Hello everyone,
Here I’m briefing my part of the Mobilizer Experiment: promote WebVR in Taiwan.
Research phase
What did you do?
In order to get a basic understanding of the situation in Taiwan, I interviewed with 2 groups of people:
- a few developers who attended the WebVR gathering in April, which was host at Mozilla TPE office.
- another group of developers who working on other VR technology but not WebVR.
I also attend a few gatherings about VR during this phase, to connect with people who could possibly interesting in WebVR.
What did you learn about the technology in your area?
- There are two main groups in the community: one of them is very new, just curious about the tech; another is professional game / 3D developers, possibly a Unity3D or Unreal user.
- People don’t know yet where to apply the technology, there is lack of demos.
- Most of the people have experienced VR content, some of them have Cardboard, but only few have Vive / Oculus. Device access is part of the reason for them
What did you learn in terms of mobilizing the community?
- It’s still in the early stage: Might need good lectures about how WebVR works or how to create WebVR content.
- Showing how to export Unity3D (or other existing authoring tools) projects to WebVR could possibly more interested in adopt the technology and be more engaged.
- Good demos matter: to tell everyone that “it works well”
- Lack of discussing channels: a Chinese WebVR support channel could help people connect with and help each others.
First iteration
What did you do?
- Create #communities:webvr-zh category on discourse.
- Recruited experts who are willing to help people on the forum.
- Localize A-Frame School, prepare for A-Frame Workshops
- Create a news blog “WebVR 中文新鮮報,” post weekly issue on news about WebVR, with help from another community member @tasirung2007 (thank you!)
What did you learn about the technology in your area?
- People need to see people already interacting to start asking.
- Most people are not ready yet for coding, just curious.
- Most people use Facebook or Line, it’s hard to get them here
What did you learn in terms of mobilizing the community?
- Need to have people start trying to create a simple WebVR project, workshops for beginner might helps.
Second iteration
What did you do?
- Host a few A-Frame School events
- Have the attendees send Hello Post on the discourse category
- Use the localized material to help people learn about WebVR.
- Try keep them connected with each other after the workshop
- Got the webvr.tw domain name
- Keep the weekly news on WebVR 中文新鮮報, got another volunteer for it. (thank you @cms4225)
What did you learn about the technology in your area?
- Localized A-Frame School works very well.
- It’s a little bit hard to keep people connected after a workshop. Telegram or other IM could possibly a good idea.
- We tried to keep the attendees connected though email / IM / discourse – not works very well.
- Many of the attendees stop practicing A-Frame after the workshop.
- They still interested in this technology (we know it because they gave a very positive feedback on the news blog and have helped spreading the words)
What did you learn in terms of mobilizing the community?
- For people who have experience about Unity3D and know HTML/JavaScript, A-Frame just like home, and can easily create simple demos. Maybe we should try to reach more existed Unity3D developers.
- It’s actually hard to ask people who just finished A-Frame School to post their demos on the forum – if they just follow the guide, the results they created are all the same, not “special.”
- It might be good to add a page or 2 in A-Frame School to have them show their creativity (select a model they love and load it into A-Frame, with animations, etc.)
- Sharing demos & get “likes” improve the whole learning experience.
Third iteration
What did you do?
- Host more workshops
- Trying different methods to get the attendees connected after the workshop.
- Telegram
- Talk with few others who learned ReactVR to understand the difference with A-Frame. (also invited them to share their experience on the forum / gathering)
What did you learn about the technology in your area?
- All the A-Frame Workshops are all full in 2 days after announced, means a lot of people interested in this topic.
- For JavaScript developers, ReactVR is really something. (A-Frame is more likely for game developers)
What did you learn in terms of mobilizing the community?
- The key is still get the attendees connected with each others after the workshop
- Will try to create a Facebook group for one of the workshop, as a test.
- Most of the members in the community are at the beginner level, might need more experts to help to create a feeling of sharing.