May be of Interest

Some may find this ineresting for a Friday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8367957.stm[URL]

From the article:
"A 23-year-old freelance social media marketer signed on, created an avatar with a shock of red hair that vaguely resembled him, and jumped into what he found to be a lacklustre experience."Half the time you're just wandering around talking to weirdos." "

lmao

Same old, same old. It must be a slow day for news at the Beeb.

Another rehash of ancient gripes by folk who obviously never bothered in the first place. Wired and Reuters failed in SL because they were never there and their stories really are old hat of the second hand order as is the American Apparel fiasco. Mind you, AA were probably justified in pulling out because textured clothes are a joke on the crap avatar mesh. No branded RL clothier would risk its reputation on duff virtual commodities.

Online journalism is becoming increasingly poor in quality. Every cheap hack thinks he or she can get away with pulling up old, forgotten stories or obscure items from elsewhere on the web and rehashing the material like it's fresh news. I sincerely hope Lauren Hansen doesn't get paid by the word.

Good article. I agree with the person who says Reuters was clueless the whole time they were in SL. Some good resaons for staying and leaving were presented by the comments. That's the whole point. SL isn't for everyone, NOTHING is for everyone.SL isn't Facebook, I don't know why people want it to be, especially it's owners. There already is a Facebook, why do we want another one?

As far as American Apparel goes, they failed because their stuff was mediocre. It was one of the first places I shopped at, but soon I found better quality items at "resident" stores, at better prices, so all my AA stuff was binned.

Ah, bless...

In passing, am i being unduly cynical as interpreting "23-year-old freelance social media marketer" as "unemployed arts (possibly media studies) graduate"?

I wonder how many surveys he may have posted here.

PC Pro magazine in the UK has just done a very similar article. Presumably the BBC piece was "researched" from there. It must be easy being an internet journalist now that wireless connections are available in most of the pubs in London.

Pep (Move along; nothing to see here.)

Just like the real thing then

I know several meja-lovies getting seriously over-paid for, at best, re-phrasing advertisers' press-releases and being wildly competitive on the dull, PC, conform-to-prejudice, ratings stakes so they can get a job as an anchor on a 'magazine-style' TV show and be even more over-paid for reading aloud or asking pre-agreed questions of this week's 'celebs'*.

How would people like that see anything in a virtual world that takes time to learn, requires creativity to get the most from and doesn't advance their careers? SL and anyone that chooses to use it or a computer are deeply boring to them. Go to one of their clubs or parties, you'll find the reverse is also true.

(*It's a generalisation so of course not EVERY journalist is like that - some want to get on the public-sector gravy-train so do the 'serious' pre-arranged political interviews and repeat their preferred party's dogma instead of pandering to celebs. Same difference but they tend to be more smug and corrupt).

Is it? You really could have fooled me. Apart from quoting Mark Kingdon and the ginger IT consultant who I suspect is the author's boyfriend or brother, for all the insight he offers, the brief nod to this year's thing, Twitter, is about the only thing that distinguishes it from these articles written back in February:





Compare and contrast.

So, this was post Zindra then?

Well, it is Friday.

Fixed it for you ?

Yeah. I guess those two were pretty similar to start with.

Yeah, well I didn't read those.*shakes fist*

Do try to be au fait, Ms Connolly.*wags finger* The future of SL and virtual life as we know it hangs in the balance.

Good reading.... thanks ; )

I am still struggling with the paradox of MK saying the Monthly repeat login has risen 23% this last year, while my own experience is the exact opposite. Large swathes of uninhabited regions across the map, and out of a once huge friends list, I am lucky to see 1 or 2 still logging in.

SL does not buzz for me like it once did, nowhere near as busy, more ghost town than boom town.

Rock

How would you know? You seem to spend most of your time on Blue Mars.

Oh, so THAT's who that guy was.

Bingo.