Love to Decorate magazine features me!

Tags

love to decorate, ltd, media, press, The 1920s Berlin Project

The very impressive ‘Love to Decorate’ (A.K.A. LTD) Second Life design magazine has published a very nice article about me, my shop and the 1920s Berlin Project I started 5 years ago.

I hope you all go and read it, you can find it by clicking here.

Although design is not really a subject I usually get excited about, (unless its historical stuff of course), I have been very impressed with LTD because it is stunning.
The team behind it, led by Editorial Clarity, has done an amazing job.
It would not look out of place on the shelve of a RL magazine kiosk.
Not just the pictures but also the layout, the look, the ‘feel’, is spot on.

If you’re not a LTD reader yet, you’ve been missing out.

I’m not the only one who realised the amazing talent of the LTD crew.
Draxtor Despres made one of this wonderful Drax Files episodes all about Herr Clarity;

More about LTD on their website;
http://lovetodecoratesl.com/

So I’m very proud they asked me for their November/December issue.

What made it extra special were the wonderful pictures made by Absinthe (aka sinontherocks Resident) that I’ve uploaded (with her permission) onto Flickr for you to enjoy there.
Check them out by following this link.

Picture by Absinthe (aka sinontherocks Resident)

Inara Pey strikes back at bad article about Second Life

Tags

inara pey, journalism, marlon mcdonald, media, press, rebuttal

After reading the terribly written and lazy “article” about Second Life by Marlon McDonald that I wrote about, well known blogger Inara Pey wandered into the lion’s den and wrote a great rebuttal on the same website ‘Moviepilot.com’.

This article is of course a lot better and introduces people to the other side of our virtual world and also shows (how unusual!) up to date screenshots.

In short it is everything the article mr McDonald wrote wasn’t; knowledgeable, informative, up to date, well written, etc.

Make sure you read it but also share so that as many people as possible read it.
Because that is how those websites work, the more ‘reads’, clicks, etc, the more attention it gets and the more likely it gets that other readers also get to read this story and not just the nonsense mr McDonald wrote.

So, go on, check out this link, read the story and if you want, also leave a comment and show your support.

Well done Inara!

Bad journalism strikes again

Tags

cliches, journalism, media, press, publicity, reputation

Those of us who art part of the Second Life community are used to negative publicity.
For years the media has been filled to the rim with scare and shock stories about lots of dirty, kinky, disgusting and generally weird stories.
And lets be fair, there is a lot in Second Life that most people will find disturbing or at least odd.

But so is reality, and internet, and tv, and books… have you ever heard of ‘Lady chatterley’s lover’?
Disgusting!
And don’t get me started on that pervert Shakespeare….

But somehow when it comes to Second Life, we just don’t seem to be able to shake that bad reputation, so many “journalists” keep writing about that side of our virtual world, as if that is all there is and has been for over a decade.

Still, it can be annoying, even infuriating when yet another bit of lazy journalism rears its ugly head and this article on a website I’d never heard of called “moviepilot“, takes the biscuit.

I guess the writer Marlon McDonald was told to quickly write some ‘click bait’ and to finish it in 20 minutes.
Or at least I hope so, it doesn’t seem like a lot of effort was put into his article.

When I first read it I thought it was a story from 2007, with matching images.
But no, it was written yesterday.
The screenshots though…. the first one isn’t even from SL but from IMVU!
Which is telling…

It is quite obvious that the writer just wanted to write a little dirty story about the adult sort of pervy side of Second Life.
Which, let me say it again, is absolutely not my cup of tea but I also don’t care about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own sim.
But it does annoy me when people make it seem like that is all there is to Second Life.
Because it is not part of my Second Life and even those only involved with the adult entertainment part of SL know very well that there is so much more to our virtual world.

In his conquest for a little story Mr. McDonald did manage to find the Second Life destination guide, because that is where the first (non IMVU) picture comes from.
That sort of gives the game away.
He saw the list of all the types of sims we have in SL yet he only seems to have found the kinky sims.
If… he bothered to actually try SL at all and just randomly snatched a few pictures of the internet.

The most recent picture used in that article is from 2010, 4 years ago.
Try using a 4 year old screenshot when writing about any other game…
And clearly it wasn’t even made with a half decent computer.
The oldest picture is from 2007.
Yes even the ‘flying penises’ story was mentioned, something that happened 7 years ago!

Now, if this was an article about the ‘darker’ side of Second Life as it used to be and how it looked several years ago, it might have made a little sense.
Especially if the writer had bothered to write about how things have changed since then.
Because these days even the sexy side of Second Life has decent graphics!

This is a story about what Second Life was like several years ago, but nowhere in the article this is mentioned.
By “forgetting” to share that information, uninformed readers may think that Second Life still looks that way, but even worse, that adult entertainment is all there is.

A good journalist who wants to write about this side of SL would at least mention that there is more to SL and that the images are a bit outdated.

This article is everything journalism shouldn’t be; unfair and unbalanced.
Sadly, this is what journalism often is, not just when it comes to SL.

My story here is not one about yet another negative cliche ridden article about our SL, it is about one that is the mother of them all.
And I feel that it is up to all of us to make sure that people who write this nonsense are confronted.
Not just because bad journalists need to be called to order but also because people who read this drivel will perhaps also read our comments and thus get confronted with the other side of the story.

So go on, do your bit, leave a comment, tell people what SL is really like.
Defend your world.

SLGO pays you $10 for new users and Drax makes a SLGO video

Tags

promotion, SLGo

The people at Onlive are excited about SLGO and are clearly putting a lot of effort into promoting it.

Their newest announcement lets SLGO users earn 10$ for every new user they help find the way to SLGO.

It is very easy, just sign up, share the links and if people use your link to join up, you get paid!

I’ve written about SLGO before, but in short it is a paid service that lets you enjoy SL on mobile devices but also on very old computers that generally can’t run Second Life.
And not just that, it lets you run SL at ULTRA graphics settings, the way SL should be experienced.
It just isn’t the same without all those delicious shadows!

Yes it costs money, 9.95 (£6.95) per month for unlimited access or pay as you go for only $1.00 (£0.70) per hour.
I reckon that it is worth it, cheaper than buying a new computer that can handle SL at ultra settings or at least a handy option to have in case you need to get into SL right away and aren’t near your super duper desktop computer.
Not sure about it?
No worries, there is a 7 day free trial.

And SLGO now also works on your Ipad.

You can sign up by clicking the image below, and yes, I am using the SL promotion tools here, so by trying SL you’re also helping me make a few bucks.
Which is good because I have an expensive silk stockings, Absinth and stroopwafel addiction.

http://slgo.onlive.com/?utm_source=jufjo&utm_medium=slfriends&utm_campaign=slgo10&utm_content=link

And on top of all that the people at SLGO have asked our very own Draxter to make a video about his SLGo Ipad adventures;

Ebbe talks to Engadget

Tags

ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, engadget, future, interview, SL2, virtual reality

Today Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab) took part in a chat at the Engadget Expand 2014 event in New York.

It was a short interview, but interesting to see.

Ebbe did a good job of representing Second Life, within moments of being allowed to speak he managed to make sure that the public was brought up to date and possibly had some of their preconceptions challenged.

He mentioned that Second Life has been around for 11 years, is still going strong, is the biggest most successful virtual world ever created and that it is being used for education, entertainment, art, and more.
Universities use it, everything you see has been created  by regular users, etc.

This is of course all obvious to us regular users but I think that it is always good to tell people these things, especially people who have not tried Second Life or have not heard anything about it since some dodgy stories with bad screenshots in 2007.

He also mentioned that they are working on a ‘Next generation Virtual world’ that will take off ‘way beyond’ what Second Life can do today when it comes to avatar, communication, graphics and physics capabilities.

He says that all this will take quite a while but “High end users” will be invited to come try testing it in the middle of next year.

Ebbe also talked about the massive economy of Second Life, that a million dollars a week is being cashed out and that a lot of people make a living out of what they do in Second Life.

Again, not news to us, but these are all things that make people pay attention and realise that Second Life is not just still around but actually a pretty interesting party in the VR business at the moment.

In short I think Ebbe did a pretty good job of representing Second Life at this opportunity.

You can see the full video here.