SL Universe: The Most Popular Site for Second Life Opinion?

Since I'm researching the most influential Second Life blog sites for an upcoming project, I just hit HyperGrid's post about that topic, which in turn sent me searching on SimilarWeb, and to a corollary query: What's the most popular, third party site for Second Life opinion? There I'd say it's not a blog but a messaging board - SL Universe.

According to SimilarWeb, SL Universe gets monthly visits in the low six figures, and that's no surprise. Founded by longtime SLer Cristiano Midnight (who I met in SL way back in my Linden days), it's become so influential even ex-Linden CEO Rod Humble used to get involved there.

That's mostly why SL Universe is so popular with SLers, though according to SimilarWeb, there's another reason:

"Dragon sex toys". Yes. That's the number one organic search keyword that leads people to SL Universe. Whereof one cannot speak but to say WTF, thereof one must be silent.

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Comments

[Ciaran Laval]

I have never seen a reference to Dragon sex toys at SLUniverse and I've seen many an odd conversation there!

[Hamlet Au]

Be that as it may, many folks are sorely searching for dragon sex toys, and coming to SLU to find them!

[Ciaran Laval]

Someone has posted the relevant thread over at SLU, out of public decency, I won't link it!

In all seriousness, SLU prospered when LL started trying to make their own forum something it wasn't.

LL moved away from traditional forum software and those who enjoy forums, largely moved away too.

[scumshine]

I read only good posts, over.

[2014]

SLU, where old bitter oldbies go to rant how great thing could've been before they die. When members who haven't been in SL for years are commenting and giving advice, the forum loses credibility.

[Masami]

That's odd. I was there once and found that they couldn't handle opinions.

But then again, "dragon sex toys" might explain it.

[shirc desantis]

Dragon se x to s". Ye s. That's the number one organic search k eywo rd that leads people to SL Universe. Whereof one cannot speak but to say W TF, thereof one must be silent.

indeed. erm do i get a pony for doing searchy stuffs

[Jess]

SLU, Cool articles also a good example of what all of Prokofy Neva’s personalities are like talking to themselves in one room.

[No thanks]

SLU is a great place if you march in lockstep with the majority. But anyone with an opposing opinion gets shouted down and ridiculed. If you're one of the cool kids then life is great. If you get tagged as an outsider then the swimming pool is suddenly full of hungry sharks.

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Just another day for the hive minded pandering mob of griefer vipers. =^-^=

[Hitomi Tiponi]

There's a message for you here Hamlet - we want to read more stories about Dragon sex toys on NWN!

[Oink]

Those ridiculous Vanity Statistics from HyperGrid Business again! Headshake :P

What’s the top metaverse blog? on Google Trends http://ht.ly/t3O7R

[Ziki Questi]

@Oink: Google Trends measure search terms, not page views. Frequent readers of any site won't be searching for it.

Dragon sex toys? Who knows, Google says someone just reached my site by searching for "abandoned bakery interior." ;)

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Dragons are not happy about this. They would much rather be known for their contributions to society instead of the stereotyping.

They do not have sex with virgins, they eat them like veal. Also they only have sex once every 100 years give or take and their parts do not look like that, or so I'm told.

Besides, the only opinion that matters is NWN.

[Oink]

December 4, 2013 Google Trends Makes Search Data More Useful for Marketers

Luckily for all of us using Google Trends to get by in the wild west of search data, the tool got a major update yesterday. Tapping into the Knowledge Graph, Google Trends data will be reconfigured to make sure you're actually getting data you want to find...

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-trends-update-nj

[Oink]

@ziki questi

Google Trends measures Interest, which coincides with the AIDA concept used in Marketing

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
You can find more in Wikipedia under AIDA (marketing)...

[Oink]

4/26/2013 Big Data Gets Bigger: Now Google Trends Can Predict The Market

Yesterday three economists, (Tobias Preis of Warwick Business School in the U.K., Helen Susannah Moat of University College London, and H. Eugene Stanley of Boston University) published an eye-opening paper that said Google Trends data was useful in predicting daily price moves in the Dow Jones industrial average, which consists of 30 stocks...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidleinweber/2013/04/26/big-data-gets-bigger-now-google-trends-can-predict-the-market/

[Ziki Questi]

@Oink, thanks your posts, which I think may have been directed toward my earlier comment. I work in marketing. Google Trends data reflect the result of searches on Google; they don't tell us anything about the engagement of readership with a particular website or blog, so it's not a tool to use to gauge the relative "importance" or "influence" of different blogs or websites. GT can provide insightful information about *topics* for which people are searching, particularly by showing comparative data, and it can be a very powerful tool for SEO. Even so, last week's Slate article about Google Trends is a good reminder how easy it is to use data to come to the most curious conclusions: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/01/24/facebook_data_scientists_google_trends_study_finds_princeton_is_the_new.html. Also, keep in mind, as Google itself points out, "Trends only analyzes data for popular search terms."

[Adeon Writer]

Is that the term this year? Last year the number one term for SLU was "Nude Skyrim Mod"

And yes, they are random phrases from one-off threads that draw google traffic for months afterward. Then it's funny and people start inserting it at random. :P

I don't think those particular hits stay long though since the site is otherwise unrelated outside of one thread. Thing is, they talk about just about everything over there.

I wouldn't consider myself a regular but I do post regularly.

[Oink]

@ziki quest

Indeed, Popularity (or Interest) is exactly the theme of this article...

[Adeon Writer]

Hamlet, between Robot Furry Sex, and now Dragon Sex Toys, you might have learned a dark secret.

Try not to abuse it.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I don't read/post at SLU for personal reasons. I went to the step of jumbling my password and my email and recovery info so I couldn't go back even if I wanted to.

It does get a lot of traffic. It has a lot of people who are no longer a part of SL, but also many who are still active.

Outside of that anything I had to say about the place is in the past.

I find the official forums and the feeds are actually more relevant these days. But more relevant than any of these is tumblr and plurk - I am not active enough on those, but the things that I see as driving the "SL scenes" all seem to come out of the groups there.
- They're just too "IMVU-like" for me: a certain kind of fashion, a certain kind of pop, a certain kind of look, etc... and while I appreciate how much Plurk and Tumblr do for driving SL relevancy; they're not exactly my scenes.