Divisive SL Secrets Gossip Blog Relaunching as Virtual Secrets Site for Multiple MMOs - But Not Due to Recent Second Life Ban, Insists Co-Founder

Notable update to the fate of SL Secrets, the user-submitted gossip/slam site which was so divisive and upsetting to many in the SL community, Linden Lab apparently banned its owners from Second Life entirely. In a recent update, co-founder Kesseret announces SL Secrets will soon become Virtual Secrets: "This leaves us open [to[ the opportunity to expand into various other MMOs or virtual worlds that we seem interested in expanding into," she writes there. "This domain will redirect to the new domain when the change happens."

Kesseret tells me this rebranding is not due to Linden Lab hitting them with a trademark infringement suit -- "Nope", she says, when I asked if they received a legal notice -- nor is it due to her recent banning in Second Life:

"[The change] was being thought of before I realized I was banned," she says. "I was actually 'on hold' mid-June according to my e-mails. Being banned just made it easier to give up the SL part. We do not have a Second Life presence anymore."

The real motivation, she says, tracks with a larger trend of other SL-centric media properties away from a strict Second Life focus:

"Seeing Cris move SL Universe to Virtual Verse was another push towards it," Kess tells me. "We might want to expand into virtual worlds or MMOs we are interested in, and having SL in the name doesn't fit with that. Really boring stuff."

She still disputes SL Secrets has much reach as a Second Life-only blog, anyway:

"[A]fter seeing Seraphim's stats you can see why I didn't (and still don't) think we were the most widely read/influential SL-centric blog, aside from the fact that 'no one reads it'."

For the record, in terms of raw pageviews, SL Secrets' known traffic still places it among the top 3 or 5 known Second Life blogs (depending how you define "blog"); then again, to her point, "widely read" is not necessarily the same as "influential", or vice versa. 

For now, at least, she says SL Secrets readers, along with her and her co-founder Lourdes Denimore, have been taking this change well:

"Change is the only constant in life," as she puts it. Then adds, perhaps sardonically: "The five folks that read us have commented and been positive."

Comments

[Ryan Schultz]

First SLUniverse and now SL Secrets ... Definitely a trend developing here, to move away from SL and cover all the newer virtual worlds.

[Clara Seller]

A few years ago, I always thought that Second Life's end would look like a mass exodus to a new world. Now it feels more like mass extinction.

I'm skeptical that there's enough commonality to hold these diversification models together. It seems like they are just extending a big net and hoping there's something out there to catch.

When you start to see successful people jumping out of tenth floor windows toward nothing, it's not entirely crazy to think there's fire up there.

When SL goes down the drain, it's going to take a huge amount of imaginary money and hope down the drain with it. Whatever worlds exist in that aftermath, are going to have to deal with the "Remember what happened to Second Life" reality.

Small businesses go quickly and quietly. Now you see it, now you don't. I'm starting to think that this will be the real foundation challenge that the next generation of virtual worlds will have to contend with. Maybe all of this technology floundering is the easy part.

[Adeon Wroter]

These new virtual worlds don’t need the SL userbase moving to them to be successful. They are attracting their own new users who have never used SL and doing just fine at it.

[Penny Patton]

Second Life's "end" was never going to be a sudden thing. That was the mistake most SL users made both when predicting SL's end and when dismissing the doomsayers. In a very real sense, SL ended years ago in the same way AOL, Activeworlds, There and MySpace have. The only difference is that none of Second Life's competition quite scratches that same itch, which has left SL in this kind of limbo.

I'd go so far as to say that LL could turn things around and breath a second wind into SL, if they weren't still so stuck in the mindset that caused them to lose their success in the first place.

[Clara Seller]

Adeon Wroter has sparked my curiosity. I'm definitely missing something. What new virtual worlds are really hot right now and have an active user base and revenue numbers that is blowing SL out of the water? I wish I had the capability to attract SL customers that nobody in the world wants. I'm still stuck in the old days where dedicated tens of thousands of people spending millions and millions of dollars is something I could work with in business and still not find them so disposable. What is the cut off point that these hot new worlds are using to weed out undesirables? Any one who spends less than $10,000 per year?

I agree with Penny Patton. I think LL could turn things around for SL, especially if they engaged their customers.

[Hamlet Au]

"What new virtual worlds are really hot right now and have an active user base and revenue numbers that is blowing SL out of the water? "

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2018/03/21/young-developers-earned-over-30m-on-roblox-in-2017-the-gaming-s

Young Developers Earned Over $30M On Roblox In 2017, The Gaming Site Kids Visit More Than YouTube

Social gaming platform Roblox offers an opportunity to kids and teenagers that few other platforms do - the ability to easily make and share games with the wider community, and make money in the process. In 2017, the company paid out over $30 million to those young developers on its platform.

According to Roblox, over 2 million kids and teenagers created a Roblox experience in 2017 using the company's studio tools - up from about one million in 2016. Those 2 million young developers created 11 million titles, 1500 of which got more than 1 million users to visit... In December 2017, over 50 million kids and teens visited Roblox, each visiting the platform over 20 times during the month. That's more times than they on average visited YouTube, Netflix, and other platforms.

[SamanthaPrater Resident]

The Site's actually considerably Illegal defamation and shouldn't be welcome at all.people legally can sue for false defamation, slander, they use it to doxx private information, hurt, and what's it gonna actually take for people to realize it could lead into a bad situation?

gossip is only fun and games until life is taken, my dudes.

sites like this cause gossip and people too try and hide, they attack them until they leave because they have no defense. Where did the good creators go? The Virtual-Secrets.Com Website rumors took them. They shouldn't be allowed to back seat moderate LindenLab.

They aren't them.

For years I've been harassed due to the public Aisling blog issue; lied about, slandered, hurt, and more and its escalated because I'm the ONLY ONE caring that a gossip site is insulting someone who clearly doesn't want the drama.

They released Doxxed information on me, and I'm doing this to make sure MY Sanity is protected.

guys. you really should fight back, if you find it annoying as all hell that they think it's okay to disturb in world peace. Kess isn't even supposed to have this.

after dealing with my own false slander, edited profiles; edited notecards, edited videos, and mistreatment by them I Whoised their website. it is NOT Illegal; DOXXING IS.

[email protected] <-- is a direct link to report them. they shouldn't have a right to be slandering virtual reality or not; this is gossip and it's gone too far in my case, for protection.

guys. I'm just a roleplayer, I have been trying to warn you for years, this is going to be a thing that gets WORSE.

do something so I can have peace of mind?

[click on here]

Thank you very much for sharing this very useful information,