Six Years Ago ...

It's been six years today, June 6 2010, in which the Second Life Newser came to be. For The previous two and a half, there was the Second Life Newspaper owned by JamesT Juno and Dana Vanmoer. For a while, it did well, covering the news of the people, places, and events across Second Life. But when James and Dana had to go offline indefinately, they made the decision to close down their paper. So four of their writers, Gemma Cleanslate, Grey Lupindo, Shelie Sands, and myself, Bixyl Shuftan, formed a new paper: the Second Life Newser.

We weren't sure what to expect. For myself, going from one of the writers to Editor was a big step. And while the readers were familiar with our articles, it was James and Dana's direction they had come to trust. But from the begining, we had support. The Sunweaver community gave us a home at Sunweaver Air where a friend build us an office and let us stay there rent free. Soon offers for advertisements and a sponsorship from the Podex Exchange. And we soon had new talent joining our staff.

There was certainly no shortage of events to cover. A week after we were under our new name, Linden Lab laid off a third of their staff and soon afterwards their CEO resigned, soon replaced with Second Life's founder as an interim. Then came "Emeraldgate," the scandal that hit the most popular third party viewer at the time when some in the staff launched an attack on a critic's website using computers with their viewer. As time went on, we would report on the decision to merge the Teen Grid with the main one, the "RedZone" alt detector controversy, the emergence of the pony avatar and community, and others. Besides the breaking news, there were plenty of sims to write about, as well as plenty of people from noted personalities to people whom hadn't attracted little to no attention before. After a year, it was obvious we would be around for a while.

So far, that while has been six years and counting.

We've continued to cover major news events, from the development of mesh, to Linden Lab distancing itself from the residents and then slowly coming back. legal troubles such as Ozanimals versus Amaretto and the owners of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek filing suits against their respective roleplay communities here, The Content Creator and Terms of Service controversies, Linden Lab creating a number of other products besides virtual worlds only to sell or discontinue most of them, Linden Lab installing Rod Humble and then Ebbe Altberg as CEOs of the company, the discontinuing of third-party Linden dollar exchangers, the disappearance and then takeover by Linden Lab of the SS Galaxy, the announcement and development of the next-generation virtual world called SL 2.0 by the residents until Linden Lab gave it the name Project Sansar, and many more.

The Newser has made a number of friends over time, with new sponsors such as The Steelhead community, and new writers such as Netara Landar and DrFran Babcock. And then there is you, the readers, whom have grown to 27,000 who check the paper at least once a month, and from all over the planet coming from every continent except for Antarctica. Sadly, we've also had to say goodbye to some, our best sponsors the Podex Exchange having to close due to being shut down with Linden Lab changing the Terms of Service, and the Steelhead Estates after Linden Lab locked out the account of it's owner. And over time DrFran, Netara and others departed, as has Shelie Sands of our original team.

While we've had a few setbacks, we've also come a along way. We have stood the test of time, lasting almost half of Second Life's history. We cover a diverse variety of subjects on a daily basis of the people, places, and events across Second Life. And on occasion have a little chuckle with a cartoon.

Special thanks to the Sunweaver Estates which have given us a home all this time, to The Podex Exchange and Steelhead Community who sponsored us for so long in the past, and of course you the readers for making this newsletter possible.

Here's to year seven of bringing you the news of Second Life.

Bixyl Shuftan
Editor and head reporter of Second Life Newser