Virtual Burning Man kickstarts Microsoft's social VR efforts, what it means for Facebook's new Horizon

For those who don't know me, I've been watching, and participating in, social media since my friend had a BBS in the early 1980s in his garage. Since then I've been watching movements of people online go to Prodigy, AOL, Compuserve, Usenet newsgroups, and then onto all the social stuff we use today, from LinkedIn (I was on Reid Hoffman's plane with him before he started LinkedIn) to Facebook, Instagram (I was the 78th user), Messenger, WhatsApp, TikTok and all the rest.

From my decades of watching the industry I know that when paradigm shifts hit everyone reconsiders their brand loyalties. I remember when Borland, Wordperfect, and others were big, important, companies. They were killed by the paradigm shifts of graphical user interfaces and easy networking. Anyone still use a Nokia phone? They were number one in market share just 13 years ago.

I have a thesis (you could even call it a bias) about how the future is going to work out. Mainly, that we will be working in headsets that include a view of the Spatial Computing world (computing that you, robots, or virtual beings can manipulate and move around in).

That bias has been built up over time by visiting research labs, companies, universities, and talking with many people inside and out of technology, from surgeons to people building houses. One construction company told me two weeks ago how they are using robots and Microsoft HoloLenses to build new construction management systems, for instance. Irena Cronin and I detailed many others in our book, "The Infinite Retina."

Over the past few days I was watching what was going down in Burning Man, particularly in the virtual effort, BRCvr https://brcvr.org/ (for Black Rock City/VR). I wasn't alone, Daniel Terdiman wrote glowingly about his experiences in Fast Company.

My front-row seat on this effort goes further back, though, to 2016 when Greg Edwards was showing me around some experiences he built for fans at Coachella, and some scans he had made of art exhibits at the real Burning Man, held annually in the desert of Nevada.

Last year he contacted me again to show me a virtual Burning Man he had made inside VR, with temples and camps laid out like the real physical Burning Man. That experience impressed me, but it was cold, without any humans, and without any new art or concerts and speeches.

This weekend I visited again, but this time there were thousands of people, tons of concerts (I attended a few), and some great speeches (Baratunde's brought me to tears), and visits to amazing art and experiences that just couldn't be experienced in any other way than in VR, more on those in a few. But Saturday night got me some insights into just how big a deal this could turn out for Microsoft.

I, and thousands of people attended the man being burned, (not sure how many, but someone watching the servers told me that there were at least 10,000 who logged into the Virtual Burning Man, and at least 1,400 watching live in AltSpaceVR as the man "burned.") Which, actually, was a video of people performing fire ceremonies all over the world, followed by the burning of a wooden man from an undisclosed location in Nevada (now we know it was actually on property that the Burning Man organization owns) brought to us on a huge virtual video screen, followed by a virtual burning, drone and fireworks show that was pretty awesome to watch, even if it doesn't measure up to the real thing.

Lots of words will be typed about how it compares to the real thing. Here, let me save it for you, it doesn't. Real life is analog, far sharper, far more interesting, and far more fun than anything you can experience in VR. Even for decades to come.

If that's how you look at VR you are poorer for it. For the real Burning Man requires you to camp out in the desert (or rent an RV) and pay almost $1,000 in fees. You must bring in your own food and water and stuff to share with others. My friends who go say they almost always pay $5,000 to $15,000 or more to go (and that isn't including the cost for building your own art, or costumes. One guy I know commissioned a costume for $10,000 and many pieces of art cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions to make). It is hot in the desert, with frequent wind storms, so you have to get goggles and other equipment to protect your skin from nature's assault.

Experiencing Burning Man in VR required none of that. You could join with a 2D computer, like a Mac or Windows, but if you joined with VR the experience was 100x better. You could dance, which I did, and touch objects, which I did (in one world titled "Fire and Ice," I was throwing cars around).

VR is more accessible than real life and, soon, the numbers of attendees will dwarf those who can attend in real life (somewhere around 70,000 attended last year). It is more interactive (and you can navigate it much faster). It is more comfortable for sure. Are these tradeoffs worth not going? For many they will be. Taking a week off work and paying thousands of dollars to go to the desert is out of the range of many. And yet we have arguments that VR costs $400 to buy (and on September 16th Facebook is expected to announce an even better headset for around $300). Still far cheaper, even just to attend this one event.

But what I learned Saturday night is that I won't need to choose. One of Greg's covolunteers, Athena Demos, (the whole effort was built by mostly volunteers) told me that they will probably have a permanent Burning Man that will be open 24-hours-a-day on Microsoft's AltSpaceVR service (after taking a short vacation to recover from this effort). You can listen to Athena and Greg talk about the effort on a VRARA podcast here. Which hints at why I believe this is a huge win for Microsoft and its social VR effort, AltSpaceVR.

What Was The Experience Like?

I had never seen a social VR effort with this kind of scale. Dozens (I hear hundreds) of different things to do, all connected to a virtual world that was as big in scale as the real physical event was. Even someone dedicated to seeing it all, like me, couldn't experience or see it all.

I dropped in many times, and each time I instantly found myself with other members. Only a small percentage of people recognized who I was, which was nice, since I remember walking through many conferences where I'd get accosted by PR people "can you come over and see this cool startup?" Instead people would greet me with "Welcome Home," which is the greeting people do at the real Burning Man, usually followed by a hug. Now, hugging in AltSpaceVR isn't automatic. In fact, many people have a virtual bubble turned on to keep people from getting too close, but those people often high-fived you, and conversations were always great. Many people I met had been to several Burns before. This was my first time, my first Burn. Athena told me "this one counts."

On my first visit one such member told me things she saw around that were cool, and even took me to one after we friended each other (you can always see where your friends are in AltSpaceVR and "teleport" to where they are, or they can give you a virtual port that you click on and you can both teleport to that experience together).

I visited dozens of the worlds that way. From one that looked like an art car playing music out in the desert, to a land made all of ice where you could play a variety of games. Turns out that artist is a real-life ice sculptor who showed me around and told me about how he built his experience.

Some let you go on mazes with other people, turn down the wrong way and you'd fall into quick sand and get teleported back to the beginning. Lots of giggles on that one.

But there were a few things that really showed me the power of VR and experiencing things together. The first was a beautiful dome movie that one camp played. It was stunningly beautiful, as beautiful as any of the virtual art I experienced at Coachella. But as I walked around, I noticed groups of people enjoying that art together. As I got closer I could hear them talking and I could talk back and join in, just the same way I met many new friends at Coachella walking around and sharing experiences, particularly in between acts sitting in the Sahara Tent talking about music with others.

This happened at every experience I went to. VR insiders call this "presence," which means that you feel like you are present with both surroundings, like huge pieces of art, or, in this context, other people. In this time of COVID people are hyper hungry for presence, or the feeling you are hanging out with other people. VR delivers that 100x better than flat screens. If you and I both have VR and we meet in AltSpaceVR (or other social VR systems, from Spatial to RecRoom to many other games and experiences) we can high five each other, hand each other virtual gifts (one guy handed me a virtual pill that when accepted let me fly around the experience we were in easier), or, play games or hug each other. Mostly that meant I could see if someone was looking at me, or reacting positively or negatively (moving closer or farther away) and a lot about their personality, particularly if they could move their hands and/or dance. You simply can't do much of that without VR, even in 3D worlds like Second Life where everything is reduced down to a 2D screen.

Back to my bias. I expect that within five years many of you will have glasses on that do some form of XR (a mixture of augmented reality or virtual reality or both). Which gets down to why I believe that Burning Man has handed Microsoft a major gift: it gives everyone a brand and set of experiences that will pull us back to AltSpaceVR over and over and will degrade the experiences available on other social VR platforms, like Facebook's new Horizon that is in testing now, or RecRoom.

What This Means for Microsoft

First, let's discuss the 10 guiding principles behind Burning Man. The Decommodification Principle, which keeps Burning Man, and its participants, from doing corporate sponsorships, might seem to mean there isn't a commercial advantage for a company like Microsoft. There is, but hear me out.

In my discussions with artists, many support Burning Man and will go wherever Burning Man's organization says to go. This is why hundreds of experiences were built in weeks and artists told me they would have done far more if they had the time.

Burning Man is a shopping mall for artists. Where it goes the users will want to go too. Now, will there be competitive malls? Sure, but there is only one Burning Man. No other organization or movement out there creates as much controversy as Burning Man. You either love it (like me) or hate it (like my wife who shows absolutely no interest). You see this play out in tweets and Facebook comments after I posted that I thought this effort was important on Saturday.

Athena, though, told me the effort that Microsoft was putting in. It built a Mac client because Burning Man asked. It had tons of engineering efforts and new features, some of which were being loaded in real time to keep up with the demands of new users.

In other words, it's a forcing function that I didn't really consider. It is a demanding customer, one that gets engineering teams focused and productive. Microsoft, she, and others involved, knocked it out of the park. In her words "I see no reason why we would leave AltSpace." Can Facebook or RecRoom or a new startup like Somnium Space (which also had an amazing concert experience on Sunday that I attended) woo them away? That seems to be a very big challenge now, which hands Microsoft a huge huge strategic win that will continue getting people to go to AltSpaceVR in the future.

If the "coolest virtual nightclub" is on AltSpaceVR, what does that mean for Facebook? Huge problems because Facebook's whole strategy is built on getting you to buy augmented reality glasses to play social games and other experiences with each other.

See, the bias I have is that affordable, light, sharp augmented reality glasses are coming soon from Apple and others. AltSpaceVR, Athena noted, could build an AR experience pretty easily where you could walk around the real Burning Man while enjoying real and virtual art and experiences.

That is the big strategic gift I saw for Microsoft. If Microsoft owns the coolest things to do in social VR and there is a way for those coolest things to not move to Facebook then all of a sudden I see the market will want Microsoft glasses instead of Facebook ones.

This all came together when I was dancing at the Diplo concert and earlier at the Baratunde speech. Diplo was wearing a HoloLens (that's me in front of his hologram). He could see us in his HoloLens, and be able to see through to the real equipment he was using to run his performance and he could interact with us as well.

People around me said they wanted a HoloLens too. In other words, just the act of someone up front wearing a HoloLens made people want one as well. Now, what happens when HoloLens becomes a pair of lightweight glasses that is affordable? I'm seeing such potential products starting to ship early next year (Vuzix just demonstrated one, and Google execs tell me they are working hard on getting glasses to market due to is Focals by North acquisition).

Watching this all go down was the first time I thought Microsoft has the potential of competing with both Facebook and Apple in this battle for the future. There aren't many other cultural movements that have the scale to get me to feel the same. Sports maybe, but Burning Man has better art, and a decentralized army of artists to create experiences.

Many times over the next three to five years we will jump in and out of all the social XR systems to decide where to pull our family and friends. If you go into Facebook's and there aren't as many great things to do as in AltSpace, then you will tell your friends and family "that place is lame, let's go here instead." I already see this going down on a weekly basis with my 11-year-old son, who has a whole cadre of friends in RecRoom already and he pulls them into other things that come along.

Now, will this play out the way I see that Burning Man will make AltSpace a much more fun place to go than Facebook Horizon? We'll see, but today Zuckerberg better spend more time worrying about it than he did a week ago. To me this weekend is one that we will be talking about for decades. It was that important.

As I said goodbye to Athena after the man burned I said "this will be the worst Burning Man this decade." She reacted with horror, but then I explained what I meant. Next year will see many times more art and experiences and headsets, coming soon, will be sharper and lighter. Soon we'll have glasses to experience these kinds of things. The fact that it was so amazing this year shows just how big a deal it could be in three to five and if I'm right it could really take the shine off of Facebook's new Horizon.

To answer the question: Facebook Horizon, so far, looks incredibly lame when compared to what I experienced in AltSpaceVR this weekend. That has to be troubling for Zuckerberg and team.