We discuss various recent computations that come to bear on the conjectured holographic duality between Vasiliev's theory of 3d higher spin gravity and families of 2d CFTs with W symmetry, at both zero and finite temperature. These rely on novel, purely algebraic methods for computing bulk-boundary propagators for scalar fields in Vasiliev theory. Among other topics to be discussed, our results further clarify the physical content of the term "higher spin black hole" and the nature of the classical limit required for the duality.