New World Notes Moves to Patreon

 

 Normally, The Newser doesn't write about other newsletters and newsblogs. And it's been a few months since yours truly last checked this one. But its just been found out that New World Notes, written by James Wagner (aka Hamlet Au), has moved to Patreon due to the platform it's based on shutting down. The move was made in September.

 

 

New World Notes is moving to my Patreon! I've been covering virtual world news and culture on my blog since 2006, but Typepad is shutting down on September 30. So New World Notes must move to another platform.

 

Patreon requires a subscription to not just post, but read articles there. Higher degrees of membership cost money. 

 

Hamlet Au was hired by Linden Lab as their "embedded reporter" in 2006 and remained there for a few years. He eventually left, but continued to write about Second Life and virtual worlds and tech in general. 

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Commentary: Of Sansar, Ebbe Linden, Hamlet Au, and "Complete Geekdom"

If the Newser's predecessor paper, the Second Life Newspaper, and the self-described tabloid of several years ago, the Alphavile Herald, were "arch-rivals," then the relationship between the Second Life Newser and that of Hamlet Au's "New World Notes" can be described as something of a friendly rivalry. We've occasionally poked fun at Hamlet, such as when he got stuck in a Japanese schoolgirl avatar and couldn't get out. But in the end, he's respected as a journalist with a good record.

Still, his comments on Friday, shortly after he'd given his newsletter's appearance it's first big change in years, left me with a chuckle. Of the recent article on Sansar in Upload VR magazine in which Ebbe Altberg/Ebbe Linden was interviewed, near the end the article talked about how they were trying to make Sansar more user-friendly than Second Life, which even it's core users acknowledge has something of a high learning curve, "Enabling people ... to create amazing content, while still keeping the interface intuitive and user-friendly for the average consumer. That’s something that Second Life never quite achieved, but in building Sansar, Linden Lab is determined to draw lessons from its predecessor."

“We learned some positives but also a lot of ‘that’s not how you do it’ from Second Life,” said Altberg. “So we’re having a much more user-centric approach from the beginning, and try to make sure we stay away from the territory of complete geekdom.”

So as a joke, Hamlet suggested tongue-in-cheek, "This should actually be Sansar's unofficial slogan: 'Avoids Second Life's Complete Geekdom.' "

Hamlet was trying to be funny (Hamlet being a ham?), and some of those responding also made crack comments. A few weren't laughing, "the best proof yet they have no clue who their customer (base) is!" Me, I simply responded in kind, "Staying away from geekdom? So instead of Star Trek and anime fans, it'll have rednecks drinking beer and waving Confederate flags?"

What Ebbe was trying to say was that Linden Lab was trying to make Sansar easier to use, though as Hamlet pointed out, he could have done a better job of doing so. If Second Life was ever in "complete geekdom," it left those days long ago and became filled with people such as war veterans, housewives, farmers, and others whom don't exactly have a reputation for being part of "geekdom." Of course, some farmers can be a *lot* smarter and tech-savy than "city slickers" give them credit for.

Still, if Hamlet Au and Ebbe Linden wish for Sansar to be less "complete geekdom" than Second Life, perhaps they should invite content creators to start making Confederate Navy Jack banners and cans of Budweiser with drinking animations.

Bixyl Shuftan

Responding to Readers: Why Is Second Life Banned on Twitch

One of our readers, followed by a few others, posed a question on Facebook recently: "Why is Second Life Banned From Twitch?" For those who don't know, Twitch is a streaming service aimed at gamers. But not everything can be streamed on there, as one New World Notes reader commented in a letter she shared in which Twitch temporarily banned her for streaming Second Life. Taking a look at the Kotaku article cited by our reader, and the list given by Twitch itself, Second Life finds itself among some rather odd company with games such as "Battle Raper" and "The Guy Game," which involve lots of sex, violence, or both.

So why is Second Life on this list? Sadly, it has to do with the griefers and trolls.

Most every experienced Second Life user is familiar with griefers harassing people and trying to shock people with adult content, such as the obscene particle attacks that yours truly has witnessed at a few sandboxes. Unfortunately, not content just to troll people, sometimes the griefers post their dirty deeds on youtube. Plus there have been a few instances of live recording being interrupted by such griefings, the most known example being the "flying penis barrage" that happened when CNET tried to interview Anshe Chung, the noted Second Life Land baroness. So despite everything else that had, and has, been going on here from charities, to Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying, to education classes, what Second Life is best known for to many who have yet to set foot inside and know about the virtual world only through what they've heard now and then through social media is that people use the place for "strange and weird porn."

Twitch would not respond when New World Notes tried to contact them, though Hamlet Au commented that they had a former employee of Linden Lab among their staff shot down arguments that Twitch was operating solely through bias, saying despite places being designated as G-rated, violent and pornographic content can potentially appear anytime and anywhere, "no matter what the region rating." But critics of the ban who are familiar with MMO survival gaming can always point to Rust, in which players start out nude, male characters with their genitalia exposed, and the game is not banned from Twitch.

Fortunately there are other options for streaming. Ciaran Laval pointed out one named "Hitbox," which did respond to questions about allowing content from Second Life, "We are more than happy to allow broadcasters to stream Second Life on hitbox granted they are responsible about the content being presented to the viewers. We don’t tolerate our broadcasters to present mature, sexual content that isn’t the intention of the game. ... we are okay with broadcasters streaming Second Life as long as it’s done responsibly."

But for the use of the more popular Twitch, the issue seems not up for discussion, which is a shame. Just as there's more to Amsterdam than it's red light district, there's a lot more to Second Life than just the shenanigans of a handful of trolls and griefers.

Sources: Twitch, Kotaku, New World Notes, Warcry, Ciaran Laval,  

Bixyl Shuftan

Trump-eting Our Success

Our recent article on JP Laszo's Trump manor has been attracting attention, both for the Second Life Newser, and it seems for Second Life in general. Hamlet Au brought up the article in New World Notes. Then it was referenced by Kotaku, an online gaming magazine describing itself as "about games and things serious gamers care about." Done by the same writer who wrote about a neighbor of the Newser office founding a group in Steam protesting censorship in games, This inspired another writer for the magazine, whom described himself as giving up Second Life in the past, to log back into the virtual world just to check out the manor.

So it seems the manor has not only attracted attention to itself, but also for the virtual world. It's certainly attracted attention to the Newser, of which this particular article has gotten many times the readership of an average article on a second Life location.

Love him or hate him, or reluctantly tolerating him, this media personality turned Presidential candidate has gotten no shortage of attention, which has certainly been a ratings boost to those offering stories about him. The divisive nature of politics has been a turnoff to some, particularly in the days since the end of the Cold War and the rise of politicians from the "Baby Boom" generation as those of opposing points of view have been seen less often as having just a misinformed opinion and more often being seen as insane, dumb, evil, or some combination of the three. But it takes money to keep media going, and those willing to pay advertising revenue are attracted to ratings. So you may be seeing more Trump soon.

Hopefully in the end, after the newcomers get their fill of Trump, they'll stick around to see what else there is to see and do in the virtual world.

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab's Blocksworld Proving A Success

In Janurary, Linden Lab bought "Blocksworld," a game described as a mix of lego and Minecraft" designed for use on the iPad. At the time, it was one of a number of acquisitions by Linden Lab that appeared to some to be shots in the dark. Recently however, Blocksworld has been doing quite well.

According to New World Notes,  Rod Humble announced that Blocksworld had rose to become the third most popular of Apple's iPad application, "Woot, number 3 in the appstore for Blocksworld HD!" In the words of Hamlet Au, "For the first time in its 10 year+ history, Second Life is not Linden Lab's sole hit product." The game was being downloaded at a rate greater than "Candy Crush," which was making "an estimated $880,000 a day. If Blocksworld made just a fourth of that … it would be making more money than Second Life."

Among the responses Hamlet got was, "And how does this help the SL community exactly?" Hamlet reminded that Second Life's source of revenue, land tiers, has been in decline, and before there had been the danger of eventually "Second Life at ultimate risk of going up on the auction block in a fire sale - and who knows what would happen to it then." That it now had another source of revenue, perhaps it would be inclined to take chances in finally lowering it's land tiers. Hamlet was also confident that many of Blocksworld's fanbase would eventually be inclined to try Second Life, suggesting that Linden Lab revive Teen Second Life for young Blocksworld users.

It's good news for Linden Lab that it's revenue problems are starting to ease. Whether that means the fortunes will soon spread to Second Life, time will tell.

Image and article source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Shockwave: To Dox or Not?

Besides Second Life Newser, Shockwave Yareach who makes his home in the Sunweaver Estates neighboring our office building, reads and comments on other newsletters, including Hamlet Au's "New World Notes." One post on Hamlet bringing up the question on the ethics of exposing an anonymous Internet user, or "doxing" as it's called in Internet jargon, impressed the former imbedded reporter of Linden Lab so much, he made it an article in it's own right.

"In my humble opinion, the only justification for doxxing (I'm used to calling it outing, but I guess that was a different era) is to a) prevent a suicide, murder or other heinous bodily crime, and b) expose real life child molesters/rapists to the authorities.

"This is the only time I'll cross that line -- to save lives. If someone is bragging about stealing a car, how do I know he isn't talking about playing Grand Theft Auto? But someone has pics of naked children in their SL home, yeah, I'll call the cops and tell them anything I know.

"The difficulty comes in knowing whether or not someone is honestly suicidal or not. You have to actually know the person well to make this judgement call. Likewise with the question of murder -- I'm sure my wife has said she's gonna kill me when I get home countless times. That's not enough to summon the long arm of the law. Someone talking about X or Y property crime may just be talking about some game they play, just like someone overhearing you talking about AD&D game and the woman you slowly slaughtered with a glaive to get the information you needed ("Hello? Police? Listen, there's a couple of nerds talking about mutilating some poor girl...")

"I won't out people just because they are talking smack about some property crime. But, if I believe them when they talk about a rape or murder or suicide or other bodily crime, that's when I have to make the harsh decision. I've had to make the call a handful of times: a few, the police got there in time. One, the guy wasn't really suicidal and didn't appreciate the police hassling him."

"And one time, I didn't make the call because I didn't believe Hitz was really suicidal -- I was wrong."

Shockwave's better known among his fellow Sunnies as an entertainer, theater owner, DJ, and song parody composer, and a content creator, known for builds such as the "Alien Egg Hunt" that appears every Easter. He has commented before on serious issues, notably when he wondered if Linden Lab's decision to let teens on the Grid might get them in serious trouble.