Chic at Ebbe's Place

All things have a life span.

That's you and me as well as our avatars and our grid(s). We try not to think about death -- well most of us anyway. Still it is an inevitable part of life, even virtual life.

Aviworlds will cease to exist in a few days. With it goes our avatars. We can replace them on another grid, and in many instances we can replace the goods we made, found or purchased. Still "that life" is no longer.

I don't suspect Second Life to disappear any time soon. It may outlive some of us. I have a very bad real life photo on a 1995 Australian website that I would SO like to disappear quietly, but it ain't happening. Longevity appears in the strangest places.

Grids number 2 and 3 in the metaverse have been taking hits this holiday season. Monthly concurrency is down. I suspect that Second Life statistics mirror that but with transparency leaving the building some years ago it is difficult to tell. Obviously, the point.

The -- well let's call them boutique grids -- seem to be growing at a slow but steady pace. The half a hundred grid sized platforms do have a sense of community. It is quiet. Folks meet up and play games or party now and then. If you aren't trying to make money and don't need to have the newest and best goods, it works.

These days I have my builds on several grids. It was partly a adventure to begin with, now it is also a protection policy. 

Backups come in many forms. 

Well if you were watching you had to know it was coming.

We can only surmise what went on behind the curtain.

From: Alex Ferraris

AviWorlds GRid|Attention

AviWorlds will shut down December 12. We have lost our CTO and our Web Developer 
I work 18 hours per day and it would be impossible for me to continue this project.
Thank you all

Alex Ferraris

December retail in SL.

Snow and Santa; Advent and Naughty 'n Nice bags. 

When something shifts, I want to figure out why. Postulations  and suppositions come into play and sometimes the actual answer is found. Sometimes not.

Retail in SL is different this holiday season. While the big name venues go on as before with the top notch folks, the second tier events have taken a hit. Some of those second tier folks (Chic waves her hand here) have apparently decided not to partake. There can be plenty of reasons. Mine is simply that I am overbooked in about five areas in SL and still want to keep a hand in the other worlds I visit and live in.

Annual retail celebrations are just as large as before -- some larger. But the quality of the offerings has diminished markedly.  This isn't just one event, this is several -- and the month is just beginning. Some very new and or not too talented folks have entered the game.

While everyone needs to start somewhere, a venue full of  2006 goods is not going to do well -- at least not with the folks that have been around awhile. For the most part, they are knowledgeable shoppers and do know the difference.

I can't imagine the folks in the themed holiday areas are going to do well. A few well known retailers simply put out the items they were required to (not an unheard of plan, just not the norm with "these" sellers) leaving the rest of their stores in minimalist decoration.  

Advent is always fun and while my fashion blog briefly announced a plan to showcase the best gifts each day, a midnight run as the season began was enough to sound the alarm. Not going to work. There ARE a handful of places giving out very nice gifts, just not enough to make cohesive posts. Workloads diminishing is an OK thing, but it is a little worrisome too.  The story is the same, plenty of content -- not enough quality.

Note December 3rd: The good news is that a lot of folks were just LATE, not absent. And there are still some with inactive calendars :D, but not as dire as it seemed. 



AT THE SAME TIME -- and also very interesting -- the Arcade yardsale items are flying off the racks. I was up early on December 1, headed over to my favorite sale yard (and got a tip from someone about another) and purchased the items I was looking for at the regular machine price. There were folks at the sales, but it wasn't super crowded.

An early evening trip found BOTH of the areas almost empty of goods. One is very large, the other more boutique. Folks were shopping ... 

Just in different places :D.