Mystery Celebrates Four Years in Second Life

It was four years ago this week that the Mystery sim was founded. And to celebrate, Tygeria Mirabeau and her staff are throwing a week of special events. They started out with a bang with Debi Latte singing live from the Queen of Hearts riverboat club. But Mystery has much more to celebrate besides the parties. There are new attractions, and even a sister sim appearing.

To read the story, go to Community.

Mystery to Begin Four Year Anniversary With Debi Latte

It was four years ago next week that the Mystery sim was founded. And to celebrate, they plan on holding a week of events. The fun starts tomorrow, Sunday May 16th when at Noon, Debi Latte comes to the riverboat club to sing live. Tygeria Mirabeau and Amythe Midnight, the sim owner and sim manager, had praise for Debi, saying she had always made time for Mystery and it’s people.

Amy and Tygeria told SL Newspaper that they plan to do more than just hold events. They have been working on a sister sim, the Isle of Conundrum, which will open durring the celebration. The sim will offer sailing, romantic cuddle spots for couples, and retail space for stores. They also have new attractions on Mystery for visitors and regulars alike to enjoy.

“You never know what to expect at Mystery.”

Bixyl Shuftan

Criss MCA Anniversary Celebration

Today, we examine the Criss Museum of Contemporary Art. The MCA will be celebrating one year of being in Second Life. Reporter Gemma Cleanslate describes what the museum will be planning throughout the month of May.

For the story, go to Community.

Syzygy Community Celebrates First Anniversary

The Syzygy Island Community celebrated its first anniversary on January 9. The party was held on Helios at Imagine Peace (181, 221, 34), owned by Olorin Tigerpaw. Tigerpaw is the Community Events Coordinator for Syzygy. Grijandomore Greene, another founding resident of Syzygy, DJ́´d the event, and the other residents and their guests danced and partied.

    The second picture, provided by Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks, shows Syzygy being created in January, 2009. As future residents watched, Syzygy came on-line. This magical event was followed by weeks of work by Administrator Samantha Glume, and the other officers, Elric Anatine, BW Jinxing, Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks, and Olorin Tigerpaw.

    The Community is comprised of four areas: Eos, Helios, Pyxis, and Selene. It is a covenant community, with a general nature theme, spiced with a touch of the Ancient and the whimsical. Elric Anatine, manager of landscaping and common grounds, continually beautifies the public areas and changes the seasons. Currently Syzygy is a winter wonderland, with skating spots, a hot tub, gardens, and other interesting sites located through the sim. There are many small nooks and seating areas for quiet visits, romantic dancing, or simply as a break from the hustle of SL. Syzygy is open to the public, and visitors are welcome. 

By Grey Lupindo

Babel Translations - Celebrating 2 years of language excellence

"Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides," American
writer Rita Mae Brown once wrote. Those who recognise the power of
language realise that much can be achieved by wielding this power
wisely.

Second Life is a world that depends very much on language, more so
than the so-called "real world": content creators communicate with
customers through words on vendor ads, notecards, and IMs. Language
therefore becomes crucial to communication. The content creator who is
able to employ language to do his bidding will forge a stronger
connection with his customers and see greater rewards.

The nature of SL has meant that people all over the globe and from all
walks of life are populating this virtual world. The diversity is such
that less than 50% of residents claim English as their first language.
Babel Translations was founded with the vision of helping content
creators to fully take advantage of the power of language in order
that their business might reach as many potential customers as
possible and have the greatest chance for growth and success.

Founded in June 2007 by Peter Stindberg, over the past two years Babel
has established itself as the premiere translation and copywriting
agency in SL, bridging the language gap between content creators and
their customers. While its core business focuses on language
translation services, Babel has also branched out into associated
services and business solutions, offering assistance to content
creators wishing to establish a business in SL.

Thus, the company not only provides language translation services for
all kinds of documents including specialised texts like license
agreements, covenants, and terms of service; it also offers
consultation and copywriting services. Stindberg and his team work
with content creators to not only translate, but also create and
develop texts that will fit into a business's marketing strategy, thus
spurring the business's success and growth. Product descriptions and
advertising texts can be written or edited to match a specific user
group and audience. This ensures that a content creator exploits the
power of language to its fullest potential, for the greatest reward.

With a team of well over 50 translators, Babel is able to provide
translations in languages such as English, German, French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and many others. To
ensure that the service is affordable, pricing is oriented at in-world
(not "real life") rates. Furthermore, all the translators are
themselves residents of SL and therefore understand the culture as
well as the context of the communication taking place; this places
them in a unique position to be able to effectively bridge the
language gap between content creator and any potential customers.

In March 2009, Linden Labs officially recognised Babel Translations as
one of the official Second Life Solution Providers. This award further
demonstrates that Babel has come of age as a company that is reliable,
efficient and fills a crucial role in the virtual world we live in.
The importance of Babel's work has been recognised by content creators
behind brands such as Adam'n'Eve, Mechanized Life, Calla Hair and
Botanical, all of whom have benefited from Babel's services.

However, Babel's focus is not solely on businesses and content
creators. No document is too unimportant to translate, no piece of
writing too trivial. Babel not only wishes to help content creators
forge stronger communication with their customers, but desires to draw
various SL communities and residents closer together. The company is
therefore proud to announce its participation in the sixth SL birthday
celebrations, SL6B. It is a significant landmark for Babel to be able
to celebrate its second anniversary in the same month that Second Life
turns six years old.

Babel's presence at SL6B will celebrate the richness that the various
languages in SL can bring to a resident's Second Life experience. As
"Your partner in the written word", Babel aims to raise the awareness
of the language gaps that create chasms between various communities in
SL and to educate visitors on the necessity of bridging these gaps.

Contact Information:

Peter Stindberg
peter.stindberg@googlemail.com
SLURL of SL6B exhibit:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL6B%20Quantum/218/69/25 (June 23 through
June 29)

WOW! What a week!

Last night saw the end of a week of celebrations, parties every night from some amazing DJ's; Dakota Christensen, BCreative Wilde and our own amazing Qwark Allen and to end it all a live concert from Labgraal, more pictures can be seen in the EVENTS section.
Later today I will finish uploading all the pictures from the week of events into my Flickr HERE.
We have shown 7 artists and photographers in our gallery; Attila Fetge, Tom1 moonites, Neuron Bandit (Physche Designs), Memories by Mystique Sassoon, Cienega Soon and yesterday Rag Randt.
We had Newbie, Tiny, Trance and Wild west parties. Masterclasses in sculpty making from 10 Goosson of M&M creations plus How to make Machinima with Ariella Languish plus we heard Nazz Lane reading from his novel on the beach. Plus all the people that went to a huge effort to set up the fair for you to enjoy.
WOW! What a week!
We gave away over 90,000L$s worth of prizes to the winners of our contests in a star studded glittering ceremony and all I can say is
WOW! What a week!

I would like to personally thank each and every person that has made this week special but there are a few that have really gone above and beyond to help organise this week and they deserve credit for that.
There are 3 very special people at Skybeam estates that have choked me up with the amount of effort they have personally gone to to make this week the success it has been Nevar Lobo, Amethyst Starostin and Charlene Trudeau I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the help you have given me.
All of our crew have been a huge help Bree, Bixyl and Nazz but I have to say Gemma Cleanslate and her Partner Qwark have been awesome, taking over most nights when parties went on late and we were all but collapsing from exhaustion, they took over and did an amazing job - Thank you both.
I also wish to thank Wilder PR, Annette Wilder and Mahala Bing who did so much to let people know across the WWW and the grid it would not have been the success it was without them!
One more person I have to Thank personally may come as a bit of a surprise, because it was to me, and that was Frolic Mills of Best of SL Magazine, not only was his team amazing but he personally oversaw the whole show to make it work in a very short time - when I shouted 'HELP!' Frolic was there and came to the rescue :) Thank you!
Now we have the cleanup to get started :) And I better stop before I started blubbing over my keyboard. So once again Thank you all and WOW! What a week!
Dana

Last Day at the fair

Today is also the last day of the Fair make sure you get down there to check it out before we pack it all up!

The building contest is hotting up as contestants start to build ready for the judging on Saturday, there is still time to join in.

Watch out for changes to Fridays' agenda, more info later!

Click the poster to explore

Why is 2 years important?

The second anniversary feels so different from the first and I actually don't know why.
We seem to have moved from just another blog to a viable, respectable newspaper all of a sudden at least we are getting a lot more notice recently.
For example We have been interviewed quite a lot, often by students doing degrees in journalism or for other media outside SL, like Zoidberg Exonar who came to ask us about SL as a whole and also on the way newspapers work within SL, Zoidberg interviewed us for Vox Publica, an online-based periodical for Norweigens.
The questions he asked James were quite an insight to me of how SL is percieved by the 'outside world':
Zoidberg Exonar: 12. Do you think ethical and democratic aspects of SL might be different in the future?
Zoidberg Exonar: I'm thinking maybe 5-10 years down the line.
JamesT Juno: not SL - I dont think so, residents dont think in ways of making money - they live here for fun not realising it costs money to create this world - two opposites
Zoidberg Exonar: Yeah, I see your point.
JamesT Juno: Linden labs have proven time and again that residents opinion does not matter to them.
Zoidberg Exonar: What do you think, Dana?
dana Vanmoer: that the Lindens have their business plan of which residents are unaware. The way most residents feel now is like guinea pigs
Zoidberg Exonar: OK. Interesting.
dana Vanmoer: at least those that have been here any length of time not those that just come to play a game
Zoidberg Exonar: Do you think perhaps virtual newspapers operating in SL might have more rules and constraints put on them by Linden in the future? Thus limiting your freedom to print basically what you want?
JamesT Juno: they can try - but again impossible to put it outside sl so, inworld magazines maybe yes, with a web based newspaper like ours ? no way - they can ban our avatar but its free to come back and let James and Dana keep living in the newspaper (I would love to run an underground newspaper hahahahaha)
dana Vanmoer: or by suing us for libel - which if we are expressing an opinion or someone elses' I dont believe they can do
Zoidberg Exonar: Ah Ok. I understand. That almost reminds me of "Braveheart": "You can take my avatar, but you will never take my printing freedom"!
JamesT Juno: love it, but we tend to live by the rules too
dana Vanmoer: we can continue through other avatars or by our writers remaining nameless
Zoidberg Exonar: You can print my quote in SL-Newspaper if you want ;)
dana Vanmoer: they cannot prove who wrote anything
Zoidberg Exonar: I understand.
Zoidberg Exonar: What role do you envision virtual newspapers such as SL-Newspaper? might have in the future, not just in SL, but in virtual worlds in general? Do you think that virtual newspapers at one point might be just as important to people as RL newspapers are today? Please elaborate on your answer. I am here of course making a distinction between web-based real newspapers, and newspapers such as SL-Newspaper which operates specifically in a virtual WORLD.
JamesT Juno: yes - we do , but most will be an informing task - let people know whats going on, SL is a series of islands and most other virtual worlds are the same, finding everything that is going on is not an easy thing to do therefore, people will always need a central point to get information.

This is just a small portion of a very lengthy interview.
We are also featured in the new Venture Magazine which has moved to an online version with Solan Nightfire the new CEO & Art Director who interviewed us on how it all began and what keeps us going, read the full interview HERE
Thank you Venture for featuring us in our anniversary month.
Is there something about turning 2 years in SL? I don't know, I just get the feeling people see us as 'all grown up' .
Maybe you have turned two years, has peoples' attitude towards you changed? Do you get a different reaction from others? Add your comments let me know if I am imagining things?

The pictures here are from yesterdays events and many more can be seen in our Flickr HERE
Todays events can be found in the EVENTS section

How it all started

On November 8, 2006, our CEO JamesT Juno wrote his first article. Well, it wasn't his first article, but at least it was the first official SL-Newspaper article. From that day on, the SLN really took off.
Starting with the site, linking to several blogs, it really looked like a newspaper site and a lot has changed since then. We've moved sections around, a number of excellent writers joined us (James married) and basically, we're still a bunch of volunteers, enjoying working for the SL Newspaper. But .. it all started with that one article, written by the CEO and founder, JamesT Juno.
Or ... actually, the paper started about 2 years ago as an experiment, as James explained. With only about 40 readers daily, the year before the actual start of the SLN, he already had a blog that he called the SL-Newspaper. It was mostly about his newbie experiences in Second Life, and I found the real first article. And .. OMG .. I never realized that even our distinguished CEO, usually dressed up in his expensive suit, was once a newbie. And looked like one !!

Although new to Second Life, he wasn't new to writing and publishing. Even before this first article from September 2005, he had his own blog called '15 Timez', basically writing funny stories.
So, as I said, the SL Newspaper started out as just a small blog, but now has grown to a newspaper that's read and appreciated by around 10,000 people per day. Correction: 10k not-unique hits per day. Which means that some people actually check the paper more than once per day. Isn't that flattering :-)
All in all, and I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of the entire staff and freelancers, we are very proud how he established that, how he made it grow into what the SL Newspaper is today. If he wasn't as persistant as he is, we wouldn't have all this fun working for the SLN and informing you people about things going on in Second Life.
And, to be honest, I'm very glad he lost the newbie spikey hair !! Now we just gotta get him to wear some jeans, instead of the CEO suit ....
Dixie Barbosa

Find out about this weeks celebration in the EVENTS section!

Our birthday celebrations start today!

Click the poster to teleport at 2pm slt tonight!

Skybeam turns 2

This month, SkyBeam Estates celebrates its second birthday and we are celebrating with tons of events all crammed into one amazing day!
Here is the Schedule of Events: ( all times are SLT )
Hot air Ballon rides and Airship Rides over the estate will go on all day. Many other events will be happening as well. Check out all the shops throughout the estates and visit the New home of Labgraal for a look at whay they have done for their cause.
7:00am SkyBeam Yard Sale Begins .. this event will run the entire weekend
930am: Speed Building Contest
The speed build contest will start promptly at 10am on Saturday, November 15, 2008. Please plan on arriving by 9:30 to claim a spot. Theme will be announced at the start of the build contest. Feel free to interpret this as you will. Cash Prizes for top three places. Limited spaces available.
9:30am - noon : DJ Dakota Christensen will be rocking us to get our Birthday Party started. She will be over at the Speed Build Contest and streaming through out the estates.
9:30 am- 11am: Fox Hunt through out the estates.
Get your horses ready for the first Skybeam Estate Fox Hunt. We have our Fox training and ready to run . The Fox will be caught 3 times with each person recieving a cash prize. Once you capture the Fox you will have to pull back to allow for others to be able to capture. Capture equipment will be provided at 930am and must be used to be a legal capture.
This will be a good time for all so come join this event .
Noon -1:00pm - Awards ceremony for build contest and fox hunt . 1:00pm - Labgraal Live ....
The Wonderful Keltic sounds of Skybeam's Own Labgraal will be prefoming at the main stage. This will also be the Grand opening of The Eco- Spirituality Land ... The LabGraal is one of the keltic music groups that with great merit has acquired a lead role in the european musical scene. It is made up of a formation of five musicians, who often also dedicate their time to the defence of native peoples and their traditions, to struggles to safeguard the environment and animal rights and to initiatives of solidarity and for Peace. All visitors are welcome and please enjoy the music .
2:30 - 4:00pm Live From Iceland ... DJ Zoolie Nasu will be taking request and bringing us some dancing on the main stage ... This is time to enjoy the sights of the Labgraal Land and dancing over the water.
4:00pm Kim Seifert Live
Kim's musical style and personal sound is well suited for high energy country rock, and this where she shines and has the most fun. Her dynamic voice will have your heart singing with joy, and your feet dancing out of control. Polished and clean, with excellent range and emotional power, Kim's performance will take you away.
5:00pm - 8:00pm Formal Ball
This Formal Ball will close A wonderful packed full event for Skybeam's Birthday . DJ Bcreative will be playing all our favorites as we dance into the evening . Get your Tuxes and Gowns ready and come dance with us under the moonlight. Prizes for Best Dress

Ready, steady ---- GO!

We are all set up and just waiting for you now!
You can now take a sneak peak and find all contest information on the island HERE
There are a few stands free at the fair still contact me inworld if you would like one.

We will have art exhibitions, masterclasses, live music events plus fabulous DJ's like Dakota Christensen, BCreative Wilde and our own Qwark Allen every day and the fashion show with the fantastic Frolic Mills and The Best of SL Magazine.

Don't forget there is up to 75,000Ls up for grabs in the contests we have running in conjunction with our birthday, information can be found on the notices at the TP point as well as at our main office.

Skybeam is looking particularly beautiful right now just right for taking that contest winning photograph - head on over there to be in with a chance to win.
All contest info is available at head office or on Caprona, any questions feel free to IM me.

Dana Vanmoer

Oyster Bay Sculpture Garden

Oyster Bay Sculpture Garden is proud to host its one-year anniversary, showcasing all new art from some of SL's best sculpture artisans.
The party begins with DJ Doubledown Tandino at 6 PM on January 10th, followed by boogie blues legend Komuso Tokugawa at 7 PM SLT.
Don't miss this one! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Oyster/17/200/82