What's up?

I know I haven't been blogging much lately, due to several circumstances.
But I would like to inform you all that I am still alive and kicking, ;)

I have moved to another SIM from August 1st, and have rented a penthouse on Bahia Beach. This is a very beautiful island with a lot of performances and parties, what was not exactly what I was looking for but, but the friendship I get there can compensate it.;)

It has been approximate one year that I lived on the former Strawberry island from Coolzor Courier. Due to the fact that he sold everything in Second Life, we got a new landlord, with, of course new rules, which is inevitable.

I am preparing my exhibition in the Avatrait gallery for September, that is also why I haven't been posting a lot of pictures lately. As you know, every month, there is an exhibition of one of the members of the Avatrait Gallery. I would suggest to take a look at this month's artist, Keiko Morigi.

To be honest with you all, it is a pleasure to see, that even when I don't blog, I have daily visitors on this blog, which means that I have posted some articles in the past, which interest some people and that is why I intend to get myself together again, and try to post some articles once and a while.

I will try to update the bloghead soon, as my appearance in SL has changed too.
I hope to see you all soon, on my blog or on the grid.;)

New Blogged.com

I was informed that there was a new website of "Blogged.com". I had to check that out of course, and I liked what I saw. It has a clear overview of all possibilities, except that I was looking where to find my blog, was a little bit difficult. I found it under "MMORPG Blog Directory".
As I was ranked with a 8.5 a few weeks ago, I had to see where I was ranked in general.
I can not help it...even when I don't blog I want to be in front...;)
What appeared? I am ranked 6th, out of 92 blogs in this category. After the "Official Linden blog" , "Second Life Herald" and "SLOG" blog, but before "Torley Lives", who is ranked 10th.
I wonder how the blogs were ranked in the first place, but I have to admit that I am flattered, and is in fact a confirmation that I can not stop this blog.
So I ask my dear readers to be patient, until my workload in RL has decreased, so I can start with fresh energy to maintain my position in the virtual world blogosphere.

Rated 8,5 on Blogged.com

I received a note with the info that this blog was rated
by the editors of Blogged.com. To be honest, this could
be another attempt as we know from all the rankings in
the past to get attention and traffic on their blog, but
nevertheless, I am honored to receive such a recognition,
even if it is false.;))

The note said:
"Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given
it an 8.5 score out of (10) in the Entertainment/Video
Games category of Blogged.com.

This is quite an achievement!

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria:
Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design,
and Writing Style.
After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your
site was given its 8.5 score.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,

Amy Liu
Marketing Department
amy@blogged.com
www.blogged.com "

Just a thought

Since the beginning of this year, I have tried to find interesting stories to write, news to cover, events to announce but apparently not with a lot of success due to several reasons. As you all know, my main thing is photography, so I will be focussing myself on that in the near future, and perhaps post from time to time some articles for those who are interested.
My blog will not dissappear, but I will not be blogging so often anymore.
I would like to thank all my visitors, who have supported me over the last year on this blog.
Just keep tuned, and who knows, that I will start again one day.

Time to change....from blogstyle?

I lost something of value.

It was a tool for me, a help for having the latest news, to have an overview of most articles.

Now I have to find another way, to find the news, to find something to blog about, and that is not done in a few days.

So I want to apologize for not having the best articles lately, the most interesting ones, but I am working on it.

Being on the grid only, does not give you the content of the blog every day. You have to work on that, read other articles, surf around the metaverse. And for that, you need time, time that I don’t have…. But I managed it in the past….now I have to find a new method….or…only to post an article when something occurs in my direct neighborhood. But that would mean that there won’t be an article for several days, and I don’t like that at all. I like to blog, and I like that my blog is up to date with the most interesting news, at least what I think that could interest others.

Besides blogging, I take snapshots in Second Life and post process them. This is what I do, and this is what I have learned the past year. Posting my pictures every day on my blog, is not my intention, you have “Flickr” for that. What I am trying to tell is, that I need material to write about, and that I need the time to find this material. Every blogger has his/her way, and there are many possibilities. Only….I have to find the most suitable way for me.

Maybe I will change the way of blogging. More writing about experiences, about myself, Looker that is. But if I write about Looker, it is inevitable that pictures are involved, and looking in the past, those articles were not the most commented, except for a few ones.

Does Looker need to change in 2008? Not only from skin, but also from blogging?

What do you think, what do you want to read?

New challenges in my Second Life

It has been a while that I posted a story of my own, and I thought maybe now is a good time to write about some experiences on the grid.
I have been busy, very busy the past days. Working from some disappointments trough out in some new challenges, which makes life (second one) so much more interesting.
Sometimes life can be strange, one moment you have no expectancies, the other one, you don't know how to manage it all together. And all that can change in just a second.
This blog of mine has definitely his advantages for me. First of all, you meet new people, who are commenting this blog, writing their own blog, me, visiting their blog etc.
Secondly it is a way for me to express myself in another language, that is not my native one, and learn throughout the days, not only the language, but also the applications on the web, which comes with it. It is fun doing that, and I will keep on doing it as long as I am having fun looking for and posting articles.
What gave me another look on all this, is that I was privileged to meet new people lately, and somehow, made me feel good, getting to know these people.
Colleague bloggers, who have the same passion (writing on the blog), and are open to new ideas, that is the only thing what it takes for me to get a new fresh breath in Second Life.
You already could guess it, yes....I am working on a project together with another fellow blogger, and this experience alone, is worthwhile to keep on doing the things that I do.
We have only met each other recently, but I know now, from the few conversations we had, that we can work something out, that will give a new aspect to my work in Second Life, and of course not only mine.
Now, I can only say, wait and see, as I will post about it when it is the time for it. It is still in an early stage and still needs a lot of work and communication to finalize it.

Discovering other artists in Second Life

Thanks to the Cannery Gallery, I discovered some artists, who I did not know before.
In fact this artist's picture is chosen for the same theme in the gallery as mine. I am talking about Tiffany Flintoff. And the picture that is shown is beautiful, it really is.
Now, I was searching for a blog article, when I saw that she offered friendship to me at flickr. So she found me too.
Now, I answered with my friendship, of course, and checking out her other pictures, I admire her skills to post process the pictures.
I leave it up to you what you think about her works, but I know I will be checking her blog and pictures frequently.

Second Life - A Moment of Rest

Initial, Second Life was a perfect alternative for having my thoughts fixated on other things, such as PS, as mentioned previously.
The more I get involved with the pressure of blogging, of uploading pictures to flickr, the more I get stressed.....:-)
Thus it is not a good alternative, let that be an advice to everyone who was still not convinced of it.
After next week, I have a holiday in RL, and this time I will use it to get a moment of rest. Away from stressed Second Life for a few days, away from blogging every day, the hell with the ranking.:-)
And after that, well, we will see........

The frustration of Second Life Rankings

Google’s pagerank, Google Analytics, Technorati stats, Alexa ranking, AdSense account, SLtopsites, topsites etc... People have enough different rankings to keep up with. Knowing that daily updates are important, bloggers often tend to focus more on quantity than quality. This is why a lot of people have started a daily post which has links to recommended blogs. This gives them an easy way to do a daily update, as well as a possibility to give someone else an inbound link, wishing for someone to return the favor, so they can climb even further up the Technorati ladder.
When it comes to pageranking, I am still waiting for my first ranking, not that it is so important, but 0 is kind of low, don't you think?
I even found a new ranking, where I did not know of: Second Life Blog 40.
It speaks for itself that this is a ranking of the 40 best blogs of SL. The only thing I am wondering about is, on what is this ranking based on? It is good to see that there are some friend bloggers in the ranking (apparently I was too, but am now 53th on the ranking) But who is keeping track of these blogs, is it based on content, because, as far as I know, there are not linked to my blog, is it with google analytics? When somebody knows, I would be happy to know too. One remarkable point: The Official Linden blog is number 40.

So the more views you get, the more chance there is that someone would leave a comment. And that is what it is all about. But to achieve that, we have to wait and to try different things, such as subscribing to SLTopsites. This ranking is obviously not loved by all bloggers, yet it gives an opportunity to advertise your own blog to other members and visitors of this ranking page.
You can of course walk on SL with a tag above your head saying that you are a blogger, but to my opinion, subscribing to a blog as SLtopsites is more efficient. :-)
Personally I try, and I say try, to write a quality post , about something I read or saw...., but that ain't always easy.
I must say that reading a blog with quality content, but a pagerank on 0, has more value than one with a higher pagerank but no quality content.
But than comes the question, do we have the time to do what we should do for having our ranking rise, looking for quality and quantity. Do we even have the time to keep it updated?

I am convinced that if someone really likes to blog, they should not pay attention to those rankings but write quality content, and I am sure the viewers will come and leave their comments, but this could take some time. And time is something we all are short of. So we need to spread the word as soon as possible, for not having the idea that we are blogging for ourselves without someone reading your blog.

So now, we are back to the beginning, keeping track of all possible rankings, and therefor trying to write quality stuff, but thinking in the back of our heads on the rankings.

SLBlogmeet June 16th

Yesterday evening there was another blogger gathering at Veyron's. This was also the first time that I could attend the meeting. I was anxious to see all my fellow bloggers, most of them for the first time. So I did pull on my best suit and tp'd me to the place.
It started as a party, went to the bridge of the "Enterprise", cause as you know, the theme was Sci-Fi, and ended as a party at the Holodeck. The music was great, everything was in fact, but I did miss the agenda !?. It was well written on the SL Bloggers Wiki, every point we needed to talk about, but at the end, nothing was discussed, as far as I know at least. So there is still a lot to talk about.....when is the next blogger gathering?;)
I hope that, despise all the efforts that has been done, and I know it is not easy to set a date and time that will suit everyone, at the next blogmeet, there will be a lot more colleagues at the gathering.
Check out all pictures at my flickr stream, and on SL Boggers Wiki.

Blogger gathering

There was a blogger gathering at Zoe's place on Sunday night. It was already for the second time in a few weeks, that a party was set up especially for the bloggers of second life.
Unfortunately I was not able to attend this party, as it was in the early hours, but could already read some stories about the happening on different blogs, thanks to Zoe, Tiana,
Alex and most likely, the others will post a report too, shortly.
Most of the attendees were from overseas, I suppose, as the time was less convenient for the European bloggers, although Vint was there.
I will be there the next time, if only the meeting will be held at a more respectable hour for this side (Europe), what is already promised by Zoe. So there will be more bloggers, and they won't fall asleep.;)

W00t! Boy Bloggers on the block... euhm... grid!

Vint falken wrote yesterday on her blog:W00t! Boy Bloggers on the block ... euhm... grid!
"I have good hopes that ‘the new guys’ will be blogging about things we girls actually care for like (clothing) design, cute Neko’s, animations and poses, building good looking stuff (which doesn’t necessarily needs to be jewelry or guns), guns, scripting (it may be about scripting other things then guns), exciting new Sims filled with adrenaline kicks, the escort business, community happenings and welfare, gigs, SLFlickr, … . Shortly put: everything that our Second Lives revolve around."

We now at least know what is expected from this blog. :)
We will keep that in mind, and try to post interesting material for all readers, male as well as female.