Second Life Bloggerparty

Should you, fellow and sister bloggers, not yet know about the bloggerparty, read the flyer, made by Vint, who will host, together with Codie, this time.
Theme is : "Robots"

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.

New Bloggers

I am glad to say that I have add two new bloggers on my favorite links.
Sand Posthorn, with her blog Lost in-world & Staggering Nekos, has a nice view on the daily happenings in Second life. She has a talent of writing the right words and sentences, in short stories, which makes it interesting to read. Thanks Sand, for joining the blogworld.
The second one is Tymmerie Thorne, with her blog Girl Wonder Speaks. Her stories about her whereabouts in Second Life are most amusing. She is looking for a real job to make some Lindens (who's not?;)) in SL, and willing to go far...
But the main reason why I picked her site to put in my favorite list is because she has described my blog just as it is: Photos & Insightful commentary. Maybe I should take this description and put it in the header of my blog. Thank you Tymmerie.;))

We have a winner!

We have a winner for the Second Life Group Logo Contest, unfortunately it wasn't me.;)
Congratulations to Vint, as she is also the professional one amongst us, and her design is indeed the best one, no doubt.
I was the runner up, which makes me quiet happy, although there was nothing to earn for the second place.;))
Thanks to all my voters!!
The complete results can be seen on Zoe's blog.

SL Blogger Logo contest

Just a small reminder. Voting for this logo can only be done until September 16th, 12.00 PM SLT, so hurry up, and don't forget to vote for this. Unfortunately only for second life bloggers.;))

"Voting for the best SL Bloggers Logo is now open for members of my Second Life Bloggers Group.

I'll accept votes via IM, notecard, and email zoeconnolly (AT) gmail (DOT) com"

SL Blogger Logo

Initially, I was not planning of submitting a logo design for the contest of the Second Life Bloggers, because I am a photographer, and not a graphic designer, although some would say that all photographers are graphic designers. But I had an idea, and thought it would be nice to go for it. Why not?
I had three major thoughts for this design. First thought is that we, bloggers, are sending a message to the world. Therefore I picked the signal that we know from the grid, when we use Voice. I had to change the color, for not making it too bright.
Second thought is that we all write, so a pencil is obvious.
The third thought is that all the bloggers are posting about Second Life, so I used that logo in the background. As many other, not official sites, are using the logo of SL, I think we also can use it for this purpose. We are not stealing a logo, we only use it, as it is the base where all this started. Without SL, we, and certainly me, would never have posted through a blog. (Never say never again;))
The logo will be displayed at Zoe Connolly' place, and all bloggers can vote for the best logo.
"Group members will vote on the winner. Contest Entries will be displayed at the new Connolly Telegraph and Second Life Bloggers Headquarters in Antiquity Cove. Click here for the SLurl to Zoe's parcel in Antiquity Cove."

What is happening with the SL bloggers?

I have been posting about it some times already, and it keeps coming back. The pressure is apparently too high for some of us. As Veronique nicely put in a comment: another one bites the dust....
For the past months I had to delete several blogs from my favorite links. And I did not notice it before I went to look for it. So, no blog, no article, no goodbyes, nothing.
I know it is difficult, I know you all (you bloggers) think nobody is interested in what you write, but that is not true. There are some people who are interested, maybe only a few, but that is enough to keep the spirit alive. If you have something to share, why not share it through your blog.
You started a blog, so we assume you like to blog, to write articles, you like to tell the world what you are thinking about something. And that is a good thing. I am over it now. I know what my interest are with this blog. And I will keep blogging, as told in previous posts.
But I would like that others do the same. Why did I put a link on my blog? Because somehow, I found they had something to tell, and I was reading their blogs as well.
And why did they not tell their readers they were going to stop? Did they leave SL for ever. Did they just stop the blogging?
It is not because I have someone in my links, that the writer is also in my friendslist in Second Life, as Tiana Meriman also was wondering about offering friendships to one other. She also have changed her point of view concerning blogging, and it did become her well, at least I think so.
So I would like to ask to my readers, if you know what happened to Bailey Toland, Jooney Jatho and Tameryn Banshee, please let us know.

Regarding Looker's Frustration

Some days ago, I posted an article, "The frustration of Second Life Rankings", and while surfing the blogs, I stumbled on this one from Dolmere Talamasca.
It is a very good analysis on my post of how a blogger feels about his blog. And frankly, I am quiet happy, reading his post on this article.
It convinced me even to go on with my blog, where I had, the past few days, the feeling of quitting.
I will keep posting articles, whatever comes into my mind, and what I think is interesting to share.
I will not have, other people tell me what to do, as it will only strengthen my thoughts, that the posts are not good enough, and to be honest, I don't care anymore, as I know I have now a public who like to visit my blog from time to time, maybe not regularly, but that will grow.
So, thank you Dolmere, and thank you all, for reading my blog, and , even if you are not commenting, I know you are there.

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.

What to do when you don't have Sci-Fi clothing?

The last few days were a little bit boring on Sl for me.(yes it can be boring too, especially when we are talking about shopping) ;)

As I will have no time this week, for having a nice outfit at the blogger gathering next Saturday, I had to look for clothes and stuff real soon. It became even a bit stressed, as we had again the usual lag situations in Second Life. At the time I logged in for the first time , back in January, there were about 25.000 avatars on line every evening. Now a days, you will find more than 40.000 on line. No wonder we have some lag issues at some sims, not to mention the “pose ball issue” that I have experienced so far.;)

The first day that I was looking for some Sci-Fi stuff, I ended at a Star Trek store. Outside there was a nice USS Enterprise, but beside from that I did not find anything that could help me.

Going through the search bar, was not a real help either, as most of the time it did not work.

Next stop was another store, where, according the information, you would be able to find some clothing and weapons. I do not remember the name of the place, but I did not find anything useful.
From there I moved on to a store, where I suddenly “overheard” two avatars in their conversation, talking about another one; they mentioned a name, that was quiet familiar to me, so I went towards them and simply asked if they were talking about a friend of mine, who I did not see for some time now, because of the different time zone we are living in. She lives in New Zealand.

Can you imagine what a coincidence it is, to meet people inworld at a certain location in Second Life, who knows a friend of yours, among 40.000 others?

They were indeed good friends of that person, so we had a little chat, and there went the time that I was suppose to spend on finding Science Fiction stuff.

Okay, so I had to find the stuff another day….I thought.

But as usual, as soon as we were on the grid, all the notes came in, that we had to read, and delete, or accept. And then the IM’s from friends, the tp’s, and of course the daily SL problems. (beware of tomorrow’s release!)

Fortunately I stopped that day in the Belgium sim, where I met Pieter again. He was so kind to help me on the issue. And while trying things out, we had in fact a lot of fun.

So finally, I found something to wear, but have to admit, the next time, I take a girlfriend with me shopping, they buy a lot easier.

The next days, will be very quiet on this blog, as I am abroad for a couple of days, and will not have enough time to post pictures or stories.

But after Saturday, you can be sure of it, you will find a full report with pictures on the blogger gathering.

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.