What is it like to take part in a dream, and one day being the ones to continue the dream?
It was eleven years ago, Saturday June 5 2010 that the leading newsletter of Second Life at the time closed, and the one formed by four of it's reporters that carried on where it left off began. For myself and others, especially SL Newspaper editor Dana Vanmoer, the past several months had been a challenging time. In October, the SLN's main sponsor had gone bankrupt with no warning. Linden Lab had made some decisions such as closing their mentor program that made people wonder about their concerns of the well being of the residents. Over time a number of reporters had left. And events in real life had forced the paper's owner, JamesT Juno, offline and were dragging Dana away. Fortunately I could update the paper when Dana couldn't.
Finally in a meeting in early April, Dana informed us she could no longer keep the Second Life Newspaper going, and it would close in two months. We were shocked and surprised, Gemma suggesting there could be another way. But Dana felt without James' input, there were no other options. After a little time to recover and talk, four of us, Gemma Cleanslate, Grey Lupindo, Shellie Sands, and myself came to the decision to form a new one. And so just as Dana was finishing the closing article for the Second Life Newspaper, the Second Life Newser had begun.
For us, it was a scary time. And for me personally I wondered if I was up to the task. But we had a job to do, and with big stories coming in such as the layoff of a third of Linden Lab, the return of Philip Linden, the Second Life Birthday, and the Relay for Life, we went to work reporting the news. We soon had our office thanks to the Sunweaver community, then our first sponsor, the Podex Exchange. By the end of the year, it was clear we were around to stay. The news would continue to be reported.
And so over the past eleven years, we've written much about the people, places, events, and things in Second Life. While I would make a few changes from Dana's model, the Newser would report the news in much the same style as the SL Newspaper did. While yours truly was the one in charge, we were a team effort, reporting from our perspectives. Shellie had stories about her misadventures with bunny raising. Grey liked to explore around a lot, but would also report on the goings-on with her home community. Gemma would also explore, report on a new art gallery exhibit, and once in a while talk about a nice little fishing event. Myself, I would do a little bit of most everything from writing about goings-on in the Sunweaver community, to breaking news about Linden Lab, an interesting sim I came across, amusing advertisement articles for the Podex Exchange, and more.
Over time much has changed, both with the Newser and Second Life itself. While this paper didn't cover Second Life in it's golden age, it did began as the Lab was reacting to it's end. Over time, the Newser covered three changes of leaders at Linden Lab, and various changes of strategy. We covered the introduction of mesh which would change the way objects and avatars were made. We covered changes in the terms of service, such as one vauge change that caused confusion about the rights of content creators for many months. More recently, there has been Second Life's long slow decline in it's numbers coming to a halt, and then the virtual world experiencing a resurgence as it's numbers grew once more, and then came it's getting acquired by investors.
And the Newser itself would change some. Sadly Shellie Sands and Grey Lupindo would depart as circumstances in real-life dictated changes in plans. But others would come in over time such as DrFran Babcock, Xymbers Slade, Any1 Gynoid, Becky Shamen, Breezes Babii, and many others over time. Each had their own perspective of the virtual world, and covered Second Life from that perspective. Those whom had only been on for just a few months were just as welcome as those whom had been on for many years as sometimes those whom have been around for just a year or less can notice things "oldbies" often miss. And of course those whom have been around for a while have a sense of history and how things used to be, as well as earlier times when residents panicked about the virtual world ending and of course it didn't. In recent times, three fine reporters have joined the team: Anita Kimono, Dancerina Starlight, and Rosie.
But what never changed was our mission to get the news out of the people, places, and events of Second Life, and to do so without unnecessary controversy. Unlike the tabloids, we don't make things up outside of April Fool's day unless it's the occasional piece of SL fiction (such as the advertisements we used to do for Podex). Nor do we need to. Eventually some troublemaker reveals himself, or Linden Lab does something that results in unintended consequences. There have been a few times we've made a mistake, but we try to correct them.
We have done much. Over the past eleven years, we've posted over ten thousand briefs, announcements, videos, cartoons, and of course articles. And for those interested in what happened in the past, one can quickly go back to a certain time and see what was going on, such as previous Second Life Birthday and Relay Weekend events.
And now, eleven years have passed, with the virtual world we cover now
reaching it's eighteenth year. Thanks to the combined efforts of our
reporters over the years, and of course you the readers, we have not
just endured but prospered. It's a different Second Life than the one we
started in, but we cover it just the same.
And our future? Some of my friends feel all it would take for the virtual world to collapse is one really dumb move by Linden Lab. But the virtual world's demise has been predicted more times I can count. Most likely, it has at least several years left. Unless there's some unforeseen calamity such as an Internet-destroying solar flare or catastrophic economic calamity, Second Life is here to stay, at least for the rest of the decade. And the Newser will be around to cover it.
Special thanks to our sponsors Lorena Chung Estates, Montecito Bay, The Deathlands, Coral Estates, the Safe Waters Foundation, Farshore Radio, and the Sunweaver Estates. Special thanks to James and Dana who taught us how a newsletter should be run. And of course special thanks to you the readers whose readership makes this paper possible.
Bixyl Shuftan
Editor
SL Newser
