Blogging History of Second Life

If you could blog from within Second Life, would you want to be part of a larger community effort to chronicle the history of the world? Would you prefer to tell your own personal history? Would you want group blogs or individual or both?

We're exploring the possibilities of uniting SL bloggers into a community that exists both in and outside of Second Life. If you have ideas or thoughts, and especially if you're a current blogger, please feel free to share them with us to help us figure out the best direction to take.

Well, as they say, history is told by the victors to the losers...

That being said, I'd absolutely love to see the blogosphere get inputted directly into SL. Furthermore, I'd love to see it outputted into the web as well (that way, people not playing SL can see the stuff we're coming up with).... maybe free blog webspace dedicated to such a pursuit to all accounts in SL?

I've always thought that having a tab in your 2nd life profile that acted as your blog would be a wonderful thing... as well as being able to sort through all of the active blogs being written in-world (kinda like a search).

Some problems, though... if you're going to make it useful, you have to take pains in keeping it spam-free. IE keep the advertisement monkeys out of it all (I don't want to read 500 "DJ CLUB SANDWICH" blogs all "cleverly" designed advertisements). Maybe searchable isn't such a good idea.

Another possibility would be to have some sort of meta-moderation system that sites such as Slashdot or Everything2.com uses, in order to "mod up" interesting blogs; that would foster creativity and maybe make a few celebrities out of good writers in Second Life.

All in all, blogs are a great thing to read. I'm a fan of more integration of these into SL, for sure.

LF

I started blogging using the Email Postcard feature to TypePad.

http://jackdigeridoo.blogs.com/

It would be nice if there was an easier way to add additional photo's.

I would LOVE to see blogging more integrated into SL!

I've been blogging (out of SL, obviously) for 3+ years, and really enjoy it. I intend to start documenting my personal SL history - but would definitely love to make any contribution I might be able to make to a history of SL overall, too. Mind you, I haven't been here that long, and some really major things happened before I ever heard of SL, but still.

I think Lordfly is onto something with an SL resident's blog as a tab in their profile - or perhaps, maybe not the full blog, but something like RSS in your profile. Excerpts of recent entries from a more "complete" blog. That would be nifty.

I definitely think it's a great idea, and really hope to see something come of it.

It would be nice to see more tools incorporated to ease the task of blogging. I haven't had a chance to see other citizen's blogs, but I would be interested in doing it myself. To tell my version of SL.

Please, don't organize me.

I don't want to be railroaded into some fake community just because I blog.

Leave me alone to blog.

Couldn't you just work on getting the servers to function better?

In world blogging? Way cool!

I'd like that!

I currently cover my history, but it I wouldn't mind contributing to SL history too.

I definitely think it is an interesting concept - the ease of doing something directly in SL is the reason that Snapzilla has taken off so quickly. Upcoming features to the site, including external blog site integration, will add blogging capabilities as well. What is so exciting about it is it is a visual history of life in SL, day after day, in a way that has never been shown before. Anything that helps to capture our collective experiences in SL in meaningful ways is very important. I look forward to their being even more options in the future.

How about integration into LiveJornal - I hear they're headquarters in SF these days.

Very Excellent!

I'd be interested individual and group blogs.

It sounds very cool -- one of the things that's important to me though, would be RICH TEXT FORMATTING in SL. I like that to be able to use italics and bold, for example, to emphasize points, as well as different fonts to add flava. Right now, for me, reading notecards is kinda boring because of how the text is all samey, characteristic-wise, and we don't even have monospace fonts in there. Adding inline images somehow would be nice -- we can drag pictures into notecards but they don't show up as a preview thumbnail or anything visual like that.

I notice though, that the Basic Help file is some sort of HTML, so if this could be rolled into Profiles, maybe we could get RSS feeds and able to edit with greater control and create new "gateways" between SL and blogging on the web. More connections.

I look forward to it.

Could you work on removing your head from its consistent contact with your tailbone, thus improving your overall outlook on life and everyone else's mood? Thanks.

Ahem.

Robin, bloggin' is cool. I'd love a quick and easy means to assemble Second Life blogs into an easy-to-browse space. I *definitely* love in-game tools to contribute to a blog. There are plenty of times where I'd love to fill my down time with some storytelling.

Ideas for the history aspect:

Can there exist some sort of History Wiki wherein a brief synopsis of an event is posted with links to blog entries relevant to that post? Some sort of overall unifying tool to make historical research easy and quick.

Bringing RTF to notecards would be delicious. Many times I have tried to organize thoughts and documents using the notecard system and found my results dreadfully unimpressive. It's almost worth it to use page layout software and export to a JPG image and hand out textures rather than notecards.

Just fyi, there is already an SL History Wiki at http://history.secondserver.net

Grumble.

Now I'm going to have to read it all.

Well you're all in luck. I'm nearing completion of a flash app that you'll be able to stream in-world. It will allow you to blog via email and see the flash app update with your new posts in-world.

Future versions I'm hoping will have multiple-user support and be able to import pictures from SL as well... which would allow for (drum-roll) syndicated in-world media!

Dun dun dun...

Well, that's nasty.

I just don't want to be in some fake blog community just because some Internet company has some technology. I don't get it. I have a blog, and I just write and upload screenshots in it. I saw some technology the other day that somebody made inside the game already, I think without Lindens, and it is a blogger (Walker Spaight has it) and I think you just blog and upload pictures, haven't tried it yet.

You always want to railroad people into all these fake groups, geh, it's like doing the bunny dance line at Club Med.

You have free will Prokofy.. Exersise it by not participating. It's really that simple.

Your logic has no place here! Remember, if Prokofy doesn't want it, or is unimpressed by it, then no one should have it, and anyone who is impressed/enjoys something should be scorned at all costs.

Ahaha.

This sounds like it could be the end of the forums on SecondLife.

I love it!

Instead of having forums we'd just have the blogosphere. Maybe the forums would still be there, but if you advertised the blogs more, you know, "above the fold" as they say..

Would you have a single source where everyone could come read? Would you syndicate everyone? Would you host the blogs? (not so good for SEO) Would you allow people to use outside blogging?

Or would you take a bloglines approach and let people syndicate their own preferences?

I guess you could use tags for subjects. For example, I could tag "General SecondLife", "Land SecondLife", and so forth.

I think I'd have a lot harder time trolling, but so would everyone else. This would be a Good Thing.

Integrating it directly into secondlife is an interesting idea. However, I've integrated stuff into secondlife and it doesn't always convert well. People would probably always just use their web browser instead of the SL Client.

Having events and meetings in SL would be cool, not sure if I'd come though

Actually, a first good step would be to create a page where you syndicate everyone

The best thing of all.. you wouldn't be liable!

See, this is why I say, please just make the servers work? And leave the blogging to us. They aren't going to host everybody's blogs, they won't be able to keep up. So they'll be forced to select with predictable results.

I'm figuring it will be like the select fan sites that TSO always promoted, filtering out many that either didn't bother to go through the steps to get on their links list, or had done something "bad".

It's good that the blogosphere exists apart for SL and can critique SL. For example, I can't imagine how Second Life Herald will keep its edge if it becomes part of a fanboyz uploaded happy SL family all on one blog.

The fact that well-meaning SL staffers can still conceive of SL as a "community" where everyone is all supposed to be blogging happily together, and that if you say "please leave me alone to blog on SL without you all" as some kind of "slam on the community" means that SL is not ready to grow yet. It remains a little tekki wiki. I'm sorry, but there it is. SL should not take on the administrative and content filtration chores of organizing blogospheres for its patrons.

Well, marketing is important and leveraging the blogosphere is a great way to do it.

Not to mention that the forums won't be that scaleable as more people join SL. Could you imagine a 100 blaze spinnakers? The thought scares even me!

Finally, liability is a big issue. Eventually someone is going to say something and LL is going to be named in the suit.

I don't like the upload process if I have more than 1 photo. If there was a way to just drag textures out of my inventory onto my SL blog that would be very nice.

I have been wanting this for a long time so my obvious feelings on the subject are "YAY!"