, but not always necessarily emphasizing what was happening with the more community-driven types of worlds that were being created. But curious to hear from your perspective, if you feel like From your own experience, the way that promoting top apps creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where a few top apps end up getting all the hits, but then a lot of the creators end up not getting as much traffic as they could have by not getting that same feature. I know it's what I've seen in the past and heard from other creators, but I'm just very curious to hear your perspective on that.
[00:17:46.874] JDun: Okay. So I do believe that over time, and we're going to keep saying this thing over time, I think the more and more we see experiences like right now, like with Horizon Worlds, you see a lot more of that in the app. And I think it's because it's like, hey, we want you to also see that some of these 3P, these 2P, these first P developers are making some really cool experiences that I think would offset and bring more community. Because we've got to remember that meta is all about social. And so when I think about the social layer, going back to Horizon, I'm thinking about as more applications get surfaced, those top five apps, we think about Gorilla Tag, we think about certain applications that come up that everyone downloads and uses. But over time, we've even seen in Horizon Worlds, yeah, Super Rumble brings them in, but then another world that someone randomly made in a night gets a whole lot more traffic because Super Rumble is there. So I think games like Batman, Batman Arkham Shadow, because I'm going to keep saying it the right way. I've been just saying Batman. Batman Arkham Shadow, Asgard's Wrath 2, they're big AAA experiences that eventually shoves a little bit more attention to the space. And once you get in and I'm done with that game, what else can I play? Oh, wait, there's Walkabout. Oh, wait, there's this game. Oh, this is this App Lab, or no longer App Lab, but just an early access title that I can get into.
[00:19:04.156] JoyReign: yeah and like you said the super rumbles those are the things that bring people in but then people really start expressing themselves and saying what do i really like what do i want to experience and when they go and find those people and they find the community of people that share similar interests they're like okay these are my people And so those people will take them into other experiences. So it's a domino effect. But I love how they use those big titles to get people in. Then people start exploring to see where I can really fit in.
[00:19:37.628] Kent Bye: What are the type of experiences that you've been really enjoying in the MetaHorizons world?
[00:19:42.930] JDun: Oh, Meta Horizon World. OK, so it's going to be a lot of the first party titles, believe it or not. But Super Rumble is by far one of our favorite experiences. Now, there's some really good stuff like Hardy World Spades. I want to always give that a shout out. Of course, Joy in the Morning. Absolutely. It's coming back for season four, which we're really excited about. We're going to have some improved graphics. It's going to look really amazing. But I'm trying to get some other experiences because we spend a lot of time now in mixed reality. So there's also Horizon mixed reality. If you guys have not experienced this, I actually believe that this might be the future of where the augment system that was coming but then left. I believe it's like them beta testing how maybe Horizon World creators could build mixed reality experiences where you basically your skybox is like transparent, it's just mixed reality. Now you can build an experience that other people can just have in their room. So there's actually an experience that's really, really cool called Horizon Mixed Reality, and we've been spending a lot of time in that. And there's a new one that just launched, an early access called Super Punch. So if you guys like Punch Out or Super Punch Out from Super Nintendo days, which we love retro games, it's an incredible game that you will be surprised it's in Horizon Worlds. It's very cool. It's very retro.
[00:20:53.977] JoyReign: Yes, and I actually love the Music Valley music series where they have different artists, all types of genres. The latest one was the Sabrina Carpenter experience, and it was phenomenal. Everyone's dancing. Every avatar is just so excited to be there, and it is really, truly an experience. So if you have not gotten a chance to go to Music Valley in Horizon Worlds, absolutely choose to go to any one of them. You'll have a great time.
[00:21:23.187] JDun: Okay. say this too i want to say there's so many creators that it'll be almost impossible we'll be sitting here talking about oh this world this world because they might listen to this and be like man you ain't shout out our world listen we love all the world there's so many worlds we can't remember we out here connect we excited but let me tell you every single person who picks up those controllers and is getting in there to build these worlds are some of the most creative and most amazing people we've ever met so just shout out to the whole horizon community for everything they've been doing and bringing this platform to the next level.
[00:21:55.618] Kent Bye: Do you have a world where you create portals to some of your recommended worlds?
[00:21:59.059] JDun: You just came up with a great idea. There are worlds, they call them like hub worlds, where it's like experiences that others have built. And then you say, oh, these are some of my favorite windows and doors to different worlds and experiences that we like. So we might need to do that in one of our worlds. We do have that in getting things done. There's like a few doors in there that we specifically like. These are some cool experiences that we're all about.
[00:22:20.723] JoyReign: Yeah, we're definitely going to have to try that out. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:22:24.606] JDun: That's like a really good idea. Like, why haven't we done a world that's specifically for that? We have doors enjoying the morning. We have doors and getting things done first.
[00:22:32.693] JoyReign: But we need to have a central location for that. And it's coming soon, people.
[00:22:37.517] JDun: We're going to call it the Kent Buy Experience. Yes, that's what we're going to do. I love it.
[00:22:44.249] Kent Bye: Well, I would prefer if you talk about your own recommended experiences for your own branding, yeah. Because it's actually your choice. Yeah, that's right. I got you. I got you.
[00:22:52.356] JDun: I love it.
[00:22:54.012] Kent Bye: I'm honored, but I think it might be a little misleading. Because yeah, I think just the spirit of the internet where there's hypertext links for people, when they want to send people off to somewhere, then they can create links off to things. So I feel like that's kind of the spirit of that open web. And yeah, in terms of the other types of experiences that you've actually been building in Horizon Worlds, are there any other projects that you've personally been working on and building and helping to put out there?
[00:23:21.075] JoyReign: We have been, but some of them we can't talk about, unfortunately, right now.
[00:23:27.539] JDun: One we can 100% say is Join the Morning Season 4 is going to be incredible. We've been spending a lot of time learning some new tools, learning some new things, and it's going to be a lot of media around it since we are content creators. We're going to show the entire journey. It's been almost a year journey to take this thing to a whole other level. So we may have to have Kent to come on and be a guest on Join the Morning. on a new show and a new set. Yeah, so it's going to be really great.
[00:23:54.236] Kent Bye: Happy to join in and come participate.
[00:23:57.758] JDun: To the Ken Baugh experience. We got it. This is perfect.
[00:24:04.255] Kent Bye: So one of the big announcements was the avatars. And they were showing some really fancy generative AI features where you could basically give a text prompt and basically change your look and feel of your avatar, which seemed really sci-fi, futuristic. But I'd love to hear if you've seen some of the early avatars, if there have been beta tests. Or why are you so excited about the new avatars?
[00:24:25.020] JoyReign: Yeah, so the new avatars, so many more customizations that are coming to this thing to make it tailor-made to you. One of the things that is a barrier to entry is if you play a game, some of them does not have like all of the, how can I say it? They don't have like the full set of avatars or like... Yeah, and also too, it's not as customizable.
[00:24:50.835] Kent Bye: There seem to be a little homogenized, like everybody can kind of start to look the same or similar.
[00:24:56.016] JoyReign: Yeah, especially if you're a person of color, that it doesn't have something that's tailored to you. And what we commend Meta for is that they have expanded their library of features, of hairstyles, of everything that they've done, and especially tailored it to your style as well. some people felt underrepresented. I know in the Jewish community they felt as though that they didn't have their hair represented and so they fixed it that in this new iteration that's going to be rolling out and so it's just those little things that seems as though it doesn't make a difference but it is totally needed because representation matters.
[00:25:37.930] JDun: Representation matters. You know, that's the thing I'm most excited about. We just left the Avatar talk where they showed off some of the Gen AI things that you can do with clothing where you can prompt a certain type of clothing, like your top, jacket, shirt, etc. And it can have your style, your color. So not only is the cheekbones, the body, the face being able to be modified to a level of incredible billions of numbers of parameters, your clothing now can be your own. So, you know, you think about branding, you know, now I could prompt something that's specific for me. Sure, someone could try to prompt the exact same thing, but it's going to probably give you something that looks completely different. And I'm just loving the idea of as this grows out with Gen.AI, as it goes into the future, When they're like, you know what? I think I want to do something a little different today. How about you give me this type of outfit? And it's just going to be to make those types of things. That's great. But going back to representation, it matters so much in this space. Like I said, we were at the Avatar talk. A guy said, listen, I just want more hair opportunities, more things that we can do. Maybe I want my fingernails to be a certain color. I keep telling them, I'm married to this beautiful, gorgeous woman. I want a ring on my finger so they will leave me alone in the metaverse. No, I don't know what hits on me in the metaverse. The idea of it is just that this has been years. We actually got a chance to talk to them after the talk. This has been years in the making. And so it's exciting to think about what they can do from this. This is their new platform. The last platform, we actually had some tears in our eyes because we were realizing the avatars we build our brand with are leaving and it's kind of like a new slate and so this is day one uh in their words day zero it's not even truly that first day where they're going to take this thing so we're really excited to see representation is where it's going to take us so yeah
[00:27:25.058] Kent Bye: And one of the other things that they were showing were the ability to use generative AI text prompts to build objects and potentially build worlds. And so I'm just curious to hear some of your thoughts and reactions of what you think that's going to be able to enable in terms of catalyzing new forms of creativity and lowering the barrier to entry for some folks to start to make things within Horizon Worlds.
[00:27:44.392] JoyReign: Absolutely. I think a lot of people think that when you come into this space that you have to have a tech background, especially in Horizon Worlds. And that's not the case. People are building different brands. People are building different businesses in here. And another barrier to entry that's going to be cut out if businesses you know, generative AI, if they can just prompt whatever they want, that is mind blowing. And people will be able to build those things that they never thought possible. And so I'm super excited to see all the creative people that really want to get involved, but just not too sure about these tools that they'll be able to take a look at it and just say, OK, if I do prompt this, then it'll from brain to hear that it'll be able to see it. I'm like, it's incredible. It's incredible.
[00:28:32.418] JDun: just takes the barrier away so we want to get all to that star trek level holiday where you can walk in and say put me on the moon you know put me here put me there and it's just there and i think we're going to begin to see that and hopefully it's not just linked to just horizon worlds it's linked to multi-platform opportunities and that more and more devices like the vision pro we start seeing that level of gen ai be able to take those things to the whole level i'm thinking we're going to get to a future where we don't have to have game experience always built because just make a game out of thought and That's gonna be something I think that's gonna change the world.
[00:29:11.541] Kent Bye: Yeah Yeah, and one of the features I think I've shown in the past is like the ability to be in horizon worlds and to like Collaborately edit and work on worlds together. It's not something that's still possible And maybe you just elaborate on what's it been like to collaboratively build some of these different worlds by being in VR and building VR
[00:29:28.647] JoyReign: So collaboration is another thing that is really really big because again it plays into that social aspect of it and so being able to build with your friends or or whomever to just share ideas and thoughts to come up with this brilliant plan of a world it is still there it is still thriving and they're continuing to push the limits on what can be done yeah.
[00:29:51.530] JDun: There's going to be new tools and new opportunities for collaboration and Horizon is really, they're paying attention, that team is really paying attention to what's the next step of as the graphics get better, as these headsets get better, what type of tools will be needed for a grander size of a metaverse type world. So a lot coming. We can't say too much about it, unfortunately, but just know that collaboration is at the heart of everything that Horizon is doing.
[00:30:18.806] Kent Bye: Yeah, and one of the things that they showed during the keynote was the ability to put NPC characters, so AI characters that are driven by a large language model. And there's a part of it that I was like, I can understand where some context it would make sense to have an expert that's there to help answer questions or to be a branded experience for people to have Interactive conversation with the AI be able to answer some questions on the other hand I was like there's a little bit of a concern because I feel like some of the magic of some of these metaverse spaces is like It's one of the spaces where you don't see as much spam or AI or fake people or characters I just I felt like a deep sense of ease in my gut. I was like, ooh, wow, they're really diving into pollinating these metaverse spaces with all these AI characters. What happens if the only thing you run into is these AI bots or whatever? So I feel like really going all in into the AI feels like it could go to some really dystopic, dark places where it's hard to actually interact with other human beings and maybe what's not disclosed as to whether or not it's a human being or not. This is what we've seen already in the internet with all these bots and spam and trying to trick people into interactions that are really just trying to sell you something. So I'm just curious to hear some of your thoughts for where it might go.
[00:31:32.236] JDun: I would love to jump on that. I think it's all about, it goes back to responsibility. One of the things we've been talking about for the longest, people coming to join the morning and like, they may not understand exactly where to go. They may want to know the story behind it. And so we were like, maybe one day we'll have an opportunity to build something where we can have a tour guide that shows up and maybe it doesn't look like Joy because we want Joy to stay Joy. But maybe we'll have a Joy in the Morning tour guide that says, hey, we'll show you around and explain the story of why Joy built this world. And I think that responsibly is good. I think when we start getting into the fact of every, oh, I don't have nobody in my world, so if I don't have nobody in the world populated with 30 people, so it looks like they're partying with other people, I agree with you, I don't think that's the way to go. I think it's more so to have meaningful engagement So being able to have an AI in a dungeon master world or some type of dungeon crawler world where you're playing against something and maybe you don't have a partner which will, can I have this AI come with me and battle with me and be able to respond to me, hey, go get that sword. Okay, I can go get that sword. Remember, we're at the very beginnings of this type of technology. It's going to take people like Kent. It's going to take people like Joy, like J. Dunn, and more people with their voices, voices of VR, to take things and explain why, what we need and what we don't need, and be vocal about it. One thing we go to developers all the time, hey, there's no black skin in your game. But if we don't tell them that, They're like, oh my God, you know, we never thought about that. You know, and so even when we go to these surveys, I'm sure you get a ton of surveys as well or opportunities to consult with companies. We always tell them and we tell them the truth of, hey, I think this would be bad or I think we should go this route. And so we need to make sure our voices are heard when we don't feel like something that pit in your gut that says no. this is not good make that be known so i'm glad you said that and i think i'm with you that it doesn't need to be a population of the world it needs to just be small little intricate things that makes the experience feel more fuller for people when they're by themselves absolutely you took the words right out of my mouth about the whole thing about joy in the morning it's about
[00:33:42.543] JoyReign: Usually when we're in these worlds, people from all over the world, every time zone have access to these worlds. And because my physical self, I wouldn't be able to be in there 24 hours a day. I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity for someone to have a great experience about joy in the morning or have a question that no one's there to answer. So implementing that would be incredible to train this model of the answers that I would provide for them and then answer those questions would be incredible. But again, with moderation, not taking over, but just using as a supplement until we're back in into the world.
[00:34:24.875] Kent Bye: Is there any other announcements or things that you're really excited about here from MetaConnect?
[00:34:28.817] JDun: Just messed up, man. Quest 3S. We're so excited for more people to have the power of Quest 3 at a price that, I mean, they kept saying they wanted to sell the Quest 3 at that price. They just couldn't do it. And so now being able to have a device at this point with all the advancements they've made with software updates, with seamless multitasking and things like that, I think Christmas holiday is going to be insane. I think we're about to have, no pun intended, but a leap year in XR as we go into the next year, and I expect to see more Patreon subscribers to what you are doing, more subscribers on our YouTube channel, because they're gonna be falling in love with VR, and that's something that I get chills talking about it. It's tangible. It's that feeling of knowing that more and more people are about to get into the metaverse. Like I'm literally getting chills. You know, that's the thing. That's why we make content. That's why we're sitting here with you. That's why we're excited to talk to you, because we want to get them to the metaverse.
[00:35:25.299] JoyReign: Yeah, that's what I was just about to say. It's like our whole mantra is get them to the metaverse and we want to make sure that buried entry is not there. And so to be able to tell them that there is a cheaper option to be able to experience a mixed reality device at $299, I mean, oh my goodness, you can come in here because a lot of people felt as though, you know, is it worth paying that money for it? It is, yes. They see our videos, they want to know exactly what's going on, and we're saying, hey, you can get in this, you can experience this at $2.99.
[00:36:02.051] JDun: And they also think that AR is so far away, where honestly, with Mixed Reality and the Quest, 3 and the Quest 3S, you get to kind of start to experience spatial anchoring. You get to experience these mixed reality experiences that could be in your room. We've got to see some really cool demos here of what's next for mixed reality. And we're like, man, with camera access, listen, we can go on and on. This interview is going to go forever if we get into camera access. But what can be possible with that type of technology, even on a Quest 3S, is mind blowing and at that price. And, you know, I think about this a lot. If they're selling it at that price, maybe there's a Christmas promotion where you get a $50 off or a gift card. I'm just like, the sky's the limit for these types of things.
[00:36:43.721] JoyReign: It's already coming with a new game, the Batman Arkham Shadow. Yeah, so you can't beat that.
[00:36:52.304] Kent Bye: Nice. And what have been some of the highlights from last year that you've done with content or different videos that you're really proud of that you put out there, some of your favorite stuff that you've done?
[00:37:00.688] JDun: OK, you opened up another bag. So the last few weeks have been insane for getting things done. Not to date, but HDMI link. was a crazy thing that dropped on Quest a few, almost a month ago, and we put that video out and it just trivloomed, it just ran, and we realized that so many people just want to be able to plug things into their Quest and see it on a big screen, so things like that, but I think it's the evolution and change of Horizon OS as we're getting into these 2D apps, these spatial apps, these immersive apps, these worlds kind of starting to collide. We're starting to see pinned apps. The thing we've had on PC VR forever where you could be watching a Netflix thing while you're shooting down some enemies in a game. We finally have that on Quest where you can have up to three apps pinned in the side, on the left, on the right. in your peripheral, and being able to use the power of Quest 3 in that way is just so impressive. So those are the type of videos we've been making, little mini tutorials, and just seeing the community kind of gather behind it like, wow, I didn't know the Quest could run Android apps. You're playing Angry Birds, not in MR, but you're just playing it while you're also watching Netflix, while you're also scrolling your social feed. So that's some of the stuff we've been enjoying.
[00:38:12.324] JoyReign: Yeah, absolutely. I've been loving the thing that people didn't know what this quest is capable of. And so we've been pushing the limits and open the books per se and showing exactly what can be done. And we do it in a cool way that gets people really interested in it. And they have more questions and we answer those questions through our videos.
[00:38:33.385] Kent Bye: In terms of using mixed reality for productivity, are you actually editing or doing other things that you would normally do in your workflow, whether it's sending emails or just doing your day-to-day tasks and work? Are you still using a traditional computer, or are you starting to do more and more of those tasks within the context of mixed reality?
[00:38:50.339] JDun: So we'll be honest with you. No, we do not do email inside of our Quest, for sure. We do own Vision Pros. So we do a little bit more work when it comes to that, just because of the clarity and the type of apps, iOS apps and things like that, without having to silo. That's one thing we're hoping with the new spatial framework with Quest 3, that more 2D apps will come so that we could use the Quest in more ways like that. it's being able to just have screens you know it's emulation of screens is what's changing the game for us so no not typing emails we're leaving quest kind of like the game console right now but there's a big push for lifestyle apps as you've seen in the keynote there's accelerator programs for things like that so i think over the next six months actually we're all gonna be back at connect last year let's just do another interview where we talk about what we're doing now that 2d apps is more out there and what we're using it for at that point because that's happen.
[00:39:44.130] JoyReign: I concur.
[00:39:45.031] Kent Bye: Another thing I want to ask is you're both wearing some of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses or Ray-Ban Meta glasses that were given to all the creators and press. The new special edition clear see-through. Have you had previous versions of these glasses? And maybe talk a little bit about how you've been using them.
[00:40:00.687] JDun: Yes. Man, we love these glasses i'm never taking these particular ones off they're gorgeous but yeah we bought the ray-bans literally after the keynote last year it was like gotta have them so we bought them with our own money we were super excited about getting into them we use them like air pods being able to walk and that noise cancellation is incredible We've used it for some AI things. We haven't used like the more generic things like, oh, tell me what this building is, because we really haven't traveled a lot of places that we don't know what that particular building is. But what I'm really excited about is the entry of scanning the QR code. I'm like, you know how many times, you know how many keynote speeches or talks we've been to? And like scan this QR code, you got to pull out your phone, zoom in. It's like, you know what? Hey, Meta. scan that QR code and it just does it. Like that to me is crazy. And then we could be walking somewhere and my wife will tell me, hey, remember that thing we need to buy? I go like, hey, remind me to buy this thing later. And I can say, hey, what was that thing I needed to buy? Oh, you needed to buy this for your wife. Great, okay. So having it like that, but we wear these things pretty much all the time. And now that we have the transitions.
[00:41:07.734] JoyReign: being content creators we use them from all points of view and so it's really really has helped our content and just to see those things of what we really have going on you know so i'm excited about it yeah you use it to communicate with each other oh man that's a great question for joy oh yes we do yeah we use it i'm just gonna
[00:41:35.580] JDun: A lot. Like they said, they're like our AirPods. They're like our AirPods. Yeah, they're like our AirPods. So we like always talking. You know, the funny thing is people say, well, what are y'all doing? Like, y'all in the same house? Yeah, but we be like sometimes in separate rooms and doing stuff. So I'm like, you know what? Let me tell her to come over here real quick.
[00:41:50.065] Kent Bye: So you like call her up on the phone and then talk? Absolutely, yeah. It's hilarious.
[00:41:53.286] JDun: Yes, it happens. People see us walking around with these talking and they're like, well, who are they talking to? A lot of times I'm just talking to my wife in the car. Like, yeah, literally. Yeah.
[00:42:02.628] Kent Bye: I was talking to Cass and Sherry, and they were talking about how they've been riding on bikes around the Netherlands and how they can actually communicate and talk to each other and still hear each other, but just have a call that's ongoing.
[00:42:12.555] JDun: That's a good idea. Wow. Yeah, we need to try that.
[00:42:16.859] Kent Bye: So great. Well, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear what you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, all the spatial computing, and what it might be able to enable.
[00:42:28.387] JDun: Oh, well. We're going to say Orion and what we saw with Orion. I believe that is the ultimate form factor that we're trying to get to. And once we get there, I believe the sky has been the metaphorical limit and will no longer be the limit anymore. We can finally have truly Pokemon walking around our space and actually see them and enjoy them while we're having this interview. I think that's going to change the world. I think there's going to be so many applications to strip away the need for even some things with school systems. Look, I can talk about it all day. I just think it's going to change the world, honestly.
[00:43:03.515] JoyReign: Yes, it's most definitely going to change the world. And we are so excited to be on this journey and we're going to continue to cover every single part of it. We're integrating it and you can't get rid of us now. And so we are just waiting to see what's next.
[00:43:20.000] Kent Bye: Awesome. And is there anything else that's left unsaid or any final thoughts you'd like to share with the immersive community?
[00:43:25.868] JDun: Yes. Make sure you subscribe to Kent Baez Podcast. Make sure you subscribe to Getting Things Done YouTube channel. But other than that, just be excited. Stay excited. I think what this industry is missing is sometimes we can get jaded because we want things to move even faster or things are not the company that we want to do what we want to do. Don't do what we want them to do. but let's stay excited let's stay getting chills talking about the metaverse and i think as we have people who really care about this please don't leave the space make your voice be heard because it's so needed as we get into more dangerous waters like say with camera access and things like that if we're not being vocal these tools can be used for their own reasons so let's make sure that we get out here and talk more and spread the word of the good word of xr
[00:44:15.839] JoyReign: And also remember to have fun with it. We can get caught up in all the technicalities and whatnot, but at the end of the day, we have to enjoy this space. And so we all come together for the love of it. So let's keep the love of XR at the forefront.
[00:44:30.805] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Joy Reign and Jay Dunn, thanks so much for joining me today on the podcast. And I just really appreciate the passion and enthusiasm you have as evangelists for XR in the space. And yeah, just also what's happening in the Horizon World community as both ambassadors and evangelists on what's happening here in those communities and help to contextualize some of the different visions for what Meta may be striving for with where this is all going. And yeah, just really appreciate all the work that you're doing and looking forward to hearing more about what you're working on now, maybe next year. So thanks again. Absolutely.
[00:44:59.724] JoyReign: Yes.
[00:45:00.484] Kent Bye: Can't wait.
[00:45:01.304] JoyReign: Thank you so much for having us. Yes.
[00:45:04.085] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And I would like to invite you to join me on my Patreon. I've been doing the Voices of VR for over 10 years. And it's always been a little bit more of like a weird art project. I think of myself as like a knowledge artist. So I'm much more of an artist than a business person. But at the end of the day, I need to make this more of a sustainable venture. Just $5 or $10 a month would make a really big difference. I'm trying to reach $2,000 a month or $3,000 a month right now. I'm at $1,000 a month, which means that's my primary income. And I just need to get it to a sustainable level just to even continue this oral history art project that I've been doing for the last decade. And if you find value in it, then please do consider joining me on the Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.