Spatial Newsletter™ #017
Two Spatial Newses in one week?! Surprise, surprise! Today's Spatial8's b-day🎂! We present to you an overview of Spatial8's 2021, info on the upcoming AWE Nite Northern XR meet up, plus, DAOs!
Welcome to Spatial Newsletter™ issue 17 on the 17th! The coolest tech ecosystem toddler in Europe (Spatial8) is 2 years old today! Oh, happy day!🎉
"Daniel-san, you remember lesson about balance? Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for all life. Whole life have a balance, everything be better." ―Mr. Miyagi (in the Karate Kid)
Spatial8: The Terrible Two of the Tech World
In case you’re thinking of Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler or Darth Vader and Dr. Doom please note,
“‘terrible twos’ refers to a normal stage in a child's development in which a toddler can regularly bounce between reliance on adults and a newly burgeoning desire for independence. The symptoms vary between children but can include frequent mood changes and temper tantrums.”
Spatial8 is modern business hub of European emerging technology companies related to Extended Reality, spatial computing, and the metaverse designed to better educate the market, improve business, and facilitate innovation.
At Spatial8, we
Consult brands on emerging tech and implementation strategy
Connect ecosystem members to brands looking for products and services like content creation
Connect ecosystem members with each other for products and services some of which are exclusive to the community
Provide a variety of services for ecosystem members and brands like create proof of concepts and MVPs
Fun factoid: ‘Spatialate’ is a neologism that means ‘to prepare a client (or consumer) for the era of spatial computing’. The word could be used in the following way: ‘Spatialate your business with Spatial8’.
Okay, now, on to the overview. Since March 17th 2021 we (deep breath),
changed our name from XR Nation → Spatial8 to show that we’ve expanded to other emerging technologies and gaming (which was always the goal),
took part in Kiuas’ Start program,
became part owners in XR Marine (producers of immersive content for maritime activities),
co-founded Exthereal LLC and helped produce the “Fashion in Extended Reality” conference last December, which was one of the most attended online XR events of 2021,
grew our membership organically and welcomed 21 new members from across Europe to the ecosystem (360Mediahouse, Ameliate, Amplifyre, BIMSynch, BODYSWAPS, Dynamint, Flamingo Filter, Futuclass, HoloNative, Holoway, mlxar, Platonic Partnership, Sciar, Scopus Studio, Sense of Space, Shin Software, Stray Robots, VISU Elomatic, Virtual Discovery, Yord, and Zoan), &
became part of Miro’s Startup Program and became bundlers for Cleanbox Technology. (Phew!)
We’re expanding our team! Roles (which can be remote) include: sales, marketing whiz, community manager, and a software dev intern. Contact info@spatial8.com if you are interested in hearing more.
Let’s see what this year holds for S8 and the rest of the ecosystem!
Web3 & Metaverse Simplified?
Here’s a Twitter post by Mo Ali Yusuf that has made the rounds on LinkedIn. He was “[t]rying to simplify this crazy new world”. (Thanks for sharing, Gio!)
“Metaverse = experience
Web3 = community
NFTs = ownership
Wallet = identity
Crypto = money/value
Blockchain = infrastructure”
Anything you’d add or change?
How about adding DAOs?
We first brought up DAOs in Spatial News™ #015. According to Keir Finlow-Bates’ in What is a Dao?,
“A DAO is nothing more than an automated voting system which also happens to hold assets[…] they’re a bit like computer programs that own lots of money[…]”
The code in the smart contract allows people that have purchased the DAO’s tokens to vote on the direction of the company similar to the way a board does.
So DAO = company,
Or could DAO = voting expanding beyond a company to something more? (Let that imagination take flight like a 🎈, Joh.)
Can Code = law? The Blockchain Gandalf doesn’t think so. Why? Because
“there will always be bugs in any computer program that does something complicated or contains more than ten lines of code. Or in the platform, interpreter, or operating system running underneath it.”
If you’re curious to try your hand at setting up a DAO the
DAO Canvas
can be a useful tool for developing the idea. Thanks to Michael Mey, founding member of twire, for sharing the DAO Canvas with me. Here’s a screenshot of the canvas. Visit twire’s website to get a printable copy for yourself.
You know I have to balance the yin with the yang ☯.
"Oligarchy is the System We're Supposed to be Disrupting…"
Thanks to Ben Erwin, Creator of The Polys - WebXR Awards and WebXR Summit Series, for sharing this article that acts as a cautionary tale about setting up a DAO.
“Many DAOs are wrestling with challenges, including huge financial losses from software flaws and hacks, internal divisions that threaten some entities’ continued existence and allegations of improper diversion of community funds. Others have struggled with low turnout among members when it comes to voting on a strategy or business decision, effectively leaving control in the hands of the investors who put up money to help start them.
This messy gestation has fueled a debate: Are these ventures simply vehicles to enrich insiders and exploit consumers, or early experiments in a new way of doing business?”
AWE Nite Northern XR: Eyes on Estonia
As co-organizers of AWE Nite Northern XR, Teemu and I would like to welcome you to “Eyes on Estonia”, an event that will focus on the Estonian XR ecosystem and will take place on Thursday April 7th from 18-19:10 EET (Helsinki/Tallinn time).
The special co-host/co-organizer for this meet up is Märt Lume, Chairman of the Board of EEVR (Estonian VR & AR Association)!
IMPORTANT:
To take part in the meet up please use this link https://awe.live/register to register the day of the meet up. Find this session and join. The registration only needs to be done once, and it's completely free.
Thanks to the photographer Teemu Rönkkö for capturing the gorgeous image below (Feb. 2021).
Thanks for reading again this week, Spatialists! Pax et caritas! We are spatial and so are you!
Joh, 🎶“I like to kick it, I’m a karate guy.”🎶