Who’s The Biggest?

I spend a lot of time blogging about Second Life, as do many others. How many others? No one knows for sure, but it’s at least many hundreds of avatars. While I’ve gained much personal satisfaction from writing posts and participating in the SL blogging community, I always wondered which blogs were the most popular.

It’s a difficult question to answer, because measurement of “popular” can mean many things. It could be the number of feed subscribers, total pageviews, average pageviews, number of comments, number of links to the blog or any other conceivable statistic. In fact, blog ranking is a very difficult science. So I did what anyone faced with a tricky problem should do.

I let someone else figure it out for me.

That’s right, the “someone else” in this case is Technorati, a web service that tracks and searches blogs in real time. Technorati tracks tens of millions of blogs worldwide and keeps a database of statistics, including their own definition of “rank”. It’s not exactly clear how they specifically calculate rank, but evidently it involves a combination of statistics. Even better, they expose their database to the public via a programmatic web interface (API). That was enough to inspire me further.

I needed only to write a program to send a list of SL-oriented website URLs to the Technorati API and it would return me all the available statistics! Writing the program (in PHP, as it turned out) was relatively straightforward, but where could I find an extensive list of Second Life blogs? I surely did not want to make a list like that myself.

There was only one place to look: Second Life Blogger’s NING site, where administrator Zoe Connolly has prepared what is probably the most authoritative list. You can tell by its tagline:

“Behold!...The World’s Largest Blogroll of Second Life Links”.

The blogroll was not quite what I wanted, however. It contained links to flickr pages, Google groups and other non-blogs. Some of the listed blogs were physically gone, and others merely had an empty page left, saying this blog is “closed”. Some had no visible SL content at all, and a few had no current postings – for more than two years! I made an executive decision and took these out. But I added a few notable blogs that for some unexplainable reason were not included on the list.

Finally, armed with a decent list of blogs, I fed it into the PHP program and collected the results. After sorting and more data cleansing than I’d care to admit, I arrived at the following ranked list of Second Life blogs, perhaps the only one in existence.

Some observations:

• The rank is out of ALL blogs tracked by Technorati worldwide. So, for example, if the rank is 100,000th, that means there are 99,999 other blogs in the world that Technorati believes are more popular. Being in the top 50 or even 10,000 is quite an achievement.
• The #1 ranked SL blog, Massively, has significant Second Life content written almost daily by Tateru Nino, but is in reality a blog dedicated to all MMO’s, Second Life being only a portion of their content. That’s why Massively is ranked so highly.
• Second Life’s official blog is ranked #2, which makes sense as it is an obvious focal point for many avatars.
• The #3 SL blog, New World Notes, written by Hamlet Au, is the highest ranked “independent” blog dedicated to Second Life.
• Vint Falken’s #4 ranked SL blog is unique in that it is the highest ranked non-commercial independent publication. Perhaps Vint should consider some advertising?
• I cleaned the list as best as time permitted; there are no doubt more errors in the list, such as incorrect blog names, probably a few more dead blogs and other miscues. There are over 500 blogs, give me a break, already!
• Towards the bottom of the list you’ll notice the Technorati rank repeats in blocks. I suspect the Technorati ranking formula uses certain raw statistics, and these blogs likely have identical underlying statistics. I put them in URL alphabetical order.
• A very few blogs do not seem to have a Technorati rating, including the likely popular Metaversally Speaking. I am not sure why this occurs, and I obviously could not include them.
• Is this list accurate? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s probably somewhat close to reality, because the top blogs seem to make sense.

Finally, as this is a first attempt at ranking, I’d appreciate any suggestions to improve the list. If I’ve missed a blog, please add it in the comments and I’ll include it in the list next time. If there’s a dead blog in there, let me know about it. And remember, I didn't calculate the rank - Technorati did. My apologies in advance to anyone whose blog I’ve missed or otherwise screwed up!

[UPDATE] Due to many suggestions, and a deeper inspection of the list, I'll be producing an improved version next week sometime. A significant portion of the list are actually dead blogs, in spite of them having high ranks from Technorati due to other blogs still pointing at them. Meanwhile, many suggestions on missing blogs have been received and will be incorporated. 

And now, behold the SL Blogosphere, ranked:

SL Blog Rank (Technorati Rank)


1 ( 37 ) Massively

2 ( 4358 ) Official Second Life Blog

3 ( 7219 ) New World Notes

4 ( 21266 ) VintFalken.com

5 ( 24067 ) Torley Lives

6 ( 45260 ) Dusan Writer's Metaverse

7 ( 47712 ) Second Thoughts

8 ( 49117 ) Shopping Cart Disco

9 ( 54261 ) Gwyn's Home

10 ( 56490 ) SL iReports: Your news of a virtual world - Blogs from CNN.com

11 ( 56490 ) Kzero

12 ( 61075 ) Virtually Blind | Virtual Law

13 ( 62074 ) Linden Lifestyles

14 ( 71018 ) The Click Heard Round the World

15 ( 74992 ) What Is This Crap?

16 ( 76161 ) Slmen

17 ( 80471 ) The Metaverse Journal - Australia's Virtual World News Service

18 ( 80627 ) Hair Fair

19 ( 90459 ) Mermaid Diaries: Natalia Zelmanov's Second Life Adventures

20 ( 92339 ) Aviatrix :: Zoe Connolly

21 ( 95781 ) Second Style Fashionista

22 ( 98059 ) Second Life News Network - SLNN

23 ( 98492 ) Living in the Metaverse

24 ( 102814 ) The ARCH

25 ( 104911 ) Second Effects

26 ( 109973 ) DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age

27 ( 115310 ) Your2ndPlace | Our Realities. Our Worlds.

28 ( 124453 ) CodeBastardRedgrave.Com

29 ( 131159 ) Ch'know?

30 ( 131159 ) Are we not men?

31 ( 131159 ) Designing Nicky Ree

32 ( 134449 ) Verbal Stew

33 ( 145375 ) Second Life Education Research

34 ( 146092 ) 3pointD.com

35 ( 150697 ) PARATGE

36 ( 150697 ) Geta

37 ( 150697 ) Hibernia on the Skids

38 ( 150697 ) Alliance Virtual Library

39 ( 150697 ) Prim Perfect

40 ( 155275 ) The Heliograph

41 ( 155275 ) Girl Wonder Speaks...about Second Life

42 ( 155482 ) Omniversing..

43 ( 160222 ) Kitty Witchin

44 ( 165045 ) Second Arts

45 ( 165045 ) Kota's Knickers

46 ( 165045 ) Fleur Skins

47 ( 170751 ) Ophelia Drowns

48 ( 170751 ) M is for Myg

49 ( 170751 ) An Engine Fit For My Proceeding

50 ( 176452 ) GION PROJECT

51 ( 176452 ) Ivalde`s Heim

52 ( 182459 ) Second Stindberg

53 ( 182459 ) My SLife on the D List

54 ( 182713 ) APLINK - itsReal

55 ( 189084 ) The News from BardHaven

56 ( 189084 ) Reading Radar

57 ( 195869 ) Mean Girls Guide to SL

58 ( 196126 ) Kyoot

59 ( 203197 ) Ambling in Second Life

60 ( 203461 ) MindBlizzard blog

61 ( 203461 ) Millions of Us

62 ( 210954 ) SL of Dreams

63 ( 211247 ) Phasing Grace | Social Architecture and Virtual Worlds

64 ( 219249 ) Tori's Blog

65 ( 219249 ) Ryker Beck dot COM

66 ( 219495 ) -Ana Lutetia-

67 ( 226482 ) Casa Del Shai

68 ( 226482 ) Shop Till U Drop!!!

69 ( 228326 ) Tenth Life

70 ( 237372 ) Botgirl's Second Life Diary

71 ( 237644 ) SLOG

72 ( 237644 ) Studio Wikitecture: Opening Architecture

73 ( 237644 ) Second Life News

74 ( 237963 ) EncoreSeraphine.com

75 ( 237963 ) Around the Grid

76 ( 247893 ) Westin Element

77 ( 248232 ) Dedric Mauriac

78 ( 255487 ) Second Life Herald

79 ( 259213 ) Appearance Mode

80 ( 259213 ) Another blog!

81 ( 270884 ) Discursos do Outro Mundo

82 ( 270884 ) Dwell On It

83 ( 270884 ) Through my eyes..

84 ( 270884 ) The Realm of the Red Rose

85 ( 283302 ) Wrath Paine vs. Second Life

86 ( 283302 ) PixelDolls...

87 ( 283640 ) Eladrienne's Other Life!

88 ( 283640 ) Grid Expectations

89 ( 283640 ) IDG ~ A SecondLife Design Company

90 ( 297452 ) SiniStyle Decapitated

91 ( 297452 ) Second Life Fashion Police

92 ( 297802 ) Aspire Model Management

93 ( 297802 ) Lucas Lameth ( luc ) Fashion Jewelry

94 ( 297802 ) GuRL 6

95 ( 300923 ) artilleri

96 ( 309815 ) The Daily Graze

97 ( 309815 ) cognitive dissonance

98 ( 309815 ) caLLie cLine

99 ( 312717 ) What Is This Crap?

100 ( 312717 ) Nexeus Fatale

101 ( 329677 ) Radio Riel

102 ( 347841 ) Virtual Neko in Second Life

103 ( 347841 ) Willowing Wisps

104 ( 347841 ) JUST VIRTUAL

105 ( 348256 ) All Ears in Second Life

106 ( 348256 ) Joonie's Journey...

107 ( 368511 ) Second Life: Music, DJs

108 ( 368869 ) Business Communicators of Second Life

109 ( 376449 ) Life and Times of Lapin Paris

110 ( 390945 ) The Adventures of Dolmere Talamasca

111 ( 390945 ) Zippora's life

112 ( 391354 ) Cylindrian’s Grace Notes

113 ( 391354 ) Architecture +

114 ( 391354 ) LaBicyclette

115 ( 391354 ) a virtual village voice

116 ( 391354 ) Looker Lumet

117 ( 391354 ) The New Babbage Forum Board

118 ( 391354 ) Ravishal Ramblings

119 ( 391354 ) Rebel Hope Designs

120 ( 391354 ) Rheta

121 ( 391354 ) She's So Unusual

122 ( 416553 ) Whole Lotta Rosie

123 ( 416553 ) Steelhead Anvil

124 ( 416553 ) The Winter Market

125 ( 416974 ) Livedoor Blog

126 ( 416974 ) My Digital Double

127 ( 416974 ) Songs from The Nightingale

128 ( 416974 ) Less Than 3

129 ( 416974 ) Pandora's box

130 ( 445514 ) The Minor Mishaps and Adventures of Skusting Dagger

131 ( 445514 ) Timothy's Second Life Experience

132 ( 445514 ) Torrid Tales of a Compulsive Swooner

133 ( 445962 ) Machinimoo

134 ( 478246 ) Sezmra @ Second Life

135 ( 478246 ) everyday second life

136 ( 478246 ) Vitamin Ci

137 ( 478246 ) Kabalyero

138 ( 478737 ) Best of Both Worlds

139 ( 478737 ) Metaversal Arts

140 ( 478737 ) metaversed.com

141 ( 478737 ) Nyte'N'Day

142 ( 478737 ) Just me, dinee

143 ( 497353 ) All Things Tiessa

144 ( 497353 ) How's your world?

145 ( 516161 ) Second Tense

146 ( 516161 ) The Insane Life of Stuart Warf

147 ( 516161 ) Warm Winter Nights

148 ( 516633 ) Chey's Second Life Blog

149 ( 516633 ) The Journal of Dr. Darien Mason

150 ( 516633 ) Evans Avenue Exit

151 ( 516633 ) The Winged Girl Blog

152 ( 516633 ) Loki's musings on first and second life

153 ( 516633 ) 500 Year Diary

154 ( 546134 ) Girl meets Second Life

155 ( 559640 ) ged's anti-blog

156 ( 559640 ) Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts

157 ( 559640 ) MODA Fashion SL

158 ( 560192 ) Content Confessional

159 ( 560192 ) The New Observer

160 ( 560192 ) tu Segunda Vida en castellano

161 ( 560192 ) Poid Mahovlich

162 ( 574319 ) Veyron’s Adventures in Second Life

163 ( 574319 ) Designing Insanity

164 ( 605911 ) A Stroll Through Caledon

165 ( 605911 ) Ramblings of a Red Headed Kitten

166 ( 610516 ) theshadow's Alternative Second Life Fashions

167 ( 610516 ) Eclipse

168 ( 610516 ) Vidal's Dolly Realm

169 ( 611068 ) Battered Boudoir

170 ( 611068 ) Diamonds and Rust Podcast

171 ( 611068 ) The Diverse Adventures of Mr G. Abel

172 ( 611068 ) The Adventures of Natacha Chernov

173 ( 611068 ) It's A Scaggs Life!

174 ( 640608 ) SL Educating

175 ( 671532 ) Second Life Games

176 ( 671532 ) The Connolly Telegraph

177 ( 671532 ) -Veschi- ( Ze Blogue )

178 ( 671532 ) The Chilbo Road Press

179 ( 671532 ) Terra Aeronautics - Virtual vehicles for the metaverse

180 ( 671532 ) Second Life

181 ( 672119 ) ArtsPlace SL

182 ( 672119 ) The Ortega Chronicles

183 ( 672119 ) Honour's Post Menopausal View

184 ( 672119 ) avocatio virtualis

185 ( 672119 ) Experiments with Avatars

186 ( 672119 ) Oh, hush!

187 ( 679094 ) CronoCloud Creeggan, Virtual Fashionista

188 ( 722319 ) Jacek Lives

189 ( 722319 ) SECONDtunes

190 ( 722319 ) The ramblings of Violet

191 ( 747459 ) Second Seeker - Unofficial Second Life Reviews

192 ( 747459 ) Shep Korvin - Blog is the new Black

193 ( 747459 ) SlCoolMag

194 ( 747459 ) SquadVillage

195 ( 747459 ) Project Q/Gematria

196 ( 747459 ) Stone Culdesac

197 ( 747459 ) Stonebender

198 ( 747459 ) The Antiquity Gazette

199 ( 747459 ) VTOR - Virtual TO Reality

200 ( 748042 ) Beth's Second Life

201 ( 748042 ) Daltonic Gin

202 ( 748042 ) The News-Review

203 ( 748042 ) Madison's Avenue

204 ( 748042 ) Proceedings of the Royal Society

205 ( 825880 ) Aenea's Second Life

206 ( 825880 ) Pedro Meya Marty - Agentur f

207 ( 841571 ) SLC

208 ( 841571 ) Tooter Claxton

209 ( 841571 ) Newbe's Steam Powered Blog

210 ( 841571 ) Blunt Fashion Sense

211 ( 841571 ) Calico Ingmann Creations

212 ( 841571 ) Omega Point | A blog by Catherine Winters

213 ( 841571 ) Glass Earth

214 ( 841571 ) Talia-Tokugawa.co.uk

215 ( 841571 ) Yo no leo a Enrique Dans

216 ( 841571 ) Comments for Yxes Muses

217 ( 841571 ) Taunt - Online Games, Photoshop, Second Life, IMVU

218 ( 841571 ) Moggs - A Second Life

219 ( 842180 ) Kathar.in

220 ( 842180 ) Digital Dragon Designs

221 ( 842180 ) IYan Writer in virtual worlds

222 ( 842180 ) My Virtual Life - KaticusSparrow.com

223 ( 842180 ) ma vie d'avatar: ma vie sur second life

224 ( 842180 ) Meet the Petermans

225 ( 842180 ) Pix3lizeD Th0ughTs

226 ( 842180 ) Rose Petal Creations

227 ( 890116 ) Lady Adventuress

228 ( 890116 ) Honey Wendt in Second Life

229 ( 890116 ) miau haus

230 ( 964335 ) Kuro Neko - Marsha

231 ( 964335 ) Eloise's thoughts and fancies

232 ( 964335 ) First Impressions

233 ( 964335 ) SL Review

234 ( 964434 ) The Log of HGS Zaneta

235 ( 964434 ) Second Life Conceptual Creations

236 ( 964434 ) Space's Space

237 ( 964434 ) Sunn's World

238 ( 964434 ) Crimson Flow

239 ( 964434 ) NYMPHETAMINE

240 ( 964434 ) Extropian :: Zabrina McMahon

241 ( 965095 ) Argent Eyes

242 ( 965095 ) Machinations of an Evil Tiny Kitty

243 ( 965095 ) Eyana Yohkoh's Blog

244 ( 965095 ) Grace McDunnough's Music in a Virtual World - HOME

245 ( 965095 ) Nimil

246 ( 1052395 ) Havernator

247 ( 1052395 ) Sin Trenton

248 ( 1130271 ) Star Life

249 ( 1130271 ) Sio's Second Life

250 ( 1130271 ) Style HotLine

251 ( 1130271 ) LA 2nd Life

252 ( 1130271 ) Coffee, Cigarettes

253 ( 1130984 ) Artesia B's Second Life World

254 ( 1130984 ) Bella in Second Life

255 ( 1130984 ) DrFran Does SL

256 ( 1130984 ) Frequency's Oscillations

257 ( 1130984 ) Metaverse Law

258 ( 1130984 ) cracklin to what's happening right now

259 ( 1130984 ) Niki's Notes

260 ( 1130984 ) The Bon Mots of Phineas Matova

261 ( 1130984 ) Ribbons Learns to Swim

262 ( 1157363 ) The Life of Abigail Raymaker

263 ( 1157363 ) Charity Dogsbody's Booke of Sensible Advice

264 ( 1157363 ) simVineyard

265 ( 1285236 ) Not Your Typical Lady

266 ( 1285236 ) Casius has the Rants

267 ( 1285236 ) The Cindy Kesey Show

268 ( 1285236 ) KaI’s Thoughts

269 ( 1285236 ) Hexed ( Formerly Escape )

270 ( 1375608 ) Selling in Secondlife

271 ( 1375608 ) Second Life Future Salon

272 ( 1375608 ) Steampunk

273 ( 1375608 ) For All Your Household Needs

274 ( 1375608 ) 2E Leven

275 ( 1375608 ) Woolly Wildcat Writings

276 ( 1375608 ) Second By Second

277 ( 1375608 ) Quarter Life Crisis

278 ( 1375608 ) Make Money Online With Richard Palace

279 ( 1375608 ) From the Flames

280 ( 1375608 ) tara incognita

281 ( 1376407 ) Angie Mornington

282 ( 1376407 ) Cubik Circle Furniture Store

283 ( 1376407 ) Dings Digital's Diary

284 ( 1376407 ) Dorje's Nest

285 ( 1376407 ) SubliminaLuminations

286 ( 1376407 ) The Chase

287 ( 1376407 ) JetDoll

288 ( 1376407 ) Second Life Voyage

289 ( 1376407 ) Reaction - a Surfers Revolution

290 ( 1446376 ) The Diary of a Caledonian Baroness

291 ( 1446376 ) Beta Technologies

292 ( 1446376 ) Brigid Ashwood Fantasy Artist

293 ( 1446376 ) Johanna Hyacinth's Second Life Blog

294 ( 1446376 ) Virtual Nature

295 ( 1446376 ) What country, friends, is this?

296 ( 1655777 ) Cala - Transgender in Second Life

297 ( 1655777 ) Caliburn Susanto

298 ( 1655777 ) THE GEARSHOP

299 ( 1655777 ) Irelyn's Eyes

300 ( 1655777 ) A Real Girl in a Fake World

301 ( 1655777 ) rosemary galbraith

302 ( 1655777 ) Baedeker

303 ( 1655777 ) Starlight in Caledon

304 ( 1655777 ) Sadako Does Second Life

305 ( 1655777 ) Daikon Forge

306 ( 1761164 ) Paw Prints

307 ( 1761164 ) The Second Life Great Expedition

308 ( 1761164 ) Tsu

309 ( 1761164 ) Vicious Studios

310 ( 1761164 ) Warped Axis

311 ( 1761164 ) Wildefire Walcott's Mistressy Musings

312 ( 1761164 ) AudSLife

313 ( 1761164 ) The Source of Power

314 ( 1761164 ) Second Campus

315 ( 1761164 ) Second Life Crew

316 ( 1761164 ) Ziggy Quirk.com

317 ( 1762116 ) Beq's adventures in second life

318 ( 1762116 ) FireEyes

319 ( 1762116 ) Oh no Crippy Oh

320 ( 1762116 ) Dreambits

321 ( 1762116 ) Protected Blog

322 ( 1762116 ) E.Laval Fine Clothing

323 ( 1762116 ) In Praise of Folly

324 ( 1762116 ) Interests of Isolde Flamand

325 ( 1762116 ) Louis Ringgold

326 ( 1762116 ) myslhometv

327 ( 1762116 ) NewMedia On the Go

328 ( 1762116 ) PerimeterView

329 ( 1762116 ) RedDawn Bade - Lost in Second Life

330 ( 1762116 ) Rich Desoto

331 ( 1762116 ) Samantha Speaks!

332 ( 1762116 ) I, Hassanov

333 ( 1951828 ) Second Life: Low Pimpin

334 ( 1951828 ) Scripter Syndrome

335 ( 1951828 ) Virtually Speaking

336 ( 1951828 ) The Family Jewels

337 ( 1951828 ) Iron Raptor

338 ( 1951828 ) Maude Standish

339 ( 1951828 ) Raise the Red Lantern

340 ( 1951828 ) Smashed Explorer

341 ( 1951828 ) VALENCIA City

342 ( 1951828 ) Second Life Annotated Bibliography

343 ( 1951828 ) InkD! Tattoos

344 ( 1951828 ) Gideon Television

345 ( 1951828 ) Virtual Suburbia

346 ( 2473598 ) 2nd Lifer

347 ( 2473598 ) a simple felines blog

348 ( 2473598 ) Antiquity Grand Opening

349 ( 2473598 ) ElleCoyote

350 ( 2473598 ) Caledon Sketchbook

351 ( 2473598 ) Coyote Momiji

352 ( 2473598 ) Starr-ving Artist

353 ( 2473598 ) Cereal Killer

354 ( 2473598 ) A Day in the Second Life

355 ( 2473598 ) Laverne

356 ( 2473598 ) good deeds of a sailor to be

357 ( 2473598 ) sable

358 ( 2473598 ) Golf in Second Life

359 ( 2473598 ) Personal media in Second Life

360 ( 2473598 ) From my Second Life

361 ( 2473598 ) Soliel Snook

362 ( 2473598 ) troublehouston

363 ( 2473598 ) Vieeto Voom

364 ( 2473598 ) Gloire de Vivre

365 ( 2473598 ) Veronique's Second Life

366 ( 2473598 ) Welcome to the Combat: Samurai Island Website!

367 ( 2473598 ) Gridmarker Blog

368 ( 2473598 ) Thunderverse

369 ( 2505291 ) LUSH - Scarlet Singer

370 ( 2505291 ) secondfluid

371 ( 2505291 ) Second Life at hand

372 ( 2505291 ) Sensual Designs

373 ( 2505291 ) * ~ SLIGIRLS ~ *

374 ( 2505291 ) SL Mascot

375 ( 2505291 ) Marion in Wonderland

376 ( 2505291 ) My Second Life is the New First

377 ( 2505291 ) Tweaktocracy

378 ( 2505291 ) Your Godless Goddess

379 ( 2505291 ) The life of Stuart Warf

380 ( 2505291 ) Frontier's Horizon

381 ( 2505291 ) Kitten Lulu

382 ( 2505291 ) Virtual World and Online Game Explorations | Nigel Paravane

383 ( 2505291 ) Monergism.com :: Classic Articles and Resources of the Historic Christian Faith

384 ( 2505291 ) Thallos

385 ( 2505917 ) Acedia Diary

386 ( 2505917 ) Beats n' Pieces

387 ( 2505917 ) Manic Builder

388 ( 2505917 ) Derek

389 ( 2505917 ) Forceme Silverspar's adventures in Second Life

390 ( 2505917 ) Goto Desoto

391 ( 2505917 ) LDinSTL says:

392 ( 2505917 ) Mael's Mindforge

393 ( 2505917 ) Protected Blog

394 ( 2505917 ) MRO SHOW ** LIVE **

395 ( 2505917 ) Ordinal's Cabinet of Ephemera

396 ( 3324847 ) 2nDisability

397 ( 3324847 ) Aether Chronicles

398 ( 3324847 ) Observations from Mairead Fitzgerald

399 ( 3324847 ) Miss Ambrosia Freenote's Conspicuously Misplaced Diary

400 ( 3324847 ) Rabbit Droppings

401 ( 3324847 ) Azareth Kohime

402 ( 3324847 ) The World Through A Banshees Eyes

403 ( 3324847 ) Setori Spire Studios

404 ( 3324847 ) Caledon Early Bird Social Club

405 ( 3324847 ) Razoo Realty

406 ( 3324847 ) Chevelle Attenbrough

407 ( 3324847 ) C:SI

408 ( 3324847 ) Days of Drut

409 ( 3324847 ) The Eponymist

410 ( 3324847 ) Eros Designs

411 ( 3324847 ) explorerjusty

412 ( 3324847 ) itlp-nav

413 ( 3324847 ) Jessyanne

414 ( 3324847 ) Candi's crazy ramblings

415 ( 3324847 ) The Lapointe Square

416 ( 3324847 ) White Rabbit

417 ( 3324847 ) SteamPunk Style

418 ( 3324847 ) Mal Burns Annex

419 ( 3324847 ) Moriash Moreau: My Second Life

420 ( 3324847 ) Cybernetic dreams

421 ( 3324847 ) novalisrau

422 ( 3324847 ) PrincessNina Prefect rocking SL

423 ( 3324847 ) RaceSL

424 ( 3324847 ) Adventures in my Second Life

425 ( 3324847 ) SL Surf Side

426 ( 3324847 ) Sevvy's Stories

427 ( 3324847 ) If memory serves me....

428 ( 3324847 ) make money

429 ( 3324847 ) Indescribable... Sometimes life is Just Plain Crazy!

430 ( 3324847 ) From The Eye Of The Storm

431 ( 3324847 ) SL Victorian Post

432 ( 3324847 ) Smiley

433 ( 3324847 ) Spin Martin

434 ( 3324847 ) â„¢

435 ( 3324847 ) Taffy Apple Designs

436 ( 3324847 ) TAM'S HOUSE OF CHAOS

437 ( 3324847 ) Taras Balderdash's Avatarian News: September 2006

438 ( 3324847 ) Through the filter of a Victorian Aesthetic

439 ( 3324847 ) viktor stroganoff

440 ( 3324847 ) virtually fantastic

441 ( 3324847 ) Ties that bind

442 ( 3324847 ) Eclectic Randomness

443 ( 3324847 ) DoMoCo

444 ( 3324847 ) Home - SL Business Magazine

445 ( 3324847 ) The Diva's Diary: Life, Love, and Lust

446 ( 4776919 ) Arteer Oliva - Vox

447 ( 4776919 ) Audio Zenith | Everything You Need To Know About SecondLife

448 ( 4776919 ) Backpacking Burro

449 ( 4776919 ) Laurel Crown

450 ( 4776919 ) Nowhere but here...

451 ( 4776919 ) Galaizm - Vox

452 ( 4776919 ) Return to Secondlife

453 ( 4776919 ) Baronial Notations

454 ( 4776919 ) Accounts From A Not So kleines M

455 ( 4776919 ) Under the Mountain of Madness

456 ( 4776919 ) Miss Cornelia Rothschild

457 ( 4776919 ) Old Gravy blog

458 ( 4776919 ) MAKEDA

459 ( 4776919 ) Mollster's

460 ( 4776919 ) Parallax: The Journal of Professor Nareth E. Nishi

461 ( 4776919 ) OMG Magazine Second Life

462 ( 4776919 ) Patrice's Terraforming

463 ( 4776919 ) pwnd magazine

464 ( 4776919 ) 403 Error - Forbidden

465 ( 4778283 ) A Wandering Elf

466 ( 4778283 ) Ships of the Line

467 ( 4778283 ) Victorian Shopkeepers Association

468 ( 4778283 ) Inquisitive Mind

469 ( 4778283 ) The Tombstone Sun-Review

470 ( 4778283 ) Finding Sophrosyne

471 ( 4778283 ) Explorations of the White Foxx

472 ( 4778283 ) Tinsel Silvera

473 ( 4778283 ) Quick

474 ( 4778283 ) Technical User Interfacing

475 ( 4778283 ) Tweeze Tyne

476 ( 4778283 ) Khaos Klub Information Website

477 ( 4778283 ) avenging avatar

478 ( 4778283 ) Second Life Walker

479 ( 4778283 ) SLOz - Australia

480 ( 4978471 ) Annie Fukai Sl's Adventure

481 ( 4978471 ) Bastillion's Bastion

482 ( 4978471 ) The Sweet Escape

483 ( 4978471 ) Cats'n'Claws

484 ( 4978471 ) celtgrrl

485 ( 4978471 ) pixie dust and tantrums...

486 ( 4978471 ) Streeter Scene ( the Second Life of Chloe )

487 ( 4978471 ) L33T3r Then You

488 ( 4978471 ) Chi Lo Sa

489 ( 4978471 ) Diary of an avatar

490 ( 4978471 ) Does This Make My Ass Look Fat?

491 ( 4978471 ) Earnest Candour's Blog

492 ( 4978471 ) Eileen in Second Life

493 ( 4978471 ) Jezebella

494 ( 4978471 ) Garbage Prototype

495 ( 4978471 ) Interplanetary Expeditions ( IPX ) Database

496 ( 4978471 ) Made for No Reason

497 ( 4978471 ) Second Spice

498 ( 4978471 ) Women of Second Life

499 ( 4978471 ) Motorati Girlz

500 ( 4978471 ) My Second Life

501 ( 4978471 ) Welcome to the Train-Wreck Love Life

502 ( 4978471 ) Riven's Nest

503 ( 4978471 ) Rude Mechanica

504 ( 4978471 ) Second411 Blog

505 ( 4978471 ) Bulk Upload

506 ( 4978471 ) NPSL: Nonprofits in Second Life | Saving the ( virtual ) world

507 ( 4978471 ) Second Life explorer

508 ( 4978471 ) Second Wynd

509 ( 4978471 ) Second Life Blogosphere

510 ( 4978471 ) Chance's SL Musings

511 ( 4978471 ) My Second life

512 ( 4978471 ) Project Q Archives

513 ( 4978471 ) Arriving Somewhere But Not Here

514 ( 4978471 ) Technopaideia

515 ( 4978471 ) The Agile Mind

516 ( 4978471 ) Trin's Tantrums

517 ( 4978471 ) What *IS* Willis Talking About?

518 ( 4978471 ) Battlestar Mercury

519 ( 4978471 ) Jax

520 ( 4978471 ) Metaverse Week in Review

521 ( 4978471 ) Mossie Designs in SL

522 ( 4978471 ) Second Life Directory - Second Life Most Popular Directory - SLTopSites.com

523 ( 4978471 ) trash palace - electronic music club

524 ( 4978471 ) Yoshino's Second life blog

525 ( 4978471 ) Why everyone

526 ( 4978471 ) Overheard in SL

ArminasX Heads to Outer Space!

 

Well, not exactly, but it does involve NASA. I’ve been asked to participate in an educational RL/SL mashup panel discussion. It’s actually for a real-life US federal government conference, but in this case the avatar panelists will be appearing on screen in front of a live conference audience of atomics.

Of course, Second Effects readers will be able to attend in SL also by simply teleporting to the conference site at JPL’s Explorer Island. We’re hoping to have a virtual audience that’s a similar size to the real life audience.

The topic of discussion will be basic, as it is an introduction to virtual reality for interested US federal government personnel. They’ll be introduced to the basics of virtual reality, with a specific emphasis on educational aspects. What am I doing there? I’m to speak on how business operates in Second Life.

It could be considered a rather dry topic, but you should know that the majority of the expected real life audience has never seen virtual reality before. I suspect many will be skeptical of the concept, but perhaps they’ll change their mind after hearing what we have to say. At the least, I believe they’ll be surprised when they realize that the in-world audience is close to the same size as the real-world audience (hint!)

Here is the actual description of the session:

Second Life is a 3D virtual world created entirely by its residents, just as Wikipedia was created by its readers. It's a wonderful world full of amazing content that supports experiences that are by no means limited to just entertainment. There are many practical experiences that create strong value for government, industry, educators and entrepreneurs. This panel, which will be conducted completely in the Second Life virtual world, will discuss those experiences from the perspectives of business, government, and academia.

What You Will Learn:

• What virtual worlds are, and their applications in various organizations
• How business in a virtual world can be conducted and what is the return on investment
• The risks associated with using virtual worlds and what happens after the hype

If you have time and interest, please feel free to drop by Explorer Island on Tuesday, March 10th, where we’ll start the discussion at 10:30AM SLT (13:30ET) and continue until 11:45AM SLT.

A Clear Confirmation

A few weeks ago I wrote a speculative piece suggesting that Linden Lab’s next move would be to implement the highly functional Clearspace Community collaboration tool.

I believe this is precisely what happened. We all have seen the big splash of the new Second Life blogs, but one telling clue is embedded within the URL of the new site:

I was not able to find an announcement regarding the technology used by Linden Lab, but yes, as you can see, they are indeed using Clearspace as the engine behind the new community blogs. A good thing? Yes, I think so, as Jive software’s Clearspace products are among the leading commercial tools for establishing and developing a vibrant online community.  Good choice, LL! 

Name O Matic

 

I’ve been busy again on yet another secret project, this time creating a brand new virtual business with a friend. One of the many tasks required by a new business is the selection of its name. This, you might think, would be a straightforward piece of work.

And you’d be wrong.

The name of a business is an extremely critical step that should not ever be taken lightly. The name of the business is important because:

• It is the way clients will find you; if wrongly formed, they’ll have a hard time finding you
• The imagery conveyed by the name will flavor (or stain) your business’ reputation forever

Let’s talk about these two goals for your virtual business name. First, its find-ability. What we want is a name that can be easily recalled, spelled and typed. Here are some key properties to consider:

• Length: your business name should not be very long, perhaps 7-12 characters. Compound names could be a bit longer, more about them later on
• Spelling: the name should be spelled as unambiguously as possible. Think of it this way: anyone mis-typing your name into a search engine won’t find you. Avoid losing those customers by making it as easy as possible
• Availability: Obviously, your name should not be in use by someone else in world. Make a list of competitors’ names so you can compare with your ideas. You might also consider snagging the corresponding domain name (the .com at least), and if you’re really serious you could even search (and register) the legal name with your jurisdiction’s authorities - but make sure you follow any required legal regulations
• Pronounceability: As most in-world advertising is done by word-of-mouth, your business name had better be something that people can actually say aloud. Say it aloud yourself to make sure it works. How many ways can it be pronounced? Try to select a name with a single, obvious pronunciation
• Positivity: Your name might look great, but what does it mean to those using other languages? Best to do a quick check to ensure you didn’t select something silly. A great tool to do this is http://nicetranslator.com
• Uniqueness: Yes, we already made sure your name is not a duplicate (or even similar to another business), but you must also verify the name is not similar to any common words. Consider the search scenario again if you use the name “Fashion”. How many hits would be found? Your name would be mixed in the results somewhere. Avoid that scenario by selecting a name that is totally unique and has only one possible search result: you

The other goal of naming is the “color” of the name. Whether you realize it or not, most words carry a connotation with them. They may be positive or negative, elegant or ugly. The point is that words trigger feelings in people, often unconscious feelings. If the words conjure feelings that don’t match your business, then you are automatically at a disadvantage, because people will already feel strangely about your business before they even visit!

The name’s flavor should not only have some relationship with the products or services you provide, but also evoke professionalism, positivism, quality, confidence and of course, hipness. The best way to test this property is to clear your head, then quickly stare at the written name. Ask yourself, “What was the first image that came into my head?” and “How do I feel when I see that name?” Then imagine what your customers will think and feel when they do the same.

There’s one often-forgotten aspect of name-flavor: Expandability. While your business name might match your products and services very well today, what happens in the future when you expand your product line? Will the name still make sense? Take a few moments to consider where your business might end up, and make certain your name still fits.

But how, exactly, can one come up with a name that meets all these needs? You can stare out the window and hope for divine intervention, or use one of these awful online generators, but there are a few tricks that can help the process immensely.

Get a thesaurus, or better yet, use an online thesaurus, such as http://thesaurus.com. Think of words that describe what your business does or produces, and use the thesaurus to identify alternate words that meet the criteria above. Hopefully you’ll end up with several candidate words.

Still with the thesaurus, search for words that evoke the qualities you want your business to exude. For example, if you sell intricate clockworks, I’d search for words like “sharp”, “precision”, etc.

Armed with a bundle of good words, try producing compound names by putting the words together in different combinations. Don’t just think them; write them down and look at them. Say them aloud, and cross out the ones that don’t feel right. You will soon have a short list of pretty good names.

An alternative to a compound word is to use either a suffix or prefix. Like words, suffixes also convey feelings, so the same process can be used: write down combinations, say them aloud, throw away the lousy ones. A short list have you soon will.

Which one should you choose from the short list? You don’t. Your friends and trusted associates will. That’s right, gather up a small group of friendlies, hopefully from different backgrounds, and throw the short list at them. Don’t give them a lot of time, because you’re looking for initial reactions, just as potential customers will react. You might be surprised what they say, but trust them.

You’re done, right? Nope. Open that browser and register the name. Right now! 


(image courtesy of GapingVoid)

Some Sound Ideas

 

I recently listened to an episode of the Rezzed and Confused SL podcast, produced by Itazura Radio. Among the several always-interesting topics discussed on the show was a great idea to improve the voice audio quality.

Itazura’s podcast usually provides commentary on the intermittent official Linden Lab blog postings, after a reading by his abused and truly scary assistant “Audrey”. On this episode Itazura discussed the difficulties of setting up voice, in reaction to the blog post on using SL as a conferencing tool. If you haven't heard this 'cast, I strongly recommend it. Audrey is a little hard to take, but bear with her to the end and you'll have a good laugh.

Voice, we love it or we hate it. I happen to love it, and use it by default nowadays. Of course, there are moments when I must revert to text mode, typically because the majority of the crowd is texting and not voicing.

Why do I like voice? Two reasons, I guess. One, it’s simply vastly faster to communicate, particularly complex information such as negotiating a deal with a client. Two, I don’t do role-play, where a voice that doesn’t match the role could cause catastrophic and hilarious results. I suppose there’s a third reason too: I’m not a guy playing a female avatar.

But as I use voice with many people, the same problems keep coming up:

• Volume is too low, and you can’t hear them.
• Volume is too high, and you must crank them down
• Can’t connect - no “white dot”
• They’re too far away and thus too faint to hear

And my number one problem that simply drives me totally fricking insane: Feedback from the other end let’s me hear myself talking. This is so blindingly awful and horrendously embarrasing I want to slay myself each time it happens. It's as if someone just clipped 70 points off of your I.Q. and you suddenly became a dumbass who doesn't know how to talk.

We’ve all been there; you begin speaking, and a second or two later you hear your voice. Then, curiously, your voice stops abruptly for some reason. Then you realize it was because you stopped speaking in mid-sentence to listen to yourself.

OK, it’s not that bad. Just ignore it. Try again. You resume speaking, and it works for a while but then you

Augh. It happened again.

The feedback happens, of course, due to two main causes:

• Your correspondent does not have a headset or earbuds and you are hearing yourself come out of their speakers
• Your correspondent has a headset, but it is improperly placed on their head, and with volume sufficiently loud, your voice leaks out from behind their ears and goes back into their microphone

Horrifying, I’m sure you’d agree.

But how do we solve this? Itazura has a wonderful idea, as I mentioned earlier. The idea is to include a “call me to test” feature, similar to what is done on Skype. The voicer can “speak”, and then hear themselves exactly as others would hear them. They’d realize soon enough how badly they have set up their microphone, and fix it.

I’m thinking there’s another approach to fixing the feedback issue. And that might be a much more sophisticated audio processing back-end that watches for identical (or similar) waveforms being sent back and filters them out automatically.

Until either of those fixes takes place, we’re just going to have to be patient, and keep saying, “Can you hear me” a whole lot.

At the Chasm

 

There's been some discussion lately about whether SL is sufficiently easy to use by the general public. I'm not so sure, and here's my thinking.

There's an interesting social phenomenon, first described by author Geoffrey Moore in his book, "Crossing the Chasm". Moore proposes that in general, people react differently to technology change. In fact, there are several categories of change reactions:

• Innovators. These are the folks who "invent" the change. The ones with the screwdrivers. The like the change; they make it happen.
• Early Adopters. These people like change just to be different. They will endure any pain or trouble simply to be able to say "we did it!"
• Pragmatists. This group is interested in embracing the change, but will do so only if they gain from it. It is not sufficient for them to "just do it". They have to get a return for their trouble. And that return might be money, could be fun, but it is substantial.
• Conservatives. Like the Pragmatists, the Conservatives want the return on their investment of time and effort, but they will not tolerate any trouble. It must be a smooth experience, without difficulty. Any slight issues are enough to put them off and they will disappear. It's got to be easy for them.
• Skeptics. The final group simply does not want to change under any circumstances. No logic or benefits will convince them to take the effort to make a change.

As you can see on the chart, there are typical percentages associated with each category that are found within populations subjected to change. You may scoff at this analysis, but I've personally found these percentages were almost *exactly* as predicted in several real life situations.

Is that all there is? No! There are several key implications derived from this model:

• Don't bother trying to convince the Skeptics. You can't.
• New technology services must be easy to use, or you won't get the large group of Conservatives to participate.
• Usage growth at the beginning is different than Pragmatist and Conservative growth.

The "chasm" Moore speaks of refers to the problem of startup companies who invent a useful, but tricky product. They find Innovators and Early Adopters rush to use it, and foolishly extrapolate their growth curve right through the other categories. Of course, the Pragmatists and especially the Conservatives don't react well to tricky products, and the company's growth stalls. Companies have to find a way to "cross the chasm" between tricky and mainstream products or they die.

Where is SL? I believe it's right on the precipice of the chasm. It's attracted all the Innovators and Early Adopters that likely exist and are interested. Growth suddenly stabilized a while ago, and that's when we hit the edge of the chasm. In fact, have you ever noticed that most of the people on your friends list are creators of something? Other than newbies, who tend to disappear, most of us are creative types. The newbies who disappear are not.

What is SL to do? Clearly, if it is to grow it must find a way to cross the chasm. They will do that by simplifying things significantly, and M's plan of making the initial experience better goes along those lines. But there is much more to do, especially in the viewer. But more about that another day.

A Reading in a Spaceship

 

That's a strange headline, but it could actually happen in Second Life. And it did tonight, when I attended the launch event for Phil Rossi's new podcast novel, Eden.

For those of you who haven't tried a podcast novel, they are quite fun and in a way like those radio serials of the distant past. Each week a new episode is released and usually you are left hanging on the action until the next week's episode arrives. I've listened quite a few over the past several years, and I'm going to continue as long as they keep coming.
 

  

Phil is a veteran of podcast novels, having published the very popular "Crescent" podcast in 2007. It's a truly spooky thriller set in a future space station in a far-away part of the galaxy, inhabited by various not-so-nice characters. The series proved so popular that he's even obtained a RL book deal for this work to be published in the atomic world by Dragon Moon press!

Having listened and enjoyed his very well done Crescent series, I could not resist attending tonight's event. Phil took the stage in a giant spaceship high above the surface of Corona Cay where a couple dozen fans were there to hear him read the first episode. Afterwards Phil, who's also a terrific musician, pulled out his guitar and gave us a wonderful live concert.
 

  

Once again, I'm amazed at these kinds of events where several different mediums intersect in ways unimaginable a few years ago. Tonight we experienced spaceships, music and print all joined via virtual reality.

The new podcast launches on February 11th, and you can find it on Podiobooks.com. For more info on Phil's work you can check out his sites at CrescentStation.net and PhilRossi.net.