The Irony and Moribundity of the Second Life Blogger

[Sigmund Leominster]

One of my favorite words - and I have many - is moribund. The online version of the Merriam-Webster offers two variations in meaning:

1 : being in the state of dying : approaching death
2 : being in a state of inactivity or obsolescence

Using the word to describe the inactivity of a blog seems deliciously appropriate. One blogger even suggested the word "mog" as a shorthand way of referring to such neglected aspirations. He also referred to "splogs" and "flogs," which are "spam blogs" and "fake blogs" respectively.

Like other information sources on the net, a blog is subject to the same process of internet natural selection as others. The first selective pressure on bloggers is that of proliferation: you are competing for the attention of millions of people amongst millions of blogs. Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 reveals that 1.2 millions people are registered as bloggers with Techorati - and not everyone registers with Technorati!

And unless the laws of physics are different in the virtual world (I'm open to the idea that they may be) blog readers have only 24 hours in a day available to them, some of which may be spent sleeping (unless you are a Second Life addict) some of which are spent eating (unless you are a supermodel), and some of which are spent working hard to enable you to waste your spare time surfing the web.

The ease with which a blog can be created also tempts folks to have more than one. I raise my guilty hand here. And like blog readers, I too only have 24 hours in a day and I do like to sleep, eat, and spend some time in the real world.

All of which leads me back to the notion of the irony of my Second Life Bloggers page. Because I write for several SL magazines, have a number of blogs, and then have my "real life" blog, I have no time to write in this Second Life Blogger blog! I blog too much to write in the Second Life Blogger pages.

So here's where I went wrong. Multiple blogs are bad. Period. Having many does NOT increase you chances of being read. Well, I am asserting that but not backing it up with evidence. However, my suspicion is that the number of moribund blogs outweighs the active, and those read by larger numbers of people turn out to be written by a group rather than an individual.

In the Land of the Metaverse, where the bloggers lie.
One Blog to rule them all, One Blog to find them,
One Blog to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

[Johnny S]

In my experience that the problem with Second Life blogs in particular is that there is only so much you can say about the subject, and before too long you find you are repeating yourself.

Posts about the virtual world itself can mostly be reduced to the form "Look at this cool thing I found", and a lot of the time the thing featured is not particularly impressive. I've lost count of the number of times I've followed SLURLs from NPIRL and been thoroughly underwhelmed by the experience. It's interesting that the average age of SL regulars is quite high (I'm told) - perhaps most of us oldies who grew up with ZX Spectrum graphics are just easily impressed by all the bright colours.

The other main topic for posts is the interaction between SL users, partly in-world, but mostly in the SL blogosphere. Again though they are just about all some sort of variation on "Look how the anonymity of the metaverse allows people to delude themselves/behave badly/expose their unconscious" along with some more or less illuminating commentary, and seldom say anything that wasn't already said, and said better, by Shelly Turkle 15 years ago. (My own blog is a particularly bad offender in this regard).

I guess that I'll keep on blogging because I;ve got the habit, but the SL content will probably wax and wane.

[Terry Toland]

I agree that having multiple blogs can lead to stagnation due to resources being spread thin. At the same time, having only one blog can cause a sense of overwhelmment(sp?), due to perceived disorganization, 'too much to cram in' or other reasons, possibly a combination. I have stopped writing on some of my older blogs and focus on posting on my main, my agency's blog, and every now and then on one of my Ning blogs. I post a myrad of things on my main, ranging from fashion to social commentary; my work on the agency's blog is fashion-focused with a particular style in mind; and for Nings, I've gotten to the point where I don't post everything, just what seems relevant to the community. (Especially as all the posts are overwhelmed by advertisements).

I also know of some major fashion blogs that only have one writer, such as Ana Lutetia, Dakota Lubitsch, Winter Jefferson, and Achariya (ok, so Winter and I do have littler featurettes there, but that's only because Ach is graciously allowing use to use her blog to hit some fashion feeds). So there's a few more bumps in the equation.