AMA on my 11th Second Life Rezday!

UPDATE: I have announced the winner of the Giveaway in the comments.

May 9th is my 11th rezday. It’s been 11 years since I first created my account in Second Life and honestly I don’t really know where the time went. It seems like just yesterday that I happened upon this amazing virtual world, created my account, logged in, logged out and then didn’t log back in for another week or two because I was so lost. Luckily, I decided to give it another try and got hooked.

This year for my rezday I wanted to cover 5 topics in my rezday blog post:

1. L$5000 Rezday Giveaway
2. Second Life Yearbook Challenge
3. Advertising Sale
4. Live Stream Link & AMA Questions
5. Thank you

Rezday Giveaway

I wanted to do a giveaway like I did last year so I’ll be giving L$5000 to one of my readers again. Hopefully you can put that money towards a purchase of a bento head of your preference. If you already have or don’t want a bento head, you are of course free to use the lindens to get anything you like. My only request is that you spend that money in Second Life and contribute to the SL economy.

In order to enter this giveaway, please answer the following two questions in the comments of this post:

1. What is your full Second Life username? (not display name)
2. Do you already own a bento head? If so, which one is your favorite?

I will announce the winner on Tuesday, May 15th at 6am SLT. I will again use the Pick Giveaway Winner wordpress plugin to randomly choose the winner. I will then announce the winner’s name in the comments of this post and then drop the L$5000 on you inworld. Good luck to everyone that enters!

2018 Second Life Yearbook Challenge

This is the fourth year in a row that I’ll be doing the yearbook challenge. To participate in this challenge, all you have to do is take a portrait style photo of your avatar and add it to the Second Life Yearbook Flickr Group. Please make sure the image that you add to the group is a yearbook style portrait and you mention that it’s your yearbook photo in either the description or tags. Check out my yearbook images from 2017, 2016 and 2015. Looking forward to your yearbook photos!

Advertising Sale

I announced an advertising sale on my blog on April 25th. It is still ongoing but will end at the end of the day on May 10th. All of my advertising rates are reduced by 50% till May 10th. Click over to my Advertising Page for all the details! If you already have an ad campaign on my blog and want to take advantage of the sale, feel free to do so, I will just add the extra days to your campaign.

If you usually visit my blog and have an ad blocker enabled, may I please request that you support my work and disable the ad blocker for my site. I promise I do not have any popups or intrusive ads in between posts. The only ads you will see on my blog will be in the sidebar. -> Please click on the ads and explore their stores and sites, you might discover something you weren’t aware of before!

Live Stream Link & AMA Questions

On April 25th I announced that I will be doing an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on my rezday and for you guys to ask me questions. I will be answering those questions in my live stream which is scheduled for May 9th at 5:00am PDT. Here’s the link to my live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WRidULOIPw

Here are the questions I’ll be answering. These questions were submitted by you guys via email and comments in my blog post and video.  I’ll fill in the answers to the questions here once I answer them in my live stream, since I’m still thinking about how to answer some of them:

1. Question: Do you get all the Bento mesh heads and mesh avatar bodies you write reviews for from the creators for free, or do you have to pay for them? (If you do have to pay for them, it must cost you a fortune!)
   • I do get majority of them free now. But some of the first mesh heads that I blogged, I bought myself. Like the Logo Alex head and the Catwa Jessica head. I bought those two heads myself and did detailed blog posts for them. The designers liked that and started sending me their heads to blog. The more heads I received, the more detailed posts I tried to do since so many people had questions about them and how they worked. So now I don’t really buy heads that often because I’m lucky enough to receive most of the ones that I’d like to blog.
2. Question: What are some of the most effective tools you’ve learned for reaching a wider audience that go beyond using tags and networking on social media?
   • Honestly I think social media is the main way I was able to reach a wider audience. I was lucky enough to start blogging early, back in 2007 and then I enjoyed joining social networks. The more I joined, the more of a reach I had on new readers because every network had a different community. Aside from that, the biggest tool that I think helped me get attention was using Photoshop to enhance my images and get more attention through them. I was blogging before Second Life had shadows and mesh body parts so increasing the quality of my images using Photoshop really helped me get the attention at first.
3. Question: What influenced you to begin blogging in SL and what steps did you take to make it the success it is today?
   • I was actually forced into blogging by a very good friend who already had her own blog going. I was apprehensive at first, but when I finally started, I really enjoyed it. I think what got me the most readers on my blog was consistency. I have been continuously blogging for over a decade and the only time I took breaks was when I went on vacation. Speaking of which, I will be on vacation for the month of July so will not be in SL or blogging or vlogging during that time. I’ll be back in August!
4. Question: I would like to know where your biggest source of income comes from in terms of SL (i.e., blogging, building, videos), if the revenue stream comes from Google type ads or is more SL based, and where you would recommend I start if I want to earn a living from my love of SL (or if that is even possible). 
   • Currently, my top three sources of income from my Second Life activities come from the shapes that I sell in my marketplace store, that’s number 1, and then the advertising space I sell on my blog and the income I make from my YouTube videos. However, I do not currently make a sustainable living from this income. It’s just something that helps me pay for my blog and my other hobbies. To earn a sustainable income in Second Life, I would recommend learning how to mesh and create mesh clothing, body parts or home and decor. That would be the best way to earn a sustainable income. I wrote a blog post called: “How to be a Content Creator in Second Life” which will have links to some resources for you.
5. Question: How many hours per week do you put into what you do? It seems impossible for a person to juggle it all.
   • A lot less than I used to. I think I only put in an hour or two a day, if that. Some days though I do put in more. I’ve gotten a lot more proficient in writing up my posts and I also don’t Photoshop my images for a long time like I used to. Now my pictures are more instructional so I only do a few things which take just a few minutes.
6. Question: With all this talk about Sansar having such a low concurrency and Second Life going in decline, what are your plans when Linden Lab closes Sansar or Second Life or both?
   • I am not as attached to Sansar as I am to Second Life. If it closed tomorrow, I may be a bit sad because I find Sansar to be beautiful and I’ll miss hanging out every weekend with other Sansar residents during Atlas Hopping. But other than that, I’ll be over it pretty quickly. If Second Life were to close down, that may hit me a bit harder for sure. But honestly, I am sure I would move on quickly to another virtual world to explore and blog about. Or perhaps I may blog something completely different. Whatever happens though, I can’t see myself not blogging or vlogging something or other.
7. Question: What led you to join second life? What kinds of things did you do your first year? Do you make your avatars resemble you? 
   • A friend told me about it, so I joined. In my first year I mainly socialized at a couple of clubs and I became a belly dancer to earn some lindens. I’ve made a lot of avatars over the years. One time I did try to make one look like me. The avatars I make I usually use whatever mesh head I’m using as a base and try to create a shape that I think looks beautiful with it.
8. Question: What advice would you give for those who want to start their own fashion blog? 
   • Only do it if you have the time to be consistent and if you really love dressing up your avatar. Also, don’t expect to receive anything for free until you’ve been blogging for a while. I think there is a big misconception there. Some people think bloggers get or should get all their items free and that’s not the case at all. I was blogging for several months before a designer was generous to share their creations with me for free. So don’t worry about getting sponsors or whatever people are calling it these days. Blog what you love and it will show in your work. Designers will appreciate that and they will reach out to you themselves. Or you can sign up if they have a blogger call after you’ve blogged them at least a few times on your own.
9. Question: How do you organize your inventory? 
   • I don’t, unfortunately. It’s just too hard to keep up. The only part of my inventory that is somewhat organized is my mesh body parts folder. The rest of the inventory is in chaos. I have a link to a few inventory tutorials on my FAQ page under question number #27.
10. Question: I noticed you blog all the mesh bodies and mesh heads but you don’t blog certain brands, why is that?
    • Well I definitely do not blog ALL the mesh bodies and heads. I just wouldn’t have the time to do that because there are so many and it would be very hard to keep up with. There are many out there that I haven’t blogged as of yet, even ones that were sent to me. Mainly because I didn’t have time or I didn’t feel like their quality was up to par and I only like to blog items that I feel are well made. There are also many I haven’t blogged, or even have stopped blogging, due to personal reasons. Most of the time, the reason is because I was treated poorly by the designer or I just don’t think the designer is a good person and I don’t wish to support their brand. These are personal reasons though so I wouldn’t ever put them on blast, and my experience with a designer may not be the same as your experience. That’s why, I just kind of avoid promoting them. I feel like I do have the right to pick and choose what I want to blog and who I want to support. There are many creators on the grid that do phenomenal work so I’d rather focus on the ones that I feel deserve the recognition.

I answered these 10 questions in the first half hour of the live stream with a lot more detail than what I’ve written here, so do watch the live stream video when you get a chance. I also did another half hour of questions that I got live from the people that were watching, which was kind of chaotic but very fun. I decided not to type out those questions and answers here because they were so many and a bit chaotic when I read and answered them so do watch the video when you get the chance to hear the rest of the AMA. I enjoyed doing this and might do it more often in the future. Thank you to all those that submitted the questions!

Thank you

Second Life has been such a wonderful part of my life, I can’t even begin to talk about how much it means to me. Recently I met the founder of Second Life, Philip Rosedale, (when he took me on a tour of High Fidelity) and I was so close to telling him how he saved my life. I didn’t say it because I felt it would be too dramatic, but I really feel like because of him and Second Life, my life is so much more than it could have been. I’ve been through so much this past decade with career changes, heart aches, my parents health issues and more, that without the support and escape that I got from Second Life, I’m not sure I would have survived it all so miraculously. I can honestly say that my life has been bettered because of this wonderful virtual world and I am so thankful to the founder and the people that still run it.

A final thank you to all of my blog readers and youtube subscribers for watching my videos, reading my posts and commenting and sharing my work so often. I truly appreciate all of the love and support you guys give me and I hope we have many more years together. Thanks again and don’t forget to spread the love! <3

Updates

I thought I would add a few updates here. I uploaded a picture for this post to my instagram, see it here:

11 Years of Second Life #SecondLife #VirtualReality #VirtualWorld #StrawberrySingh

A post shared by Strawberry Singh (@strawberrysinghvr) on May 8, 2018 at 6:27pm PDT

I also did a live stream on Twitch today where I shared recent updates to Sansar. Give that a watch if you are interested too:
Watch Latest Updates to Linden Lab’s Sansar – Emotes, LookBook and more… from StrawberrySingh on www.twitch.tv

My Style Credits:
Shape: StrawberrySingh.com Vista-Zoe Shape by Strawberry Singh
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V4.1 by Onyx LeShelle
*Mesh Head: VISTA BENTO HEAD ZOE V.1 by Vista Barnes
*Skin Applier: Insol Anna by AlMercury (Uber)
*Eyes Applier: Avi-Glam Dramatic Eyes by Kendra Parfort
*Hair: Exile Evermore by Kavar Cleanslate (C88)
*Dress: Giz Seorn – Camila Dress by Giz Seorn (Flickr)(May not be in the mainstore yet)