Five Hundred
February 2, 2018 3 Comments
Today is Groundhog Day, which seems like a good excuse to revisit a topic we’ve covered four times previously; the centenary marker.
Post #100 appeared in December 2008, about 20 months after SLS started. I was still quite enchanted by Second Life back then, and must have spent a lot of time on the grid, judging by the long pieces I wrote about the things I came across during my wanderings.
Post #200 came at the end of 2009, and was our first “Year in Review” piece, which has gone on to become an annual tradition. I was still writing a lot about SL, though my focus had moved on from simple travelogues to consideration of the politics of the metaverse, and in-depth psychology. The year also saw some fine commentary on SL culture from our erstwhile art correspondent Olivia, which were among the most popular pieces we ever published.
Post #300 came after another 12 months, and prompted me, rather hubristically, to offer my opinions on the art of blogging; I will leave it up to you, dear reader, to judge their lasting value. Second Life was still my most frequent topic, and during this period I penned our most-read post of all time, on SL demographics , but, over the course of 2010, our drift towards more general cultural subjects became increasingly evident.
Our ever-dwindling audience had to wait nearly three years to see post #400, during which time our virtual-world coverage waned almost to zero, replaced by my political and historical musings, along with a possibly excessive amount of personal nostalgia, no doubt reflecting my growing preoccupation with the relentless passage of time.
And now here we are at post #500, our slowest century yet, at over four years. I was never the most productive of bloggers, even during our heyday of 2009/10, but I have to admit that our slowdown over the past half-decade has periodically made me wonder whether it is worth continuing with this project, especially since we have undeniably strayed far from our original mission statement.
Yet I keep going. Partly this is due to my somewhat obsessive attachment to keeping the ten year run of at-least-one-a-month posts unbroken, but mostly it’s because, in my humble opinion, there is still an occasional gem to be found in amongst all the dross.
Onward to post #600 then, which, if current trends hold true, you can expect around 2023…
Second Life Shrink 
I used to be one of the addicted on SL. I’ve been off that grid for 5+ years. Do you think it’s as popular with adults as it used to be, or are there just a lot more teens on now?
I hardly ever visit SL these days, but when I do it seems much the same as I always found it back in 2009/10, that is almost completely deserted.
That’s what I figured. For 50,000+ logged on, you sure didn’t see many others. I know a lot of people stayed to themselves, and probably half of the 50 were alts. Still, I was completely addicted, but in a good way. I learned so much about “building” and it’s easy enough to stay away from the sex stuff if you want. I met one of my best friends in SL. That was about ten years ago and we will have our first real life meeting next month 🙂