Edwardian Fishtail skirt dress from Zantyago Mannonen, and discussion of devkits.

Zantyago Mannonen's CSR, Miss Charlotte Montmorency here, brought me to his new store in Steelhead to check things out  Had a nice discussion with Zan and I picked up this Edwardian day dress for Steamlands use.  Zan can't get a Maitreya dev kit so he has to guess.  He had a Slink one, but as he has found out, the Maitreya body has become more popular leaving him in a fix.  Here's the thing, some of his things work fine with the Maitreya body...just try them out.  Demos are on marketplace.  If you have a Maitreya body, head upstairs....those tend to work better.  The fit isn't perfect, but it is close and well without a devkit it's all guesses. This is original mesh NOT templates. Well worth taking a look if you're a steampunk who wants something besides the usual corsets and cleavage gear...even I don't always want cleavage 

 I'm wearing Truth Felicity hair, Tesla Ziggy 2 booties, and Lumae Eirta skin in T3

Charlotte is wearing Zan's Stroller dress. Her hair is Slink Constance, which I should pick up.  Her head is a Catwa Amy.  Her eyes are from Inkheart, Winter fantasy eyes in Snow.

I'm going to say this right up front, the Maitreya body developer needs to be more forthcoming with the devkit and more free with it's release.  Even with small niche creators like Zan. Getting it into as many hands as possible makes higher quality items for the body available and INCREASES the desirability of said body even more than it is already, ESPECIALLY in niche communities like the Steamlands.



Zan's Clothing in Steelhead Bay

Zan's Clothing on Marketplace

The CC List

I've added a new page to the header, The CC List.

The CC List is a list of "approved brands", but not meant to be an exhaustive list. This doesn't mean they are perfect,  in general it means that I like their items, consider them of acceptable quality and that their prices are fair.  I may sometime in the future, do a list or HUD of specific items that I believe are worth pointing out in specific categories or use cases.  An example of that would be something like:

Hair, Long, Wavy, Dressy: Emo-tions Pria, though Emo-tions isn't on the list...yet, they'd be considered a "runner-up"  (My Attic might be closed, so check Emo-tions main store)

Shoes, Slink medium feet, Dressy/evening, Ankle strap closed toe Pump, 100mm heel equivalent: Fri.day Diana

Dress, Mesh, Daytime, classic, sheath, sleeveless, jewel-neck,: Style Edit Sloane

Jewelry, Classic, Pearls, Single-strand, White: Yummy Michelle set

I want the CC List to be sort of "capsule wardrobe" oriented.  A list of simple, pretty, versatile and affordable items that will serve you well as go-to items in your inventory that will give you a good bang for the buck.  That doesn't mean it would be entirely modern items, since there's fantasy/steampunk/retro flavored items that have the same sort of "capsule" vibe to them as well.

This is an experiment, so it might not go anywhere, but it might prove useful even if only to me.

Boogie Trains and Template Complaints

When I first saw the Liv Glam "Yes sir, I can Boogie" (white/black) and Trains and Winter Rains (multiple color hud) suits, I desired them as a classic suit loving SL fashionista should.

Classic military style belted jacket, slim pencil skirt, what's not to love?

 

What's not to love?  The skirt slit and rigging that's what.  The jacket is fine, the jacket is worth acquiring...the skirt not so much.  Look at the slit placement.  Yes, I know, I should be cheering that it actually HAS a realistic slit, but it would be better if it was centered and not quite so wide.  But the real issue is the rigging, notice  how the skirt clips into the leg.  That effect is worse, the more the legs bend.

Here's a close look at the issue.  It's just simply a problem with the rigging...of the template.   This outfit is a template so I can't blame the Liv-Glam's designer (SamanthaSJones) for this...other than her choice to use a template that really needed some more tweaks and polish.  If the rigging was fixed...I would be recommending this outfit.  But as it is, I can't.  It's not horrible, and I've worn it out and about, but it does need more work.  It's an "almost, but not quite" sort of thing.   Which is what I say about Liv-Glam as a design house...with some reluctance:  "Almost, but not quite a first tier designer...the work is hit or miss, could  use more tweaks/polish/better texture choices, and a second critical eye would do the designer some good.  Not horrible, but not spectacular either, especially since it's probably all templates."

For an example of how this skirt SHOULD be rigged, we have to go no further than the classic Maitreya Nolita.  THAT is how you rig a slightly below the knee skirt.

I've got a couple of other issues with the  Liv-Glam "Boogie/Trains" ensembles.  The HUD colors on the multicolor "Trains and winter rains" version don't match the actual on suit colors closely enough.  And some of those colors aren't very good choices at all, basically making those colors unusable.  Why put unattractive unflattering colors in a HUD?  Put colors that ARE attractive in it.

Theres also the fact that the template origin of the Liv-Glam suits are not mentioned and/or credited.  A customer might not be aware that they're templates, and thusly not know who else besides Liv-Glam to send suggestions/complaints to.  Here's a link to the template on marketplace

Dolphin Designs "The Lady"

It also means that there are most likely other designers using this template that needs more work that I don't know about.  I am absolutely of the opinion that Templates need to be credited in the interest of transparency and honesty to one's customers.  Use templates all you want, but for goodness sake, credit them.

SLURLS:

Belleza Betty Pale skin

Truth Colbie hair

Hucci Glynco pumps

Liv Glam

Maitreya

Undercover Tableau Girl

You've seen them, we all have. At Mon Tissu and Tres Blah in Lula, FD, and Clawtooth in Tableau. I've always called them "Tableau Girls"







Where did they come from?

The shapes of the original "Tableau Girl" designers, that's what. Google search for Nylon Pinckney and Elka Lahane for example. The shoppers saw the shapes in the displays and pretty much adopted them themselves. Originally it was somewhat honest smart-alecky reaction to the more traditional barbie-ish glamour girl avatars and styles, a la Dazzle and other cocktail/party/formal designers, since the Tableau crowd did mostly hand drawn casuals at that time.

But now.....lets admit it, it's become something of a parody of itself and has somewhat taken over. I was there at Tres Blah last week during a sale....and I overdosed on Oracul Maidenly, sourpuss faces, and thighs so far apart you can drive a truck through. Avatars that don't look "pretty" but like nicotine addicted 12 year olds wearing their 22 year old sisters clothes and makeup.

Yes, I know I shouldn't judge, but I like seeing pretty, and seeing some Tableau girls overly photoshopped, gaussian blurred and shadowed pics makes it hard to see the actual quality of the stuff! And the exaggerated bodies means the stuff will look somewhat different. But they have great stuff, sure they tend to over accesorize, but damn do they have some nice stuff...I think...but I can't tell. Yes I know there are not many review blogs anymore that's part of the problem.

I'm not saying that avatars shouldn't be curvy or have junk in the trunk...but there's good variety and bad variety. To much exaggeration in anything, height, boobehs, or hips makes for a bad shape for showing off fashion in a pleasing way.

I also can't tell Tableau Girl hair apart,has a sort of sameness to it, at least to my eyes.

Former Boss Salome also makes a slight of a reference to this issue in this post but she's not really commenting on the girls themselves.

I'm not going to SLURL The stuff, though that bag and skirt are Mon Tissu and nice. Shoes are G Field "Alex" First picture was taken using standard Caliah style Windlight settings, 2 and 3 were taken with shadows and whatnot on.

My "issues" with New World Notes

New World Notes is one of the oldest and well respected SL blogs. It's founder, Hamlet Au, was once Hamlet Linden, Linden Lab's own embedded reporter in SL. I heartily recommend it to people and read it myself daily.

However...I have issues with NWN and have apparently have been blocked from commenting there. That disappoints me, though I can understand why.

I probably mentioned Hamlet's indirect financial relationship with Facebook a few too many times when Hamlet kept flogging Facebook as the be all of what SL should be more like. He consults for a company that uses Facebook for game logins and thusly, indirectly financially benefits from it. I was a bit perturbed that he did not mention that connection earlier in his promotion of SL becoming more like Faceook, unlike his Blue Mars thing, which he was quite open about.

My issues with NWN are as follows:

1. Hamlet lives in the tech journalist bubble in California and is thusly disconnected from "average people". This in part led to my disagreement with him about the future of Blue Mars, because while he probably knows people who upgrade their computers often and buy a new iPhone whenever it comes out, that's not the case amongst the SL userbase. He simply didn't understand that Blue Mars had no future as a desktop virtual world with it's Cryengine based graphics when the mass market "Marts" of the US have machines on their shelves with integrated Nvidia 6150SE's in them.

2. Hamlet talks to much to the people behind virtual worlds, when it's the USERS who are the important people...without users, the worlds cannot survive. That also leads to him being a sucker for buzzwords like "the cloud" He thought that "the cloud" would save blue mars, that it wouldn't matter that all those housewives in SL had low end integrated chipsets on their PC's, that BM would be rendered in the cloud and displayed locally.....dumbest thing I ever heard. They didn't have the money! or the number of users to justify doing it. They'd have needed to start on that years ago, and they ran out of time.

3. Hamlet is guilty of the "if it's popular it must be good and anything that wants to become popular should be more like that" fallacy. That's the Facebook thing. Facebook sucks...it truly does. It's interface, it's privacy tools, the requests for "facebook aps" to do things to your info. But Hamlet thinks that because it's popular SL should be more like it, or become connected to it. That's kind of like the people who say smartphones should be like the iPhone, when the iPhone might not be the best device for someones needs. Facebook is all about real world identities and SL...is not. Hamlet says that SL users could use facebook to learn about events in world which tells me that:

4. Hamlet doesn't spend enough time in world talking to "the masses" in world. If he did, he wouldn't say half the stuff he does about SL users. Why use facebook for event listings when there's google calendar and SL's own group system....that he doesn't use effectively. Go on, check the NWN group...no notices...and the group is assigned land that is not covered by Tier:

More Land Credits are needed to support the Land in use."

That picture above was taken at the NWN headquarters location in Waterhead...his building is gone and his furniture and pot plants are just floating in mid air. The man really needs to spend more time in world doing the things that other SL users do, like maintain their land and socialize and stuff. You may not believe it, but in the old days, NWN actually sponsored events in-world!

Another thing that leads me to believe that Hamlet isn't as connected to the masses of SL users as he ought to be is his avatar appearance. Most avatars, even male ones that don't shop much...update their appearance quite a bit. Could you imagine a female SL blogger looking like she just stepped out of 2006? No. Sure, Hamlet's a guy, and a tech journalist and doesn't himself cover SL fashion, leaving that to Iris, but still. DJ's shop, Land Baron's shop, content makers shop. Shopping, especially of things related to avatar appearance, drives the SL economy.

5. He doesn't talk about the SL economy as much as he did in the past. That's hurting SL more than anything. It isn't sim crossings or group chat problems that really hurts SL, but people NOT spending L$.

6. Hamlet doesn't get that SL is a niche product, like hex based strategy games and roguelikes are. The same applies to Minecraft. Sure it's a lot of buzz, but it's coming from hard core nerds who love that sort of crazy complex stuff.

7. The core SL user is probably a 30-50 year old woman...but Hamlet rarely talks to them and would rather talk with Ex-Lindens starting up micro-worlds based on SL code that are going to go nowhere without content that will attract those 30-50 year old women. No pretty shoes, big hair, sexy dresses to make their avatar look kardashiany? They aren't going to be there.

8. Hamlet doesn't realize that NWN is a bubble itself. He's not getting true feedback on
how the masses see and feel about SL via the comments on NWN because NWN's readers are oldbies, FIC and near FIC. Almost all a part of what calls the 100000 That's a problem because the things they care about sometimes don't matter to the "masses" of SL. There's folks in SL who don't give a damn about group chat...and there's plenty of people who simply don't cross sim borders...they d on't need to. In fact, I tend to only cross borders in the steamlands! Everywhere else, I TP.

So that's pretty much it. It's not that I dislike Hamlet or NWN, since it's still a great source of information, it's just that Hamlet needs to be more "grounded" like he used to be.

Great Minds Think Alike...perhaps they should join forces

So there I was in Seraph City...was I watching a Burlesque show at the New Champagne Room where you can always find retro-lovin gals and get more ideas on things to buy? maaaaybe. One of the audience members was wearing what looked like Icing's Puma Jie puffy sleeved blouse and pencil skirt combo...but it wasn't....it was a puffy sleeved dress with a pencil skirt combo named Guro from Ivalde. The lady told me it was a giftie...and turned out...I already had it. So here's a comparison, that's the default red bloused Icing Puma Jie on the left and the Ivalde Guro on the right.



Great minds think alike...red blouse/bodice and black high waisted skirt is a classic look and it makes perfect sense that both would do a version of it, so no saying that one stole the "idea" from the other because they did not. That look is a fashion archetype.

So that got me thinking. If one shops at Ivalde, one probably shops at Icing, and vice versa. (and probably Ingenue, Jet Doll and Donna Flora as well) Same people shop at both...they appeal to the same market segment. So...what if they joined forces or merged. It might be an advantage..focused marketing...larger inventory...more frequent releases because they have TWO people doing stuff so if one takes a break the other is still doing stuffs. It might help with customer service as well, if one isn't online, the other might be. Their skill sets might also compliment each other, say if one doesn't do jewellery but the other does or if one does shoes and the other doesn't. You never know...such things with similar businesses/markets might work in SL....or not. I have been told that one reason they don't is that there's the "trust" factor to deal with. SL doesn't have the trust mechanisms that RL has, so people don't do such things. Too bad...it might be a great way for smaller or medium sized design houses to compete with the larger super shops.


SLURL to ICING main Store in Mischief
Icing Blog

SLURL to Ivalde
Ivalde and L'Abel website

SL Fashion Business/Economy/Glut/Marketing/Freebies Omnibus post

Let's talk business, you and I. Suppose you are a designer and you want to make a Beeeelion L$. Everyone does. I do. Anyone got a Beeeelion L$? I've always wanted a Caledon Duchy and Willow Packs of every hair Elika makes...and a pony.

Back to my point, if some new designer came up to me and asked for advice about starting their fashion business I would say:

1. Don't. There's a glut of stuff on the grid, so much stuff that it's overwhelming, and if your stuffage isn't as good or better than the stuff that's already out there you WILL get lost in the glut. For example, as much as I respect Eloh for releasing her skin PSD's into the wild and making it easier for budding skin creators, she created the skin glut of skin makers looking to make their beeeeelions selling skin.

2. Wait for the shakeout. I'd lay odds some of these new creators won't be able to keep going for too long.

3. If you still want to release your stuff, why not partner with another small content creator or an already established business.

4. You'd better have very very good ads and marketing.

5. Don't get caught in the freebie race. Discounted budget items/lines are fine.

6. 200L$ is the magic number, most transactions are that or below. 200L$ represents for me the impulse vs think about it for a while purchase point. In fact the number of people willing to spend even that much is small. The SL fashion economy is sustained by a relatively small number of people because relatively few new folk become part of that economy in a major way.

Gwyneth Llewelyn has a blog post about this

Here's a citation of her major train of thought:


At this stage, I have to formulate my own theory though. Based on my own perception of the numbers, I boldly claim that the number of people willing to spend money in SL is about hundred thousand, and this number hasn’t changed since at least early 2007.

The second bold claim is perhaps even more surprising. The number of service providers (content creators, event hosters, and land managers) is about hundred thousand. This basically means that about one in ten active users is a producer of content, while the remaining are pure consumers.

And the third bold claim is definitely shocking. This number will NOT change in the immediate future. Unless, of course, things change dramatically (which is always possible), but the change will be only a positive one, ie. more users in this group, not less.

The fourth claim is perhaps not so surprising then: The number of informed people in Second Life (those that read and write blogs or e-zines, participate actively in SL-related issues, work for RL companies providing content and services in SL, etc.) is about a hundred thousand.

And the fifth should not come as a surprise either: They are exactly the same people. Sure, I’ll allow a margin of error, of, say, 20-30% in either direction. But I’d say that it’s extremely likely — mmmh 95% or so — that if you’re reading this article, you’re very likely a Premium Account resident, or an owner of a private island (or a set of them), or a content/service provider (these are inclusive “or”s, so you can be all of those). If you’re none of those cases (ie. a Basic Account user who never spent a single cent in SL, live from freebies, and never organised a single event in SL…), you’re probably writing regularly about SL.


Some personal stuff:

I think she's close to the mark. I'm a Basic account holder, and have no intention of going premium. I have a SL Lindex budget that I limit myself to each month, about 3000 to 5000 L$. I ought to unsubscribe from EQOA again, I joined it to see how it looked and played on my PS3, and cut down my SL spending a bit to compensate, that would add another 3000 or so sometimes (but not every month), but I try to keep it as small as I can. Now back when I was working for Linden Lifestyles, that gig paid a bit of L$ so I spent more. I'm not a content creator, I can't design clothes, or build and my LSL scripting skills are minimal, so I can't make money that way. I'd love to have a way to make more L$ in SL to finance a 512 or 1024 in Caledon, but right now, if I was to get a spot in Caledon it would mean much less shopping since I'd be feeding Desmond Shangs cute little meter L$ every week.

In fact, I write these infrequent blog posts these days basically because I don't have a regular commentary writing gig with a "Big blog". I'm thinking I'm one of the few remaining fashion bloggers from 2006 who aren't content creators that is still writing. I'd be tempted to apply for that Second Style Magazine editorial assistant post if I felt I could devote the time to it the job deserved, and of course to fill out my Hat Trick. So far I've worked for 2 of the old "Big Three" fashion blogs: PXP and Linden Lifestyles, Second Style would finish the hat trick. Of course since PXP is on defunct and LL pretty much on permanent hiatus, that might not be a good idea. I'm the kiss of death.

Back to the fashion business:

Here's another citation from Gwyneth:

But these days it’s insanely hard to launch a new brand. It’s not only making sure that you’re well-known enough by all fashionistas and fashion bloggers and magazine writers — which is hard and takes time. It’s not enough to have the best quality products available in your collection. The problem is that there is a limit on how much the 100,000 can spend. They’re stretched thin across the dozens of thousands of brands in SL already, and every week a new designer pops up and wants a share of the market — another market which is also saturated! Put it bluntly: there is no room for more designers except if you’re willing to drive your competitors out of business. So there is no time to use soft silky gloves for fighting; the only way to survive in the fashion world is to eliminate the competition. The Armidi brand is trying very, very hard to do that, and perhaps with some success. Many others have understood that the market has stagnated — but still working under the wrong assumptions! — and are starting to put up a serious fight. Long gone are the days where you put up a shop and would have increased sales just from “being here”. Even long gone are the days where quality defined success, or marketing and promotion helped you to find out where all your potential customers were shopping and open your shop there. These days, we’ve hit the limit on how many different brands are able to survive in SL, because the market is only 100,000 people and they have a limit on how much they spend.

She's absolutely right on this one. I've reached my limit and most others have too. If you want to survive you have to convince me to spend my money with you and not them. You have to be absolutely ruthless. Jack Tramiel used to say: Business is War.

Say it with me, "Business is War." Find out who your competitors are and take them down...hard. You've got to be agile, mobile and hostile. Know them, know their weaknesses, know yours. If they do something, you have to do it better. If their customer service is good, yours has to be better. Your job is constant improvement. You need information and lots of it. Information in SL is one of the most valuable things ever. "Information is ammunition." Know your market, know theirs.

Sounds harsh, I know, but it's the only way to survive the glut.

Gwyn has this to say about Freebies:


In despair, designers tried to give their content away as freebies, hoping to make themselves more popular (and show themselves as politically correct towards the “poor newbies”). Nothing could be worse. As Prokofy Neva put so bluntly several years ago, we’re flooded with freebies. Fashion comes and goes — nobody wears non-sculpty heels these days — and you can rely upon consumers to pay for new, fresh, innovative content. But you can’t fight freebies: they accumulate. Unlike content creators who retire products from the market (when they don’t sell, are out of fashion, or are replaced by better and improved products), freebies never disappear. And to worsen that, while in 2004 and 2005 wearing a freebie was considered hilarious — because they were of such poor quality! — the freebies of 2008 are of insanely high quality. In fact, whole communities have been popping into existence to help people to pick the very best among all freebies in the world — Fabulously Free in SL being perhaps one of the best examples. All these sites, these notecards, these people explaining where to get free things in SL are just increasing the magnitude of the problem. (And I know they mean well, that’s besides the point; none of them are Evil Communists Trying To Bring The Downfall of Laissez-Faire Rampant Capitalism in SL, but just happily giving out tips and ideas, to newbies, non-consumers, and even the 100,000, who are often amused at how good those freebies are these days)

I think Freebies are fine...in moderation, but the Freebie glut on the grid nowadays is no moderation. Problem is a lot of folks aren't even willing to pay 10L$. It's hard to become integrated in the SL economy unless you create. It's only recently that more businesses in SL are hiring CSA's and I think most of those get paid in items and not L$, though I may be mistaken on that. I have no skills and am in the economy only because of the Lindex. If I wasn't buying on the Lindex I wouldn't be shopping. It's not like The Sheep or Millions of Us would want to hire me, and most of the major fashion blogs are bankrolled directly or indirectly by a content creator.

So instead of freebies I recommend budget lines, "clearance rooms" and "Everyday low prices". Every L$ a consumer spends with you is one they haven't spent with someone else and you want as many avatars as possible spending with you.

Which leads in to marketing:

A lot of notecard copy and vendor/notecard ads suck. Sometimes the items are sucky too, but sometimes, sadly, the items are great but the ads aren't. I've pointed to this post by Alaska Metropolitan before. And yes, sometimes I think some content creators would be better off getting someone else to model and do their ads for them. Some months ago I bought a really nice gown, from an ad with a really sucky vendor picture. I had seen someone else wearing the gown or else I wouldn't have bought it, the vendor picture was that unflattering. So while I was there hobnobbing. (there was a lucky chair attracting shoppers), I decided to take a few pictures of myself in the gown and my pictures turned out better than the vendor ones. But frankly, my SL image skills both in and out of SL are not very good...at all. To put it in the vernacular, my pictures suck, they just suck less than some of the vendor pics out there. There's people out there willing to help with marketing and ad making but creators are reluctant to use them.

I've been thinking about organizing some kind of fashion blogger summit held via FashCon Cafe or something. Sabrina Doolittle was planning on doing so, but her RL got in the way. I really should keep in better contact with my "colleagues".

Return to Classic template, and by the way, Notepad sucks.

In moving to the new "Layout" version of blogger with drag and drop ability of widgets and stuffage, it seems I lost my blog links. So I added the link widget, which I discovered one cannot edit manually, you have to add and subtract links one at a time. Not only that, but the new templates are in that evil of evils, XML. I have always believed that XML, CSS, DOM, and all that other crap was intentionally added to HTML to take web page creation out of the hands of amateurs and return it to the coder elite, remember Geocities, go.com, Tripod,and Angelfire? Well, I figured I could always edit the template manually and without thinking, saved it and opened it up in Notepad, since I was on Windows at the time. That, of course gave me a jumbled mess, because the file was probably unix-formatted and Notepad isn't XML aware. Which brings me to another point, to edit XML you practically have to have an XML aware editor. Windows by default doesn't have such a thing, and I don't have one installed, I think, So I just ftp'd it over to Linux where I DO have XML aware editors.In fact I have one of the editors that has a long history, vim.

vim (vi iMproved) is a modal terminal based editor descended from the 31 year old vi, that drives non-geeks insane. Modal means you can't just start typing in vim, which starts in "command mode", you have to enter "insert mode first, and then type. To use commands, for example, to save and quit, you have to exit insert mode and enter command mode. However, as you can see it can syntax highlight xml making it much easier to read and parse. The terminal here is mrxvt a version of rxvt with certain enhancements like tabs and TrueType font support.



After taking a look at the XML I realized it used an external call to the Link widget and thus wasn't easily editable to add my links.in so I switched back to the classic template to make it easier on me. That's when I decided to do this post about vim, which also has SL related uses because it can also syntax hightlight LSL (Linden Scripting Language)



As well as autocomplete LSL, type ll and hit Ctrl+n and it will popup a little mini-window.with all the llwhatever functions.



It can do tons of other stuff, like tabbed editing (just like tabbed browsing in Firefox, but even works in the terminal version) but not to worry, there is also a graphical menus n mouses version named gvim that is installed right along with vim.



See, it's not that scary. But even using gvim, the keyboard commands stay the same, like :wq! for "write(save) and quit". So there's a gvim enhancement called cream, that makes gvim act "normal" from a Windows users perspective. Ctrl+S saves for example. But any way you slice it, any version of vim is a better text editor than Notepad.

Windows installer for standard vim and gvim

Cream-ified vim/gvim for Windows installer Very popular among Windows users.

I will not speak of the editor emacs, I don't like it even if you can play Nethack, tetris, adventure and read your e-mail from within it. Yes, I know about viper mode that makes emacs act like vi, but that's the problem, viper mode acts like vi and not vim.

I've heard good things about a Notepad replacement called Notepad++ but I have never used that.

I miss the old Second Style blog

You know, when it was just Celebrity Trollop and a few loveable lackeys like Choice, Grazia, etc.

It had more..."soul". It felt more "personal" like Celeb and friends were my gorgeous fashionista friends helping me find the good stuffage. It seems impersonal now, with that Second Style Network and all. Sigh. It's not that I don't understand being busy, having other projects, or not having enough people, and the grid overflowing with stuffage. I just miss what it was, but realize that SL has changed and that Second Style perhaps can't go back to what it was.

Ahh I guess I'm an oldbie now, ranting about how things aren't like they were in the good ol days.

Fashion Circle Jerk

Several commenters on a post about the various blog feeds on Shopping Cart Disco made that remark. That everybody blogs the same stuff, that the fashion press feeds on each other. And sometimes that there's conflict of interest a la someone working for/renting from/economically intertwined a designer still blogging said designers stuffage. You know what, they're right for the most part.

That's one reason I do commentary and opinion and don't do new items like a lot of other blogs do. This is a blog what I like blog.

I also don't ask for review copies, for one I don't have lots of SL time these days, so if would feel wrong. I DO tell people where they can send their stuff.

There's also things I won't blog, for example, I work for Metro Models and thusly am an associate/employee of Alaska Metropolitan. Therefore it would be wrong for me to blog any of her new stuffage as a "review".

If you're a new content creator, IM me, I probably won't have the time to blog your stuff, but I am willing to take a look and give a quick opinion via IM or in person.

Marketing advice....well that's another story, because that's one of the services Metro Models offers. And I wish more folks took advantage of those services. There comes a time when winging it isn't cutting it anymore in the competitive SL fashion market. You have to "bring your A game" and it's best if your stuffage is as good as what's already out there, if not better or more unique.

I could rant on marketing, ad design, etc all day and I'm not even a professional!

GLAM SL magazine.

Alaska Metropolitan told me to check out the Glam World SL magazine last night. I went to the website and browsed through the flashy thingy.

Gosh the Photoshop work sure is pretty and artistic, but it doesn't reflect the real SL, which I think is a bad thing.

We hate it when designers excessively photohop their ads to make their stuff look better, and I think it's a bad idea for the SL magazines to do similar. It also prevents those not familiar with SL from getting an overly rosy picture of how it looks.

I went to download the PDF version of the magzine today and got a surprise... it's 81MB. That's right, it's 81MB. No, it doesn't have as many pages as Second Style, it's rather short. I don't know what they're doing but 81MB for a PDF is outrageous. Optimize for screen, people, not printer. No one prints these things. it doesn't need mega high resolution/quality.

UPDATED: The Quad sims, aka Ginny, Starley, Elika, Canimal.

UPDATED: They're baaaaaack. With this enigmatic phrase: "it was something we simply had to do." Again, IMHO, it wasn't. Except for new content, the businesses run themselves for the most part. Need to take a break, fine, but there's no need to shut down the entire sim for a short break. And frankly RL businesses couldn't get away with shutting down without some good reason stated publicly.


Original Post:

The quad sims are closed, no reason given, no hints on how long, nothing except for a "respect our decision" Well I can respect their decision to do so while still being of the mindset to say.....It's a dumb decision.

Yes, that's right, it's dumb, and not necessary at all.

Suppose I was a designer, and I needed to take a break for some RL reason, why with automated payments for sims and the like I wouldn't have to shut down at all. Just say, hey, going on vacation no customer service for two weeks. I wouldn't even have to do that if I did one thing that designers in SL do not do enough of:

Delegate.

Who needs to shut down if one has trusted managers/assistants that can handle customer requests. In particular, doesn't Dazzle have "design associates" now?

As an example, I could give my bosses at Linden Lifestyles, one of whom is still on hiatus.(Come back, Sabrina!) During their hiatus, did they shut down their sims? Nope, Did they shut down their businesses? Nope. I could log into SL and be in a fully in business Chez Petite in Calla, in two shakes of a lambs tail.

And if the shutdown is for a branding/image/store rebuild, then why shut down totally at all. Invite your customers to kibbitz and perhaps lend advice during the build ie. "No Ginny, don't drop the Dazzle branding, yes I know how you want to change the image built you've built up brand equity and people are still going to call your store Dazzle anyway."

And one final thing, when you shut down, you're giving free money to your competitors. Remember Ginny's hiatus when she shut down Dazzle? Remember all those new designers that showed up and got blogged? It would have been harder for those people to break into the SL fashion market if Ginny had still been putting out hordes of stuffage. Her absence created opportunity.

Now, I doubt that all four of the Quad sim folks are having RL issues at the same time. Odds are they're going to do some kind of joint "Ginny, Starley, Elika, Cani 2.0" thing, god forbid. IMHO personal opinion it was a bad idea to move those four busy (and often laggy) sims right next to each other anyway It could be possible that one is having RL issues an dthe others are closed in solidarity. That would be nice for a few hours or a day, but perhaps not very business savvy for days on end.

Voice

I've been using the First Look Voice Beta's since they became available, and I have a few things to say about voice:

Yes, it surprises people when they hear my voice. I think people understand that SL is different than most online "games" and realize that most of the female avatars are actually female, unlike the old joke applied to IRC, World of Warcraft and the like. So that when I speak, there's a disconnect. There are such things as voice morphing software, like MorphVox but since I am honest in the profile, I don't think I'll use them, though I have played with them a bit.

Voice works best in small groups, in large groups it's just too chaotic, and unlike text chat, you can't scroll back to see what you've missed. Also in large groups there always seems to be some disruptive person, either being a misogynist, homophobe, asshole or just simply cursing every other word.

There is also the problem of language, there are tools that can translate text like the Babbler mentioned in the previous post, but translating speech isn't as polished. Even turning speech to text is not all that easy.

Voice actually works well, it' amazingly clear, as good or better than a landline phone voice quality. However I think the voice clients are more resource intensive. They do not seem to play well with other applications running. That could be an issue for those with low-end "SL is a slideshow" machines like mine. (Integrated graphics, 852GM/855GME chipset)

Now I'm not going to say that I will never use voice, but I don't think I will use it too often. I can imagine it might prove very useful to others, so unlike some, I've not been opposed to implementing it. I am surprised that more people don't use the voice enabled first looks. LL needs as many people testing it as they can get. I've not tested the direct voice conversation parts of it, I don't think I have anyone in my friends list who's voice enabled.