Yesterday’s SL Bloggers party & auction was just awesome. My admiration - as usual, btw - for leading lady Veyron Supercharge and her side kick Tiessa Montgolfier. Where Jene Tempura was the best selling male avatar - more than 20k L$ - both Zoe & Codie broke SL Blogger sales records with dazzling amounts such as 50,000L$/blogger. But congratulations to all who had the nerves to get on that auction platform!

How did I do? First, I should mention, I bought myself two SL blogger slaves: Mickie Nikolaidis - which besides being utterly cute stays a mystery to me still, can anybody get me some linkage for ‘micky nikolaidis’? - and well known blogger Rheta Shan. I lost bids on amongst others Jene Tempura and Nadine Nozaki. Where Mickie will be used as SL photography slave, Rheta was donated to Mistress Codebastard Redgrave.

And whom did I went up with? Well, I’m delighted happy to tell that I may now - for a short while - call Her Royal Red Highness my Mistress, and Rheta Shan, Gabby Panacek, Marx Dukek and Jessyka Richard my sisters. Although… I always did want a brother! ;) Now just to find - non-sexual, I did put down some limits - ways to keep the Mistress happy and proud of me!

Best outfit award - which has no prize attached - goes to Mr Keeme Brown for his lobster attached to ****. He & his team also get the ‘best totally silly but hilarious entertainment on voice’ award. Regardless if you won a slave, got sold, met new people, or bumped into old ones again, I think we can all agree that this SL blogger’s party was a huge success and we should do this monthly again. Who’s up for organising the next one?

Tags: codebastard redgrave, sl bloggers, sl blogmeet, veyron supercharge
Categories: SL Blogs, Vint Falken
3 Comments »

As communicated by Miss Veryon on Google Docs for immediate release:

When: Saturday September 7th, 1pm SLT until we pass out
Where: Sierra Nevada Sim (TP)

Tired of the same old usual party? People showing in some unusual costume or outfit, everyone commenting on how lovely they look. How about something different? :D

Mistress/Master Ball (subs invited too)

Theme: Mistress/Master Ball - submissive’s can come too… :D If you’re not “into” D/s, then come in your favorite kinky wear for fun.
Rules: Things have to stay like movie R rated at most. If you’ve seen an R rated movie lately, that covers a lot of ground…. Some area will be provided for extra curricular activities.

SL Blogger Auction

Now for the fun part, a submissive auction. Not one, but two of them. First auction will start at 2pm SLT. Second auction will start at 7pm SLT. You can be in both auctions should you choose to be. The winner gets the slave for 24 hours (if that’s 1 RL or SL day that’s between the two avies). Any limits the sub has must be stated before the auction starts. No SL TOS violations (you know what that means) are allowed. As part of terms the sub can agree for the time to start after the party or during it. Starting price for all auctions is L$500. The auctioneer will take a 25% commission from the winner, and the sub will get the rest. While the auction is going on, the auctioneer is the the sub’s dom and must be obeyed.

Subs who will be auctioned should report to the auctioneer 30 minutes prior to their auction and be prepared to be available for viewing. Comments from the peanut gallery are welcome during the auction.
Doms who wish to volunteer to be auctioned off - for a good cause - will be given preferential treatment, but once you start, you have to finish, and you are bound in good faith to follow through.
Anyone who is not a dom or sub and wishes to be auctioned off may do so, but should understand - uh - what they’re getting into… :D

If you want to be auctioned off, you need to IM Veyron Supercharge or email her at veyron.supercharge at gmail dot com before the party. Note which slot or slots you want to be in. If you plan to attend as a bidder also email or IM as a courtesy so we can gauge how much interest there is.

Try to wear a group tag that lets people know if your a dom, sub or undecided… :)

P.S. Rumour has if there is a good response, several well known bloggers might be up for auction….

Tags: sl bloggers, sl blogmeet, veyron supercharge
Categories: SL Blogs
3 Comments »

Some of my fellow bloggers seem to have thought it was midnight, but for me it was a lovely summer day’s afternoon:

The monthly Blogmeet at Tymmerie Thorne’s place! Yeey!

The turn up was awesome, the music stream rumoured to be good, my crashes were frequent and the grilled mouse with some left overs from the chocolate wrestling pit tasted well.

I kicked Mr. Mariner’s ass chocolate-wrestling - thank you Miss Diva for chairing your great strategy: “Just hit the UP arrow a lot”, I finally got to meet Rosie Barthelmess, hung out with Timothy at the camp fire, saw Crap defeat gravity on a dear - poor dear - … . Shortly summarized: it was a whole lot of Rosie fun!

More photographs in my SL Bloggers meeting at Tymmerie Thorne’s flickr fotoset, machinima by Niki Dreamscape, a write up by mister ArminasX and I’m sure there are more to come. See you next month?

VintFalken’s Second Life blogmeet @ Tymmerie’s photoset

Tags: sl bloggers, sl blogmeet
Categories: SL Blogs
7 Comments »

Sunday was Second Life Blogmeet hosted by GoSpeed Racer-day and this meeting up at Sailor’s Cove was - as the lady says -, a success. I ended up staying waaay longer than I planned, IM’ing with people I talk not enough to on ‘regular’ days, getting to know new blogger’s, and doing all kind of crazy stuff.

Most in-theme Blogger and Flickerite was probably Mylena Aquitaine, who with the catfish-look took ‘nautical’ to a whole new level. She stood and danced bravely: defeating lag and ignoring all sushi-remarks. Alhough I have just meagre building skills, the lady deserved a decent fish tank, I thought. And in the end, well, she makes the whole bowl look good. ;) Runner up was probably our own personal mermaid that Veyron became for the occasion. A close match with Mr. Fugazi’s penguin.

New bloggers? Yes, as always people I did not meet in SL - or not even read about - showed up. Amongst others:

1. Miss Pia Qi from the ‘Silks Caravanserai‘. No need to say, it’s all - or a lot - about lovely Silks?
2. Tymmerie Thorne from Girl Wonder Speaks - she writes about the Blogmeet here in ’seamen all over the dancefloor’ -, pointed out to me by Casius Masala (his Flickr stream).
3. Sofian from Second Life Sofian, who seems to be in the assumption I ate the fish. Well, I did not! Really! Honest! I like the fishies! ;)

And then there were also the ‘old SL bloggers fossiles’ present: Miss Zoe Connolly, Her Red Hawtness Codie, the lovely Lillie Yifu, Mr Wrath Paine, … . Noticeably missing from this Second Life Blogmeet were Miss Myg and Mister Alex. They claim illness as an excuse.

And we did not even go home empty handed: during the late hours, Mister Crap Mariner gave out clockworks and wind-up’s for all who favoured one. Yeey! I now feel fully automated and even more cute! ;) And Mr. Popinjay took me a lovely photograph. I look like one of the though, film noir girls here, no?

Other write-ups of this super-fun SL Blogmeet:

1. Arminus X
2. Elusyve Jewell
3. Ravishal Bentham
4. … ?

Tags: sl bloggers, sl blogmeet
Categories: Blogroll, SL Blogs
6 Comments »

Having an RSS - or Atom, whatever you prefer - feed on your blog is a great thing:

1. People can subscribe to you feed so they do not need to check your blog, Flickr account, … themselves. Their feedreader will notify whenever a new post appears.
2. You have a ‘basic’, stripped down content to start with that you can ‘call to’ from anywhere and that even text browsers can chew.
3. Others may use this feed to spread the your word and display it on their sites so it’s even more accessible to others.

Today, I want to talk about number 3, websites that are using your feed (and thus content) to feed it to others: web (feed) aggregator sites. Using your feed, those sites display parts of your blogposts or even the complete post.

Are feed aggregator sites a good thing?

Yes and no. Yes if they drive traffic to your blog and/or help you to get your words out and heard. No, if the web aggregator just ’steals’ your content. Examples of this are: not linking back to the original blogpost, feeding lots of ads with it, using your content because they do not have any content of their own on a commercial website, … .

Re-chewing? Is that allowed?

Depends. Basically, what you write is yours - except if you ‘took’ it from someone else, that is. They may use parts of it and/or temporarily display it IF they state their source, but in no way they are allowed to take the complete content and just post in on their website permanently.

It is possible though, to apply a CC license to your blog and/or it’s feed. For instance, my blog has a CC attribution non-commercial license, which means that they may use it if a.) they state they fetched it from my blog and b.) they do not have commercial motives.

A message often seen on blog feeds is ‘This RSS Feed (or Atom) is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement‘, and yes, this is true.

Feed aggregators for Second Life

As far as I know - and not counting the rubbish Sweet Second Life is - there are three services that particularly re-chew feeds concerning Second Life:

1. The Planet @ World of SL
2. Yolto
3. Grid.iheartsl.com

Planet.worldofsl.com

The most famous one is probably ‘The Planet’, located at planet.worldofsl.com. At the moment this Second Life news aggregator ran by Tao Takashi syndicates more than 120 Second Life related blogs. They list the articles most recently appeared and when there are ones items, the old articles disappear. Good stuff when bored, or when digging for random information on Second Life.

Not syndicated by the Planet yet? Drop Mr. Takashi an e-mail and I’m sure he’ll add you.

Grid.iheartsl.com

Another feed aggregator for Second Life is ‘grid.iheartsl.com’, one that I only recently noticed in my ‘uncommon feed uses’ on feedburner. Although it displays my entries and lists me as a ‘contributer’, I’m rather sure I never asked them to syndicate me. They also ‘keep’ the syndicated content: old news does not instantly disappear when newer one arrives. The do link back to the appropriate blogpost.

Upon clicking ‘about’, I find a blank WP page: no contact information is provided. Registrar for the domain name iheartsl.com: c/o IHEARTSL.COM , P.O. Box 821650, Vancouver, WA 98682 US.

I’m really wondering what they are planning to do with my content and why they want to maintain anonimity that badly. At least they could have supplied some means of contacting them, be it in real or virtual world? I contacted them by means possible, asking for more information on this and the spin-off fashion.iheartsl.com. Wonder if they will reply.

Apparently Melanie Kidd is behind this one. She wants to replace planet.worldofsl.com - as Tao Takashi is presumed missing in action. Strangely enough, Tao is not missing in action, and unlike the Planet, I Heart SL does archive our content. Until I hear more on the motives of this Second Life aggregator, or Miss Kidd fixes the archiving, I want to opt ‘out’.

Update on IheartSL’s feed aggregator: 

Although defending the archiving by saying ‘people asked for it’ - well, I did not - and the anonymous domain registration with ‘look at how easy Vint can find out the info’ -, the latter I might have accepted if they from starters provided decent contact information on the site, Melanie Kidd did react to this blogpost: just not here. *rolls out, nice how they just assume you’ll find out using technorati or whatever*

Grid.IheartSL.com now has a FAQ with contact information. Information about opting in (and out):

How do I opt-in or opt-out? (from iheartsl.com’s feed aggregator/syndication)

Having your blog added to or removed from our feed is easy! Simply send us an email at iheartsl@gmail.com and include your blog name, URL, feed URL, avatar name (optional), and e-mail address (optional).

They also saved me the trouble of having to e-mail them asking to remove my feed from the aggregator. I do find some email or IM notification on that would have been appropriate, although I’m glad I’ll stay ‘opted out’ until they get rid of the archiving thingie. Which they are not planning to do anywhere soon.

Yolto.com

Now, this is a confusing one! Yolto’s main page has four tabs:

1. Pay - They Yolto on-line card. Commercial stuff, to be sure about.
2. Get payed - Not working!
3. Learn - Google custom search
4. People - A very dubious page, syndicating my content back to December 18th 2007. Other blogs syndicated and archived: Smiley Barry’s, Dusan Writer’s, VirtuallyBlind, CodeBastard Redgrave’s, Are We Not Men, Dolmere’s, … . Actually, they syndicate and archive almost all on virtual worlds.

Hiding behind a mission statement that says ‘we help people to express themselves‘, they are _definitely_ a commercial service, trying to sell their ‘Yolto’ pay-card and stealing content to look more interesting. So.. euhm.. can someone prep me a cease and desist letter for copyright infringement to send to them? :D Arranged without the cease and desist letter. Thx. =)

What can you do to prevent abuse of your feed & content?

1. Put a copyright message on your feed. Yeah well, does not help much, but you may include a link to your blog, so if a person stumbles over it on an aggregator that’s a ‘mean one’, they at least know where the feed comes from and who’s the author. (Lazy WordPress user go here.)
2. Only display a part of your content on the feed. Most blog services (WordPress definitely) allows this. If not, you can always use feedburner to burn your feed and set a max. count of words displayed there. I do not like this technique though, as I find it rather annoying to see the ‘click here to read more’ messages. Usually, regardless how interesting the blogpost may be, the story ends at that link for me. ;)

Feel like you missed a few steps? I’ve written a post on helpfull apps for Second Life bloggers a while ago.

Tags: blogtools, sl blogs
Categories: SL Blogs
14 Comments »

Zoe Connolly’s looking for a victim with blood type 0 a host (or hosts) for the next Blogger Party. Now, why is hosting a SL Blogger Party so much fun?

1. You get to pick the location.
2. You get to pick the strippers.
3. You get to pick the DJ.
4. You get to meet a lot of kewl, interesting and hawt Second Life Bloggers. Oh, and Veyron too! *ducks for incoming fire*
5. You get to tell Prok she’s not invited.
6. You get to pick the theme. (Who says webpolls can’t be tricked? ;))
7. You get a lot of attention.
8. You get to spend a lot of time setting the whole thing up.

Past hosts, did I miss something?

If you feel a bit insecure, or not sure anybody will attend if you are hosting, feel free to pick a co-host. And drop me an IM too, I have the neatest idea for an invitation-system. And, Smiley, no! We are not keeping this one on the Teen Grid. Sorry.

Zoe’s original lines:

If anyone would like to host the next Second Life Bloggers party, please let me know in the next few weeks.
I’m thinking we could use a party in February or March depending on host/hostess schedule , party theme selection, etc….
SLBloggers parties are usually held on Sundays .

Tags: sl bloggers
Categories: SL Blogs
8 Comments »

Wondering how much Second Life sites are represented in the dmoz listing aka open project directory - I had to be there for other reasons - I went to Google’s Directory. To my surprise, the open project directory and thus also Google says that there exist only 50 sites on Second Life?!? That few, you say? Yes, indeed, there are more: I forgot the mention the 18 corporations and the 4 that handle on subjects such as FAQ, tutorials and Help.

In the Google Directory, where the dmoz listings are ranked according to pagerank, I’m in the top 20. Woot! Although with only 74 sites, that might not be such an enormous achievement. ;)

What surprises me most though, is that under the ‘Corporate’ listings no such companies as Rivers Run Red, The Electric Sheep, Crayon, etc can be found. Those ‘Second Life devoloping’ companies constantly tell us that web 2.0 and the internet highway - be it the virtual reality part of that road or not - is the route to take to business and marketing succes. Yet, they themselves fail at the basic duty of submitting their websites to what is to be become the yellow and white pages of our so-called digital future. Also the SL Bloggers are hardly represented in the listings.

What is dmoz, you say?

The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.

ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings. Listings on a similar topic are grouped into categories, which can then include smaller categories. ODP data powers the core directory services for many of the Web’s largest search engines and portals, including NetscapeAOL Search, Google, and Alexa. As of September 8, 2006 the ODP listed 313 English-language Web sites that use ODP data as well as 238 sites in other languages.[7] However these figures do not reflect the full picture of use, as those sites which use ODP data without following the terms of the ODP license are not listed.

I want to be listed on dmoz too!

As more and more search engines and other traffic generators are trusting on the OPD database, I can understand. So now you’ve decided to spend half a minute of your time on submitting your site to dmoz, how do you do that?

1. Check if you’re not already listed on dmoz by searching your site on dmoz.org. If it’s already there, well, you’re done submitting. If not, proceed to step two.
2. Find the appropriate category to submit your site to. If you are reading this article, that is most probably Computers: Virtual Reality: Multi-Users Systems: Second Life. If you are Natalia Zelmanov you might want to go with ‘tutorials’ as subcategory, and if you run some kind of Second Life business or RL to SL business you go with the ‘companies’ subcategory. For the Frenchies, Dutchies, Germanies, Spaniesh and Italiesh, if you have a website regarding Second Life in your native language, you can drop the site in those sub categories.
3. Find the ’suggest URL’ button on the appropriate category page. Or for the lazy ones that want to quick-submit, press here.
4. Fill in data, read the guidelines, fill in some more data, decipher captcha, fail at that, refresh page, fill in captcha, et voila… it’s done.
5. Await inclusion in the open directory.

Top-5 of Shame for not submitting to dmoz

Really, if you preach new media, you should have snapped away from SLex - or PS -, lifted the lazy metaversed ass and submitted the website!

1. Metaversed - ahead of the virtual curve? u’re sure of that?
2. Zoe Connolly - SL bloggers powerhorse, needs presence on dmoz.
3. planet.worldofsl.com - Now, really?!
4. The Electric Sheep Company - Half-guilty only, OnRez is listed.

The honorable mention for not being listed goes to Prokofy Neva.

Smart Submitters

If I already knew of the existence of these sites or projects, they get an asterix. If for any reason I dislike them, they get a strike trough. Listings ranked according to Google Pagerank.

Second Life companies

1. Reuters - http://secondlife.reuters.com/ *
   Company portal. Offers news, videos about first and second life news and statistics from their island.
2. Vstex - http://www.vstex.net
   Offers scripting and stock exchange services.
3. Advanced Virtual - http://www.advancedvirtual.com
   Provides strategic consulting and practical resources to corporate and academic clients setting up a presence in the game.
4. Trade Lindens - http://www.tradelindens.com
   Offers to buy and sell linden dollars. Funds delivered in game within 15 minutes.
5. Meme Science LLC - http://www.memescience.com
   Development firm that provides metaverse building and scripting services and metaverse statistics with an emphasis in the Second Life Platform.
6. Isle of Wyrms - http://www.isleofwyrms.com/ *
   Offers to adopt a dragon and follow it from the birth to the grown age.
7. Nb Horizons - http://www.nbhorizons.com
   Offers a service to businesses and organisations that wish to create a corporate presence within the game.
8. Hosoi Estates - http://www.sl-estates.com/
   Offering design and building services for businesses in-world. Includes client list, products available and company profile.
9. Citrus Virtual Ltd - http://www.citrusvirtual.com/
   Content design and creation consultancy for the game. Offers to design uniques virtual environments.
10. Terra Bella - http://www.terrabella.co.uk
    Offers custom terraforming, design services and ready-made raw terrain files.
11. Ikon Metaverse - http://www.ikonislands.com
    Provides islands to rent for personal or business use.
12. Blue Fusion - http://www.bluefusionsl.com
    Jazz club. Promote artists and music in the game.
13. Phillip Stonewall - http://phillip-stonewall.de/
    Escort and architect. Presentation of its realizations.
14. Luna Bliss - http://www.lunabliss.us/
    Offers design and sim building services. Information, projects and contact.
15. TheSLAgency - http://www.theslagency.com/
    Offers in-world brand marketing and event planning services. Includes services, portfolio, and press.
16. SL Realty - http://www.asecond-life.com
    Helps peoples to find a land to buy or rent in the game.
17. Devonshire Designz - http://www.devonshiredesignz.com
    Offers to establish presence to companies and individuals in the game. Sells custom products for Second Life to assist residents in creating an individualized online presence.
18. Subscribe O Matic - http://www.subscribeomatic.com *
    Provides an alternative to advertising with in-world group notices.

Second Life general

1. Second Life - http://www.secondlife.com/ *
   Official website. Provides an online society within a 3D world, where users can explore, build, socialize and participate in their own economy.
2. Linden Lab - http://www.lindenlab.com/ *
   Game’s editor. Presentation and news.
3. SLurl - http://slurl.com/ *
   Offers to create direct links to any place in the game.
4. Linden Blog - http://blog.secondlife.com/ *
   Includes news and tips for the game.
5. Wikipedia: Second Life - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life *
   Includes technical information, history and explanations about how the game functions.
6. Second Life Herald - http://www.secondlifeherald.com/ *
   Presents the game’s events, news and author’s tips.
7. New World Notes - http://nwn.blogs.com/ *
   Blogging the news from SL by Wagner James Au.
8. Second Life Grid - http://secondlifegrid.net/ *
   Describing the technology platform that underlies the virtual world, intended for corporate uses.
9. Second Life Insider - http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/ *
   Weblog with news and tips about both the players and the game.
10. B.Places - http://b-places.com/
    Offers to vote for favorite places in the game. Provides SLurls towards these places and HUDs to travel between b.places.
11. SL Exchange - http://www.slexchange.com *
    Sells objects, clothes and others things used in the game.
12. Gwyn’s Home - http://gwynethllewelyn.net/ *
    A weblog about the game’s news and essays on socio-economic issues.
13. Lib Second Life - http://www.libsecondlife.org/ *
    Project trying to understand the game from a technical aspect.
14. Second Life Liberation Army - http://secondlla.googlepages.com/ *
    Movement for national liberation of the game. Want to establish political rights in it.
15. Vintfalken - http://www.vintfalken.com *
    Offers news from the game focused on snapshotting, designing and building.
16. Starting a Second Life Business - Entrepreneur.com http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/article172768.html
    Article by Laura Tiffany about the entrepreneurial opportunities that the world has to offer
17. OnRez - http://www.onrez.com *
    Online market for resident created products. Offers free Second Life viewer, free product listing, forum, and blog.
18. Second Life Project - http://www.secondlifeproject.com
    Provides a collection of tools to build and manage projects in the game.
19. Second Life Cable Network - http://www.slcn.tv/ *
    Virtual television delivering video clips of live events that occurred in-world.
20. Second Life Videos - http://www.secondlifevideo.com/
    Provides a directory of movies shot in the game or about it.
21. Squawk Nest - http://www.squawknest.com/
    Offers a directory of good places to visit.
22. Avimator - http://www.avimator.com
    Offers an open source tool to create and edit avatar animations.
23. Phasing Grace - http://phasinggrace.blogspot.com/ *
    Includes perspectives on the trends, culture, technology and user experience within the game.
24. SLQuery - http://www.slquery.com/
    Provides an in-game search engine for objects and places.
25. SLProfiles - http://www.slprofiles.com *
    Second Life online community for all residents. Provides help, blogs, forums, and product listings. A place to meet an establish online friendships and associations.
26. My Second Life - http://www.mysecondlife.com
    Provides a list of locations to see.
27. Supercharge - http://blog.veyronsupercharge.com/ *
    Weblog offering news and information about the game.
28. SLTweets - http://www.sltweets.com *
    Enables researchers to add notes to places in the game and share them with others users.
29. SLFinances - http://slfinances.net
    Provides a wiki about businesses exchanges in the game.
30. Dryesha - http://www.dryesha.com
    A blog by Dr Yesha Sivan that explores and shapes the space between the metaverse and the realverse. Provides links to news about the game.
31. TinySL - http://www.tinysl.com *
    Offers to compress slurls into short web addresses.
32. Prim Perfect - http://www.primperfect.net/ *
    Web magazine and weblog focusing on design of homes, furniture, gardens and landscapes.
33. Kami Harbinger - http://kamiharbinger.com/ *
    Weblog with social and technical commentaries.
34. SL Account - http://www.sl-account.com
    Offers an in-game transactions history tool.
35. Open Metaverse - http://www.openmetaverse.org/ *
    Provides an open source server simulator. [Pre-alpha]
36. Vam TV - http://www.vamtv.com
    Provides an online tv about the game and its news.
37. SLRepublicans - http://slrepublicans.blogspot.com/
    Weblog of the american republicans. Offers news and opinions about the game.
38. Second Life Update - http://www.secondlifeupdate.com
    Blog about experiences and technology in the game.
39. Iceberg Outpost - http://www.secondlifeiceberg.com/
    Floating iceberg off the mainland in the game. Offers a nightclub and a store.
40. Apez - http://www.apez.biz/
    Sells Second Life products, financial services, leasing, and banking services, all related to Second Life residents.
41. Second Life Music forum - http://www.secondlife-music.eu
    Information about music and streaming in the game. Free registration, forum, and chat.
42. Shadow Consumer - http://www.shadowconsumer.com
    Explores economic concepts of the shadow consumer, metaverses, 3D worlds, and features slideshows on education using virtual worlds.
43. sl2go - http://www.sl2go.com/ *
    Provides a directory of places including pictures, descriptions and direct links.
44. Wicked Toast - http://www.wickedtoast.com/article.php?id=108
    Review, with screen shots. Score: 4 out of 5.
45. ShinyLife - http://shiny-life.com
    Offers tutorials, free tools, artist exhibits, videos and events in Second Life.
46. Apolon Online - http://www.apolon-online.com
    Motorized creation in Second Life. Lists slurls, links, and support pertaining to products.
47. Gogolita - http://www.gogolita.com
    News, photos, and feedback about the game.
48. My Freels - http://neograph734.awardspace.com/
    Offers 8 ways to make money in the game.
49. The Seventh Sun - http://www.theseventhsun.com
    Monthly paper providing coverage of issues, technologies, and culture.
50. Pretty Str8 Forward - http://prettystr8forward.blogspot.com/
    Fashion blog covering new releases, product reviews, fashion related events and contests, appearance tips and tricks, discounts and freebie notices

Second Life tutorials, faq and help

1. Second Life Resources - http://www.2lifeblog.com *
   Offers resources, scripting guide and tutorials.
2. SLTutorials - http://www.sltutorials.net *
   Offers tutorials and help for new players.
3. SLBuilding - http://www.slbuilding.com/
   Offers tutorials and information to create objects in the game.
4. Sam’s life in Lost Gardens - http://saminlostgarden.free.fr
   Offers news and tips about the game.

Tags: dmoz, second life, sl blogs, web resources
Categories: SL Blogs, SL Web Resources, Second Life
13 Comments »

I was already wondering when Sweet Second Life would not only - attempt at - indexing the SL blogosphere, but also be a topic for that blogosphere. Not that I was awaiting it. When they first launched and started spamming blog comments, I asked for a bit more info. Although I did send it to the email address they supplied, I never got an answer: i just figured they did not want people to write about them.

Now they finally get noticed, it’s not in a way that calls out for a lot of applause: Crap Mariner is wondering if Sweet Second Life is full of Crap. Well, it isn’t. Although he did submit his blog, and that is exactly why it _is_ full of crap. Yes, this kinda confuses me too. Also Tiessa Montgolfier, having submitted both mine and Veyron’s blog - which never showed up - finds they have a strange way of ranking blogs or a lousy crawler.

Yet, at the Social Rank headquarters, they have their answer ready:

Hi there. Thanks for your feedback. I have added both of the blogs that you mentioned into Sweet Second Life so you will start to see them being added over the next week or so.

In terms of the ranking, it is based on links and comments. So, in that sense it is more advanced than either Google or Technorati because we really look at who is talking about which blogs and we do that over time so we can have accurate rankings.

However, at times we may miss a blog so thanks for suggesting that we add these into our index.

Geeh. Lady or Sir, I wrote you an email to ask for info, and you never replied. Back at that time, when I got a beta or alpha or zero or whatever account, I also submitted multiple SL blogs, where amongst mine. Other blogs included were for instance Zoe Connolly’s, October Hush’s, Kisa Naumova’s, Dolmere Talamasca’s, Codebastard Redgrave’s etc. All rather popular and active blogs. They never showed up in your rankings. A few months ago, I submitted mine again. It still did not show up. You say you index - I still doubt you index at all - based on the amount of comments and incoming links? I must say, that the last quarter, I had a lot of both. So someone needs to work on their algorithm a bit? I agree with Dandellion, don’t boast about being more original than technorati, or google. At least, they index quite thoroughly. And they drop by if you ask them to!

One thing learned: the link-love theory is bullshit. Best way to be blogged about: not linking to people! Although I still assume, you do not want people to write about you, and you did not list my blog, so I’m not linking. Nah. Yeah, I’m rather good at holding grudges. And I now second the full-of-crap-theory, in stead of the link-love one. ;)

Tags: blogtools, sl blogs
Categories: SL Blogs, Vintfalken.com
7 Comments »

After a long, friendly chat with CodeBastard Redgrave last night - just disregard the gun I held to her head - I now know 2 things for sure:

1. She and Nadine are ‘an item’ for over six months now.
2. The winners of the SL Bloggers party photography contest.

Assuming all but me already knew about that relationship, I’ll go directly to announcing the winners of a free year of Flickr Pro, a Machinima Cam and a lifetime supply of free VintLab outfits (mod or copy, to your liking) to those that according to CodeBastard Redgrave and Vint Falken took the best photographs of the SL bloggers party themed ‘Robots’ held at the Code Red Lounge in October 2007:

The one year free Flickr Pro and a big ‘W00t!’ from Codie and I go to Ryker Beck for her photograph Panoramic RedHawtness. We feel Ryker, who is a long time SL photographer and recently started a great blog at Rykerized - check out her tutorials -, deserves first prize because of the original non-standard dimensions of the photograph and delivering a great and interesting ‘overview’ of the SL Blogger’s party. Having such a wide view with the people in the middle gives a feel of coming together, getting to know each other and intimacy. *applauds*

Second prize, a Machinima Cam (and free updates for that one) will find his way to Raul Crimson from A Crimson World. Raul’s Dancing with the Sun has a great composition which clearly displays the party atmosphere and action going on: we’re all young, sexy and a robot! ;) The distort glow effect makes it a shiny pleasure for the eye, and Codie just loved the use of the lens flare. I think it might have been a stronger picture without that, as it sort of diminishes the ‘eye force field’ from Veyron’s cute pixelatd butt to Crap & Codie to Vint & the stranger. But to flare or not to flare, it’s a kick ass picture!

A lifetime supply of VintLab clothing goes to Nadine Nozaki for her excellent Vint & Nadine at the Code Red. The lady from the Winter Market does a great job at displaying with this photograph how I looked at the idea ‘metaverse’ before I ever knew it. Reading William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, I imagined untanned, pale humans with implants and androids doing ordinary daily stuff. The paradox of such ‘advanced’ creature playing a classical piano, is just awesome.

*asks for another round of virtual applause for or three winners and gives all winners 6 kisses: 3 from her and 3 on behalf of Codie*

Something rather stupid that ‘ruled out’ a lot of photographs - and made our task of picking the winners more easy - was the ‘jagged edges’ or ‘alias’ bug we so often find by Second Life photographs. Probably having a top notch graphics cards may help to prevent this. I don’t know for sure though, as I don’t have that. What does help is in the snapshot window, pumping the resolution up: 1600×1200 I use for normal snapshotting, 3200×2400 if I know I’ll need a huge final result or am planning to seriously crop the picture. And see: jaggy edges are no more! (or at least less ;)

Tags: codebastard redgrave, contest, photography, sl bloggers
Categories: Contests, Photography, SL Blogs
17 Comments »

The SL Blogger’s party CodeBastard Regrave and I hosted was fun fun fun. We had a wide selection of shiny, cute, rusted, steampunk, … robots and androids. And two person in pyjama’s. Although they were very cute, I dare to ask: ‘What do pyjama’s have to do with robots?!’

As promised, Codie and I will give - in order - one year of free Flickr Pro for a Flickr account you choose, a machinimacam by CodeBastard and a lifetime supply of VintLabs outfits to the three persons that took the best SL Bloggers party photograph. So let us know* which photography - only one, please, don’t make choosing any harder than it already is - you submit before Wednesday the 31th of October and we’ll make sure you will get the price. Ow, upload it somewhere please, Flickr maybe? ;)

Ow, and yes, I needed more time than I had to finish my android skin, so I borrowed Chip Midnight’s texture mesh and changed it a bit. Still think the monitor with the ‘mean’ vs. ‘nice’ barometer was a nice touch. The huge amount of mesh on the nose did make me look like micky mouse a bit. :/ But.. ain’t I cute when staring at Dolmere like that? :D

A huge ‘thank you’ and some *purrring* for all that attented and made this Second Life Blogger’s party yet another great one! Special thanks to Codie for prepping her club and getting the stream in order, and to the DJ Balp Allen for playing great music and all of our requests for only tips. Although I think we’ve proven that the SL Bloggers are a generous people… ;)

Photographs in the running for winning a year of Flickr Pro:

1. GoSpeed Racer: High on Steam
2. Ryker Beck: Panoramic RedHawtness
3. Timothy Lilliehook: Vint in Space
4. Tary Yeats: Her Royal Redness
5. Raul Crimson: Dancing with the Sun
6. Nadine Nozaki: Vint & Nadine @ CodeRed
7. Looker Lumet: Dolmere at the piano
8. Elusyve Jewell: Into the ligth

Blogposts about the SL Blogmeet at the CodeRed Lounge:

1. Crap Mariner - Robots “Schroeder, do you ever wonder why people keep messing with classic cartoons to modernize them for modernization’s sake?”
2. Raul Crimson - SL Bloggers Party October 21th I just can’t believe there still exist Second Life Residents who do not recognize Veyron’s cute pixelated ass when they see it! Aaargh!
3. Nadine Nozaki - Blogger Party at the CodeRed I owe Nadine some thanks for correcting the SLurl and finding us a DJ timely. W00t for Nadine!
4. Alysha - Cool Moment - SL Blogger Party ‘The theme was robots, so I looked for three days for a costume I liked. Finally found it (purple of course) and joined the party. I saw some familiar names - Codie, Vint, Raul, Ryker - and some that were not familiar. But everyone was having a great time and, in turn, so did I.’
5. GoSpeed Rader - Vote For me Héhé. Sorry, no voting here. Must be an unanimous decision of the jury, which means Codie and I. That will takes some nights of discussion. ;)
6. Looker Lumet - Blogger Party October 21th Go and visit the Flickr set. =)
   

* If you post the URL in the comments here, don’t worry if it does not appear instantly, as I have comment moderation enabled for everything that contains an URL. Ow, and for people that did not comment on vintfalken.com before.

Tags: code red gallery, codebastard redgrave, contest, flickr, sl bloggers, sl blogmeet
Categories: Contests, Flickr, SL Blogs
20 Comments »