Common|Sensible

Second Life More Social Than Facebook

2009-11-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

Tried a little experiment at FaceBook. Fail. I had a faceBoook account under my real name for a few years, but never paid much attention to it. It just struck me as a "cleaner" version of that train-wreck called "MySpace". Over those couple of years I've received a few "friend" requests, of those 90% were people I know or knew way back when. But once "friended" that was about the extent of it. There are a lot of "violations" to the Second Life Terms of Service (TOS) that we all agree to...

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If You Sell Thrones, Boycott Linden Lab

2009-11-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Today, November 5th, 2009 is the big day that has Linden Lab quaking in their boots, biting their fingernail, holding an unruly bladder. At least, that's what the "Artist's Voice" campaign is hoping. I have to say, it's difficult to make me laugh out loud and it always is a pleasure when something like this comes along. Allow me first to make this clear: I am not dissing, degrading, slamming-on or in any way intending to insult anyone who is a part-of this campaign including participants and...

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Second Life Selling Tip 02 of 15: Product Art File Optimization

2009-11-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

A huge problem many retailers in Second Life have is that their products are not seen by many potential buyers who want that product and are willing to pay for it. This is because of the urge many creators have to present high-resolution, detailed "product art". Because these textures are nicely detailed, high-resolution images, they take a long time to download and they are in a queue with everyone else's high-resolution textures... all waiting to download to the shopper's viewer. Hence: the...

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Second Life Selling Tip 01 of 15: Traffic Is Against You

2009-11-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

There are two kinds of customers: the hunter and the gatherer. The gatherer gathers. They are the window-shoppers who browse around, store-to-store looking for anything that catches their fancy - impulse-buyers. In Second Life, unlike first life, gatherers are likely one in a thousand - or only once in every 100-shopping jaunts for each of us. Hunting is far too easy. There are two things to sell also: services (your talent such a photographer, disc-jockey, land-leasing, etc.) and products...

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It's Not Your Owner's Collar Anymore

2009-10-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

When asked 'what do you do in Second Life'? - a bevy of answers will be returned based largely on who it is you ask. When asked "what is there to do in Second Life?" - again, a multitude of different answers. There are the common ones we all know of already: Build things, Visit places, role play. Pixel-sex. When it comes to role-playing, most will think of the common genres such as fantasy, vampires, medieval, middle-ages. There are very large communities of the Roman Empire and...

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Freebies No Longer As Evil As Bots

2009-10-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

...but only barely are freebies better than bots. They are still eeevil no matter what, primarily because they create ridiculous entitlement attitudes, which are often rude. Shopping in Second Life is seriously hit-or-miss because the entire grid is like one gigantic strip-mall, infesting the virtual landscape the same way those pesky "Borg" infested planet earth for a fleeting moment in that Star Trek movie called "First Contact". The entire grid is, for all practicality one giant...

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Stroker Strokes and Not Much Else

2009-10-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

What do Barrack Serpentine and Stroker Obama have in common? Practically everything: They both love attention and will make over-the-top alarmist accusations and statements to get it. They both have practically no skills whatsoever, so they shovel shinola. Both will do whatever they can to rile-up their own constituents and slam-down anyone and everyone who disagrees, no matter their religion, national origin, race, color, or sex. Especially if your political affiliation is Republican or your...

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All Users: Please Tell Us You Are breaking The Rules. Please?

2009-10-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

If you have been following the Slogosphere the last couple days (of course you have, you're reading this SLog, aren't you?) then you are surely aware that Linden Lab has added a new preference to your Second Life account via your preferences page at Second Life dot com. This new preference is something Jack Linden mentioned way back when in his posted announcing the policy threatening all SL Residents of being banned from search results if they "game traffic" via the use of "scripted agents"...

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More Knee-jerk Fodder from Linden Lab

2009-10-22T10:16:00.001-07:00

Sheesh. Okay, Linden lab throws out a couple blog posts that as expected cause the Second Life Universe to either quake in it's boots or cause panic among the system-gamers. What else is new? Surely you've heard or read by now that Linden Lab will be reviewing their 'after market' viewer "policies' soon and, according to many bloggers (and wrongly so) you will be banned if caught using one that is not "approved"! ZOMG! WTF! Please people, get an effing grip, will you? Hell, even the...

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Try To Have Faith In Your Customers. Please?

2009-10-20T10:49:00.001-07:00

The whole copybot thing is really a non issue except for some creators and the count of those is microscopic when taken into account the 'big picture' of the Second Life grid. However, there are many who express childish emotional knee-jerk reactions at the very mention of copybot or the misnomer: "copybot viewer". Many, if not most of these people are needlessly suffering stress-inducing panic-mode because sales are down. Some will say "way down". However, they aren't taking many things into...

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Whining and Crying version 1.23.5 Update Released

2009-10-16T08:09:00.001-07:00

Here we go again. Linden Lab force-feeds a new viewer upon the masses of the grid and the replies to it via the Official Second Life blog are flying-n at breakneck speed. The requisite whining and crying are there, as well as the usualless waste of space comments. Oh, and of course there are instances of our favorite: the obligatory "I'm leaving SL!!!11". I'm telling you this is all pure entertainment at it's best. It's been quite a while since Linden Lab forced an update to the throngs en...

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ZOMG, Linden Lab Sneezed!!!11 And There Was Boogers!

2009-10-15T09:39:00.001-07:00

I would expect the more 'vocal' of the better-informed of Second Life residents actually, do freak-out every time Linden Lab "sneezes". The issue comes down to reading too far into what Linden lab says, often via their 'Official Second Life Blog". It is the "better informed" who read that, and this and many other SL-related blogs, so they are "in the know." However, they also tend to be rather highly social, I suspect more-so than the average SL resident. And, in that, have a serious propensity...

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Did You Just Change Your Hair In Front Of Me?

2009-10-14T13:07:00.001-07:00

Birds & Bees Guy Tip #73: If you actually notice a lady-friend has changed her hairstyle, something's up. As a rule of thumb, there is some kind of change in her life, profound or not, but significant nonetheless. By now, you have likely noticed Common Sensible's 'hairstyle' has changed rather dramatically. For those of you whom have followed this blog for some time, this is likely no great surprise. In the past I have changed the look for no reason other than tiring of the old...

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The Tainted Wonderland

2009-10-14T08:46:00.001-07:00

Kill yourself. Well, not all of you, of course, but rather that part of you that is so cynical and negative (I know: redundant terms there.) Second Life is such a wonderful wonderland upon first entry, but gradually dulls and seems to grow darker with time, the way brass will dull and tarnish without a constant polishing. Zara Mistwallow has a great post on her blog regarding how we just don't really talk to each other anymore, how we've become indolent in our little virtual worlds inside...

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You Are The Sugar in Second Life's Water

2009-10-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

Pour a teaspoon of sugar into a thimble of water and you'll have an incredibly sweet drink. Pour the same teaspoon of sugar into a five-gallon bucket and it becomes engulfed, lost, overtaken by the water. Not only is it not sweet, you can't taste the sugar at all. This is how I view the Second Life grid. Okay, not really, but a way to describe how I view the grid - with regard to the bigger picture. I have been complaining (to myself and to you, through this blog) about how the grid...

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Okay, which of you is breaking my sim with Neillife?

2009-10-06T02:44:00.000-07:00

If someone is murdered, which did the murdering: the gun that shot the bullet, or the person pulling the trigger? A gun is just a tool. A means to an end. The fact is if someone is intent on the end and one means is removed, for example the gun, they will find another means to that same end. Thus, in this context the gun is no more dangerous than a steak-knife, a hammer or even a fist-size rock. Fortunately, Linden Lab always errs on the side of caution. Yes, even an "under-age" abuse...

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Balance Your Life (Meaning Both: Second and First)

2009-10-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

Are you hysterically paranoid about the new “copybot” grid viewers? And - isn't it radically ironic that Second Life residents will blast Linden Lab for acting to enforce their own Intellectual Property Rights (made to be BAD GUYS), but yet blast Linden Lab and shout shrill diatribe when their own (Residents) Intellectual Property Rights are offended - i.e. "copybot" (GOOD GUYS)? Cake + Eat = Sour-taste. [Update: and I just read this at Not Possible In RL blog: "Animators in Second Life...

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Second Life: Why 'Copybot' Shouldn't Matter

2009-09-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

[UPDATE: Cryolife is easily detectable. However, I have discovered one way to detect at least one of the others, possibly more - details in my next post to this blog. —Ari] Copybot has been around since 2006. And now, there are grid viewers with the same capability built-in and there are those who are going absolutely nuts with paranoia. At large are Cryolife, Thuglyfe, Streetlife, Neillife, please Get-a-life. Sure, I could easily link to each and every one of those I've just listed. But...

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Watch Your "(Step)-UP! For Content Creators"

2009-09-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

There is big news making the rounds in the SLogosphere this week about an effort (boycott) regarding content theft in Second Life. The effort is called "Step UP! For Content Creators". Many bloggers have called it many things. Many others, including Gwyneth Llewelyn calls it what it is and should be: an awareness effort. But I think it actually goes too far. The untiring Gwen Carillon, one of the best jewelry creators in Second Life, and the long-time president of the Content Creators...

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Flame Me, Burn Me, Kill Me. Just Don't Eat Me.

2009-09-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

An old saying we used to throw around in my Army days is "they can kill you, but they can't eat you." I know, I know... "Huh? Wha...?" It's just another way of saying they can beat you up, hate you, make you miserable - but in the end, they can't take away your principals. And so, I now hereby open myself up to whatever flaming, trolling, vitriolic hatred might come my way when I make my genuine opinion here known to the world. Not a secret, but never before openly and loudly shouted out to...

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Whoa is me...

2009-09-22T01:16:00.000-07:00

To all both of my followers and all three of my readers... apologies for the hiatus. First Life company makes a move not only from one office to the other, but from one city to another. The good news is that my morning and evening commutes are considerably less stressful (from an average 30-minutes on a good day down to 11 minutes every day.) Unfortunately the move itself was and still is a real pain in the ass. And back. And legs, and feet and arms and... well, if you've ever moved house,...

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The Other Shoe Falls Off (AO No Longer Means "Animation Override")

2009-09-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Via email 30-minutes ago: ********** Dear Second Life Resident, You have a parcel or classified ad listing that appears to contain adult content, but is not located on an Adult region. On September 15th, the Adult Content Policy transition period will end. After the 15th, adult content may only be advertised if it is located on Adult regions. On September 17th, we will be turning off auto-renew for any classified or parcel listings that are advertising adult content on PG or Mature regions....

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A Blue Moon Rising

2009-09-15T00:40:00.000-07:00

The blogoshpere is flooded with opinions and apparent excitement that Blue Mars is finally going into public beta. I'm on the beta list and have run around the place for a time (Look for Ari Blackthorne on Blue Mars - except you'll have a hard time finding me - see below). I came. I saw. I left. Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote a wonderful piece, probably the most accurate on the subject thus far. But most of what I'm seeing appears to be the drooling excitement that an alternative to...

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Second Life Alternative!!! (Again, /me yawns)

2009-09-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. The horrible Second Life Grid, owned and operated by the evil Linden Lab is not good enough because they actually expect you to follow reasonable rules on an "unstable" (should have been here in 2006 and prior) grid and allow Intellectual Property plagiarism (no such thing as theft if it's a copy) to run rampant (admittedly, it's a real bitch to apply a DMCA charge against someone - especially at Xstreet SL) and expect you to spend real money for the privilege (damned...

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Second Life: Attrition Can Be A Real Bitch

2009-09-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

Making my usual SLogosphere rounds this week I took great interest in Tateru's (Massively) take on some of the information she grinds into meaningful data - as best she can, anyway. Her post this week highlight the decline of concurrent Second Life (SL) "residents" for the first time ever (emphasis is mine): While running some routine analyses of the user concurrency figures for Second Life from 2006 to the present, we noticed some interesting things. Median concurrency, one of the indicators...

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Snapshot_023 [Flickr]

2009-06-03T06:41:42-07:00

Ari Blackthorne posted a photo:

Snapshot_022 [Flickr]

2009-06-03T06:39:31-07:00

Ari Blackthorne posted a photo:

Snapshot_021 [Flickr]

2009-06-03T06:36:26-07:00

Ari Blackthorne posted a photo:

Snapshot_019 [Flickr]

2009-06-03T06:33:25-07:00

Ari Blackthorne posted a photo:

Snapshot_018 [Flickr]

2009-06-03T06:29:19-07:00

Ari Blackthorne posted a photo: