Introducing: The Metaverse Journal
December 5, 2007
As we mentioned last week, we’ve had some plans in development to further develop what we do. The first part of that is a rebranding of SLOz to The Metaverse Journal. Why? Essentially because we want to broaden our coverage to virtual world developments from an Australian perspective, not just Second Life news.
That said, Second Life remains the focus of the site - it remains in our opinion the premiere virtual world in relation to the education. health and business opportunities it presents. It’s also one of the best online social interaction and creation options around.
To coincide with the new title, we’ve upgraded the site. Any comments on the new site are more than welcome - the upgrade is meant to make your reading experience better, so if that’s not happening for you, let us know. On a technical note, www.sloz.info will redirect to www.metaversejournal.com. Our RSS feed subscribers will also not be impacted.
Here’s to continued growth and improved service for our readers. Enjoy!
Popularity: 3% [?]
SLOz 1st Birthday Party
December 2, 2007
We had a little shindig on Saturday night to celebrate a year of news reporting for Australian Second Life residents. More than forty individuals popped in over the couple of hours and much dancing was had by all.
A big thank-you to all those who have given their good wishes in recent days. As we’ve already mentioned, there’s some changes on the way that you should enjoy. Stay tuned 
Popularity: 3% [?]
One year of SLOz
November 28, 2007
A year ago tomorrow, we posted our first comments on SLOz. We launched in the midst of the mainstream media frenzy around Second Life that brought so many new residents. When we started out, we knew that no-one was covering events in Second Life from an Australian perspective on a daily basis. What we didn’t know was the level of response there’d be. Each day we get IM’s and emails from SL users with story suggestions, tips and feedback. Each week we have someone from the mainstream media making contact, asking us to interpret trends and events in-world. It’s made it the interesting ride we’d hoped it would be and we’ve never been more motivated to continue the work we’re doing.
Over the coming weeks we’re going to be making some fairly large changes to the site as well as to our in-world presence. We’re also hoping to expand our stable of writers so we can cover more issues and events. We even have a book on the way - more on that in coming months.
A big thanks to all of you who’ve supported SLOz over the past year. Kudos to Graham, our education writer and gratitude to our sponsors who help to keep the site running.
As always, we’re very keen to hear any suggestions from you - after all, you’re the reason we do this each day.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Pornography and virtual worlds
October 28, 2007
In the eleven months SLOz has been running, one of the most vexed questions about Second Life and virtual worlds in general in pornography. Our story on Linden Lab’s ban on ageplay is the most viewed story on SLOz and by an extremely large margin - its follow-up is also regularly read. The reason for the enormous number of views comes down to the venerable search engine.
Each day we get hundreds of views of the ageplay story, through people typing a bunch of terms into Google or other search engines. Some of the more common being used are:
- child porn
- virtual child porn
- preteen porn
- preteen panties
- beastiality
- virtual porn
- legal porn
- child panties
There are a bunch of other ones I won’t publish here, suffice it to say there are some sick people out there. What it illustrates is the universality of the issue across the internet. Linden Lab’s crackdown appears to have been effective in minimising overt ageplay. What it can’t do is minimise the significant demand for undesirable images nor the dilemma of defining what consitutes pornography or otherwise.
Where do you see this issue progressing in future?
Popularity: 11% [?]
New posting schedule
September 27, 2007
It’s coming up to a year since SLOz launched, and the growth in the site has astounded us no end. As anyone running a blog will tell you, keeping things fresh is a major challenge. Usually we publish 6-7 stories, but this will decrease to five per week from 1st October as we concentrate on more in-world activities and further work on building a community on the SLOz forums.
We’ll be working hard to keep increase the quality of our stories and as always we’re most interested in Australian events so don’t hesitate to contact us with any happenings you’re aware of. We’re also hoping to expand our number of writers - if you have an SL issue you’re passionate about, then within reason we’re happy to air those views. We’re not in a position to pay you but a full by-line is given with link to your website or in-world location. We also reserve the right to refuse publication.
As always, comments welcome!
Popularity: 76% [?]
The SLOz Reader Survey
July 10, 2007
Since SLOz launched in late 2006, we’ve run over 260 stories totalling 50-thousand plus words. The support from the Australian SL community has been astounding, but it’s time to get some feedback from the people that count: you. We’ve created a 10-question reader survey to find out a little about the people who read SLOz, what you like and don’t like and what you’d like to see improved. As we continue to grow, your feedback will ensure growth occurs in a way that satisfies the maximum number of readers. So please, if you can spare 2 minutes to complete the survey, we’d appreciate it!
No identifying details are being collected and no questions are compulsory. So fire away!
Popularity: 3% [?]
Joys and Sorrows of Voice in Second Life
June 28, 2007
On the SLOz forums, Aussie SL’er Juko Tempel asked for a discussion on voice in SL. So we’ve made her moderator of the Voice in SL forum.
Drop in and join the debate on voice-enabled SL and its joys and sorrows for you.
Popularity: 8% [?]
