Second Life Blogging Community

Today I went to the Bloggies ceremony by BVN and I received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Honestly, I’m in tears. Although I don’t really miss blogging anymore, I am so thankful for all that blogging Second Life has taught me, and done for me over the years. I never thought it would end up giving me a new career and new goals in my life. It’s been wonderful to be a part of this community, and see it grow and blossom to the massive support system it is today.

Thank you for all the kind words and the support you all have given me throughout the years. What I learned most from this community is you get what you give. Be kind to one another, support each other, encourage each other, and always be there for your fellow bloggers. Don’t feel shy about sharing your knowledge and expertise with others to help them with their journey. The immense talent, love, and support I saw today at the ceremony was inspiring, thank you.

I am happy to officially announce my retirement from blogging now, something I wanted to do for a while. Don’t worry, my blog is not disappearing. The tutorials and info will all be there for a long time to come, and I may still do a post here and there to remind you guys of different events, but for the most part, I’m done with blogging.

Some places you can still find me posting or see my work at: my Flickr stream, the Second Life official Flickr, the Second Life YouTube channel, and I’m also tweeting often these days.

If you are new to Second Life blogging, I highly encourage you to join BVN for support. It’s a wonderful way to engage and collaborate with fellow bloggers. You can join their group inworld or their server on Discord.

Last month a new community initiative was introduced by Linden Lab called the Second Life Blogger Network. SLBN aims to promote high-quality, independent blog content to the Second Life community. SLBN will be all-inclusive and will include not only bloggers but vloggers as well. There are of course some Terms and Conditions and Content Guidelines you need to meet to have your blog posts featured on SLBN, but it is a great way for bloggers to increase their SEO ranking if they get featured, and also for non-blogging Residents to discover new, fresh faces in the blogging community.

Here are some links and tips for SLBN:

• Submit your blog to SLBN using this form – All blogs submitted on this form are automatically added to the ‘watch list’ and any of your posts can be featured on SLBN.
• SLBN FAQs – After SLBN was announced, there were questions that were coming up often so this page might have answers to any questions you may have about it.
• A tip if your blog’s domain has trademark in it – One of the conditions all blog content featured on SLBN must follow is (as quoted from the Legal department): “You may not use any trademarks or logos or Linden Lab as part of your blog’s domain name, including “LINDEN”, “LINDEN LAB”, “SL” or “SECOND LIFE”.” If you do have the trademark in your blog’s domain name, try submitting your flickr or other social media instead. That way your work may still get featured on SLBN.
• Don’t change the way you blog to get featured: Don’t change your voice on your blog in hopes of getting featured on SLBN. If you like to write a lot, write a lot. If you give a lot of constructive criticism, don’t stop! If you like to show off what you’re wearing that day and just share the style credits, keep styling! The point of your blog is to share your work and your thoughts. You do you! If you get featured on SLBN and attract new readers, you want to make sure they are coming because your content resonated with them.
• Visit SLBN often and support Second Life bloggers: When I was first hired by Linden Lab, many of you reached out to me and asked me where you would go to read reviews for mesh bodies and fashion now. There are so many wonderful and creative Second Life Residents that blog about this incredible virtual world, this is a great place for you to find them. Visit SLBN often, click over to the different blog posts to see what the bloggers are sharing, and hit the like and follow buttons if you like their content. Let them know you appreciate their work and will visit again. That’s how we grow our communities to make them even bigger and stronger.

Thank you again for all that you have done for me over the years. It has been an incredible journey and a wonderful community to be a part of. A big congratulations to all of the talented bloggers that were nominated, won, and were at the Bloggies today to support their fellow bloggers. Please be kind to one another, share your knowledge and love for this virtual world, and continue to help strengthen this community. Take care of each other! <3

UPDATE: Saffia Widdershins was one of the hosts of The Bloggies, along with Elrik Merlin. Today she shared some information about The Bloggies on her primperfect blog. In the info is the citation that she and Elrik read about me before my award was announced. I didn’t get to hear all of it during the ceremony because I was distracted in real life. Reading the words today brought tears to my eyes again. I am not sure who wrote it, but I wanted to give a big thanks to Saffia and Elrik and also Kess and Trouble of BVN for the kind words and recognition. I wanted to share those words here, thank you again. <3

Taken from the primperfect blog: THE BLOGGIES – THE RESULTS!

BVN Member of the Year.
BVN is lucky to count many high profile Second Lifer’s and even some Lindens in our group membership. Many of them pitch in and help with giving advice, answering questions and more.
This year the founders decided to take a different approach with this award because there is someone, who is a member of BVN, whose contribution to blogging and vlogging in Second Life is second to none. This member has one of the most recognisable blogs and through the years (and there are many of them) has promoted Second Life, helped residents dress their avatars, provided numerous tutorials and given us tips and useful resources to help not just the blogging community but the whole of the SL community.
Their blog was an encyclopaedia of useful information and resources and we know that she is sorely missed as a blogger.  Their skills and talents have long been regarded by residents, bloggers, designers and creators and more and this year their knowledge, expertise and experience were harnessed by the Lindens when she was offered a role to work directly for them.
Many bloggers and vloggers in this room will have learned something from, or been inspired in some form by the winner of this year’s award, which we have decided to rename this year as a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The recipient of the BVN 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award is Strawberry Singh.