Weekend Open Forum: Post SL announcements, events, sites, controversies, insights here (Updated)

You make the Comments, I make the update.

Update, 11/5: Copious conversations--

- Crix Piccard notes the shuttering of AOL/Weblogs Inc's Second Life Insider, and the announcement that it'll be replaced by Massively, Weblogs' new multi-MMO blog.  "I think it could be a sign of the times, SL's media bubble might be ready to pop," Crix wonders.  Gwynneth offers comments and figures, and New World Notes' demographtrix Tateru Nino, who also blogs for SLI, offers her inside perspective: "Yes, SLI was doing really well. Each month was better than the last.  It was time to grow... We chose an avenue we thought was worthwhile..."

- Torley Linden announces the launch of Dazzle, a new Linden project to improve the default user interface's appearance.  Check it out at this link.

- CyFishy Traveler joins the SL blogosphere; Zingy Pastorelli and Zoe Rokocoko recommend The Boathouse on the Oceanside Harbour sim as a community hang-out. 

Comments

[Zingy Pastorelli.]

In your search for real Second Life communities I recommend The BOATHOUSE on Oceanside Harbour. It is easily the most friendly place I have visited and it has a true sense of community.

[Zoe Rokocoko]

I recommend the Boathouse too, very friendly clientele and set of regular visitors. Nice mix of music, all people are welcome.

[Hamlet Au]

Thanks, good tip-- Tateru! (Sends up flare)

[CyFishy Traveler]

I hope this doesn't get me killed...

I've put up a dinky little site about Second Life in hopes that people can get a better feel for it BEFORE they sign up, particularly in terms of All The Cool Stuff I Know Now And Wish I'd Known When I Was Starting Out.

It's still very, VERY much under construction, but I'm starting to get the word out now, in the hopes that having people actually looking at it will motivate me to keep working on it.

Yes, the HTML is ever so ten-years-ago. In part, because I'm hand-coding it in a text editor and that's about as much HTML as I know. But ALSO, as I discovered, because it makes it much more readable if you check it out on the Web tab of my profile. (I've looked at other people's web pages via their inworld profile and damn, it's a pain in the neck sometimes.)

So, um, yeah. Here is is, have a look, am wide open to suggestions, thank you and bless you:

http://cyanidefish.tripod.com/secondlife

[Crix Piccard]

Second Life Insider has shut down, all future SL content will be mixed in with news about "worlds" (read mostly games) on a new blog. This troubles me, I think it could be a sign of the times, SL's media bubble might me ready to pop (see also, the SL Herald coverage of the drastic CSI cutback).

[Hamlet Au]

That's a good point, Crix, but I'm surprised myself, SLI gets good pageviews.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

I'd second Crix's suggestion for a major feature. SLI definitely gets good pageviews... but compared to what?

Take a look at SLI compared to other blogs ran by the same publishers:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.wowinsider.com&site1=www.joystiq.com&site2=www.pspfanboy.com&site3=www.nintendowiifanboy.com&site4=www.secondlifeinsider.com&y=r&z=3&h=400&w=700&range=1m&size=Large&url=wikimediafoundation.org
Bottom line, yes, SLI gets good traffic inside the SLogosphere, but it's hardly relevant when compared to the rest of the gaming market. And if you click on that graphic and look at the history for, say, 6 months or a year, the story is not different, ie. SLI is not suddenly losing traffic, there was even a slight increase recently, but it consistently outperforms all other blogs out from the same publisher, who also have also reached a plateaux (minus some spikes) except for WoW Insider which is still growing...

There might be a story worth telling ;)

[Hamlet Au]

Gwyn darlin that link is cut off, can you repost that URL or as a Tiny URL?

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Whoopsie. There it goes again: http://tinyurl.com/2wun8a

Sorry!

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Gah, TinyURL chokes on the insanely huge URL too!

Let's try this way.

[Hamlet Au]

Very cool, Gwyn. I can never figure out Alexa's page view tracker-- how many are SLI and the others getting?

[Tateru Nino]

Yes, SLI was doing really well. Each month was better than the last.

It was time to grow - and not every direction was available. We chose an avenue we thought was worthwhile, though I know some folks will disagree with us. We expected around 25 people to immediately say "This change sucks, and we're not coming back."

Sorry, guys.

Actually, my major concern was that the obvious place for SL news was on SLI right up until the launch - so, day 1, there just wasn't that much SL content on the new site. We could either short-sheet content on SLI - not good for the readers, or not put much SL content on the new site until the cutover - not good for the read-- wait, what?

A bit of a bind.

Launches are hard. At least we've got all those game contests to distract the gamers while we get SL content firmly established. I'm not sure if we've got any SL prizes in the contest pool. I heard there might be.

[Tateru Nino]

Actually, we're having a bit of a problem with the SLI site right now. Some admin over at AOL seems to have redirected it to Massively without instruction or notification, and gone home for the weekend.

We're trying to get that fixed soonest.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Hmm it's a pity, although I understand the concern of Massively to get as much traffic on Massively as possible. Alas, it's not listed at Alexa yet, so from an external viewer, it's hard to understand if the registration redirection is actually having a positive effect or not. At least, it is properly redirecting to the appropriate sub-section! That's something very nicely done.

Alas, assuming that all past content can indeed be accessed at Massively (it seems so!), and that old links will still work (I've tested a few, and they seem all to work) — redirection will be not so horrible then. Nothing is worse than having search engines with broken links; on the other hand, doing proper redirects might indeed benefit the new brand name for the site!

I guess that the AOL admin did this correctly. At least, so far, I didn't find any broken links!

SLI was indeed my first source of daily information on SL every day. I'm too lazy to set up RSS readers; I counted on SLI's bloggers to read everything about SL every day and post some news on it, it was very very rare they missed anything important, and, if that happened, a quick email to any of the team of bloggers would immediately mean a new article and a fresh update :)

I also hope you continue to post the SL statistics — economics and demographics — on Massively, too. It was my primary source for information on that, too, since it had not only numbers, but short descriptions on what those numbers actually meant (ie. spike today due to the CSI:NY; less L$ transactions because the LindeX was down 4 hours; etc.)

[Hamlet Au]

I think the main challenge with Massively is that there's often little crossover between MMOs in general and Second Life. In my experience, most traditional MMORPGers are totally disinterested in SL or user-created worlds in general. The additional risk is that changing the focus from a single world to many will alienate hardcore fans of all them. I'd have recommended at least concentrating only on user-created worlds, SL, Metaplace, HiPiHi, etc. etc.-- there's over a dozen of them out now or coming soon, so you can't want for content.

Just my take, anyway. AOL/Weblogs has the biggest pageviews/resources of any blog network, so I have to assume they know what they're doing.

[Crix Piccard]

I notice that WoW Insider seems to be staying put.

[Tateru Nino]

We're still posting all the same stuff - statistics, news on faults, news on events, reviews, rambling waffley op/eds - all of that.

And there's more interest across types than you might think. Many SL'ers are also MMO gamers, and we can all learn a thing or two from other virtual worlds, whether it's features, or the way updates, support or communications are handled.

[Torley]

Thrilled to see some familiar and new faces here... feels kind of water-coolery, and I do mean this in a good way. :)

HAI JAMLET,

I wanted to suggest you write about "Dazzle", the forthcoming user interface makeover from Linden Lab, which will pave the way for more flexible changes to skinning the UI. It hasn't really gotten a lot of announcement yet — but you know how I give so much of a damn about what our Second Life community thinks, and definitely wanted to get early feedback. (I'm onboard helping Benjamin Linden + Resident Experience Team with communication.)

We hope to enter a formal First Look after a stretch of weeks, but you can try Dazzle out for yourself via this page:

» http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Dazzle

Your informed opinions are, of course, severely appreciated. And then some.

[Jane2]

I read SL Insider. I looked at Massively and don't have the time or inclination to sift through the to-me irrelevant content for SL posts. "Gaming sites" aren't my thing.

I'll be interested to see how this fares over the longer term.

[Maria Rimbaud]

Speaking of Dazzle, has anyone else noticed that Dazzle Haute Couture/Last Call and ETD, two very high-profile purveyors of SL clothes and hair, seem to have vanished without a trace? They're no longer in Search listings and their sims are blocked. Hm.

Also, I'll third the recommendation for The Boathouse. An excellent spot for dancing, eclectic music, and friendly people.