#262 WP-Tonic Friday Round-Table Show January 26th 2018

This week on Episode 262 of the WP-Tonic Podcast, the roundtable discussed Virtual Reality in WordPress and WordPress use in higher education.

Sallie Goetsch, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Chris Badgett, John Locke, and Adam Preiser joined co-host Kim Shivler in a lively discussion of the future of virtual reality with one member believing it has no future.

We launched with WPTavern’s covering of Tuesday’s Higher Ed Conference.
https://wptavern.com/free-conference-dedicated-to-wordpress-in-higher-ed-takes-place-january-30th-at-9am-cst

On Tuesday, January 30, WPCampus will be holding a free, all-day conference about WordPress in higher education. The conference begins at 9AM CST and you can register at https://online.wpcampus.org/.

Much of this discussion included reminiscing on our own computer experiences at the university level with some of us attending before there was a World Wide Web.

The team discussed how universities are embracing WordPress though adoption is sometimes siloed by department and there isn’t always a campus-wide governance or strategy. This is something we touched on in our WP-Tonic interview with WPCampus Founder Rachel Cherry. https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/259-wp-tonic-show-special-guest-rachel-cherry-wpcampus/

Watch on YouTube - https://youtu.be/7FX2BD_Cwjo

Our second story was, Virtual Reality in WordPress: Are You Ready to Give This a Shot?
https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/virtual-reality-in-wordpress-are-you-ready-to-give-this-a-shot/

This one brought debate about the future of virtual reality with Morten laying out a world of virtual and augmented reality that completely removes computers as we know them today and includes overlay information provided in contact lenses, and Adam debunking virtual reality as anything other than a gaming platform.

The roundtable did point out that much of what was called virtual reality in the article, like Google Maps Streetview or a 360 view of a real estate listing isn’t a true VR experience.