General News

Second Life News Week 29

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I am finding it harder and harder to find interesting news happening in Second Life™. I have a collection of blogs I like. I find that their content is becoming more diverse. Fashion and porn blogs are still focused. Most of the others seem to be losing focus. I feel like the focus I had on developments in SL is harder to maintain.

267 - Helena's Dream
Helena’s Dream

I may write less and build more… which will mean more tutorials. Those are still consistently the most viewed articles on this blog.

Servers

No roll to the main channel this week. The RC channels all get the same package, a maintenance fix with internal simulator fixes… 

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Linden Lab’s Communication Problems

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For years we have in Second Life™ have complained about how poorly Linden Lab communicates with users/customers. Over the last couple of years that has improved. But, there are still areas in which the Lab seriously fails. Daniel Voyager Plurked about Grendel’s Children Saved From Shutdown. This a somewhat common occurrence. I’ve long thought anything … Read more

Who’s number is on the bathroom wall?

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For some time a few of the Second Life™ related blogs have been on about Second Life’s reputation and whether it s a bad or good girl rep and if bad, what has to be done about it. But, Canary Beck posits Second Life has little if any reputation outside the user community.  Canary and I both recently looked at the search engines to see what they might show people searching for Second Life and I virtual worlds. The results are pretty much sexless. But, today Hamlet is still on about how bad the reputation is because of a post on Reddit… really!?!

Baby, when you finally get to love somebody, guess what, it's gonna be me..
Baby, when you finally get to love somebody, guess what, it’s gonna be me..

Admittedly Reddit gets a lot of use. But, what is a lot of use? How do we compare that to other services and social sites? First, there is a Redditmetrics.com that tells us something about which sub-reddits have the most subscribers.  There is a way to see how many of those subscribers are actually reading a Reddit page. (Traffic) One can also look to see how many are reading a given sub at the time you look. (Notice in the right column of a sub-reddit.) 

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Second Life: Too Little Sex?

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Canary Beck has done a great research piece on whether or not Second Life’s reputation is that of a home for sexual perverts or not. Her research provides objective data on how Second Life™ is perceived by the Google Search Engine, which is about as objective a source as one can find.

See: Should We Worry That Outsiders Associate Second Life With Adult Content?

Girls with attitude
Girls with attitude by Cherry mood, on Flickr

The short answer is, no. The research and proof is rather convincing, but not totally definitive. It is the best I’ve seen to date. I think it is worth a read and it got me thinking. As you read you’ll be exposed to the concepts of confirmation bias and illusory correlation as a possible explanation for why some believe Second Life has a reputation problem.

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SL Bits Week 27

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Second Life: Basilique Pride

Second Life™ resident Canary Beck notes in her blog that the Basilique region is featured in 4 of the ‘What SL Means to me…’ videos. That is pretty neat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqdodqHJ-AA

More videos showing Basilique are included in Canary’s article.

Oz Linden Interview

Ciaran Laval has a summary of the video of Jessica Lyons, Oz Linden and Saffia Widdershins. See: Oz Linden Talks Second Life At SL12B.

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Pete and Xiola Linden Interview

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Canary Beck has an article: Pete Linden Shares Linden Lab’s Sophisticated Approach To Marketing Second Life At SL12B. It is based on a video of Pete and Xiola at SL12B’s Meet the Lindens. She is making the point that the communities idea of the Lab not marketing Second Life is simply wrong. But, she makes no comment on how well, or not, they are marketing SL.

Cozey Contemporary in monotone
Cozey Contemporary in monotone by Wendz Tempest, on Flickr

I suggest reading Canary’s article. I think it gives a good idea of what the Lab says it is doing. But, like many things what we think we are accomplishing and what we are accomplishing are often different. Looking in the search engines on ‘fashion’… it just ain’t happening. 

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