Google and its Integration

I finally did it. I finally figured out how to be my real self and how to be my avatar, Raftwet Jewell. Google integration was a tough one for me.

In real life, I started my social media career with Yahoo many moons ago. At that time, there was nothing but a bunch of people communicating online in chat rooms and/or pseudo social media such as Yahoo's Geocities.

Remember Geocities? That was a place where I spent many hours writing and posting about my real life company. So many of my email addresses were written down in so many vanity books. There was Yahoo, of course. Google, Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, Ning, Squidoo, and so many others, that I have no memory of being in them except for the notation in those little vanity books.

When Google decided to protect us from unscrupulous bloggers, posters, and that ilk, I just was not properly prepared, even though I knew integration was coming! I had to gather a few years of user names, passwords, secret questions and locations. Trying to integrate the real world company and the virtual world avatar, was a nightmare.

So I walked away from all of the techno muck for a couple of years.  

My mind was a blur of words, photos, updates, and BS. The world has definitely changed both in virtual and real. The internet has become such a spooky boogyman. The "Monster" knows everything about us. Being fully integrated is kinda worrisome as it means that a hack can literally destroy everything.

What all of us created was a syncopated world of blogging/posting platforms. Majority of the 'stuff' is so not important to anyone. Just words and pics floating like flotsam in the wind with everyone sharing them. And, that's the real reason why social media is important. The act of sharing them.

When you share with your next door neighbor, an overwhelming feeling of comfort may envelope you. Why? You connected with a person soley with a plate of cookies. That person may share that plate of food with another person close by. Then, that other person may tell their baker down the street how awesome your cookies were to eat. And voila! That baker contacted you about a special event where he wanted someone to make cookies!

What I hope is that this simply created avatar, my precious jewel, can continue her virtual life peacefully with grace and dignity. So many great new things, like mesh,  have happened on the grid. I am also definitely looking forward to being able to access the grid with my cell phone.

2014 will go down in my memory book as the year that I took care of my avie, and all the other loose ends on the net.

Spring is coming... time to go shopping for my avatar!


Making my way through social media... again!

Posted by raftwet jewell
Photo by raftwet jewell

Mankind Tracer's Peace, Love & Belief IV Mega Concert

MANKIND TRACER'S 
PEACE, LOVE & BELIEF IV MEGA CONCERT:


On October 3rd, Mankind Tracer will be holding the largest ever multi-sim concert event in Second Life's history.

Over the past few years, Mankind Tracer, SL's most recognized live performer, has held his Peace, Love & Belief Concerts, with the last PLB III on 34 different sims. During PLB III, Mankind played a few songs at each venue, jumping from sim to sim for over 6 hours straight. While this is still the recognized record for most simultaneous sims, Mankind will be going for 50 sims at Peace, Love & Belief IV.



The major difference this year is that PLB IV will be a Live Video Concert. The concert is planned to last for three straight hours. There will also be a live audio stream just in case residents don't have the ability to see video. Mankind will stream his live show across SL via the new "stage screen" and thus will not need to jump sims. This year, there will still be the Land Mark Board which, as with all previous PLB Events, will clearly display the names of all participating venues/sims and each will be clickable to their respective LM's.

The idea of Peace, Love  & Belief is something Mankind Tracer offers all attendees at his shows and has been doing so for well over three and a half years since he first started performing. In Mankind's own word's, "I wish you peace in your minds, love in your hearts and belief in the generosity and the goodness of the people that share the world with us." Millions of people have likely heard his message and his hopes are to spread his message even further.

Participating venues will be provided with a "Package" which will include all setup material including the video screen, audio stream info, the LM Board, promotional material and an instruction notecard for setup. You will need to place the provided texture in your land settings under "Media Texture".

During his long time performing in SL, Mankind Tracer has won many prestigious awards, performed countless charitable events for both large and personal causes and he has released 3 SL CD's which have seen tremendous success in SL. His concerts are usually packed with most being driven by audience requests and of course his truly amazing and insightful original music. In the saturated live music scene, Mankind Tracer, still after all these years, remains the most widely recognized SL live performer. He is the "goto guy" to help launch the Linden Labs' events like the SL Birthday parties and Burning Life events. Through all of his success, Mankind Tracer remains a kind and generous man and all around nice guy!

Be sure to get on board this historic SL Event as many SL and RL eyes will be watching this one!

THIS IS GONNA BE BIIIIIIIGGGGG!!!!


• Event Promotion

Banners advertising the event will be placed all around SL, on Second Friends, FaceBook events, MySpace, Reverb Nation, SL Radio Station and more.


• Sponsorship

If you are a business in SL and would like to sponsor the event, there are only 10 spots available. Sponsors will have a square image embeded onto the LM board which will be placed at all participating venues offering great exposure. Sponsor ads will also be clickable to a LM of your choice.

Those who choose to sponsor the event will also be offered a discounted ad rate for one month on Second Friends, the Social Networking Website for SL residents only, created by  Mankind Tracer:

http://www.second-friends.com


• Contact

If you would like to be part of this historic SL Event, either by carrying the stream or by sponsoring the event, please contact Mankind Tracer, Kalli Birman or Roos Tomsen to get further info as soon as you can. There is only room for 50 venues/sims.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Look for more information and details about this historic event on  THE A LIST! blog.

Submitted and written by Mankind Tracer for THE A LIST! from public distribution releases.

FTC - Federal Trade Commission - USA

Since 1995, I have been blogging on the internet. Of course, then we called it journaling a log about our experiences. A digitally written diary of the minutiae of our lives. Ridiculously unimportant and filled with personal anecdotes about nothing. Occasionally, I would mention a cool product that I bought or a place that I went to such as a restaurant or store. And, even then, the journals were just my musings.



When the internet exploded with journals, we started calling them blogs. Blah blah blah logs became blogs. The content was still about nothing much, but we could see that someone was reading our little missives and it made a difference in our businesses. Another way to connect with our consumer base.

We started reviewing the things we liked and the things we lived with daily. A restaurant would send a voucher for a dinner or a manufacturer would send a freebie t-shirt. Benign gifts of accolades and thank-you's.

Then, we started getting the big gifts. The stuff that was expensive and made us feel a bit creepy accepting. Sure, we loved their products but it made me feel like a paid agent for their company. So, I made a decision and said, "No more.



The decision was made way back in the late1990's. I would have to check my archived files for those first disclosure contracts. Yes, I had my entire team sign them and the legal language was harsh. If you wrote something and you were given a monetary gift, you were fired.

In this virtual world of international interests, the lines blur. People send gifts to each other for all kinds of kindness. I get gifts from avis from my group, and I return them or delete them after letting them know that I can't accept them. On THE A LIST! the lines blur even more. We are a business group and our members give the group gifts. As long as it is a gift that is shared among the entire group, then Xavier and I feel that it is not a gift for blogging.

The problem is that if a gift is given and I wasn't online and it is sitting in my inventory; that fact alone may taint my reputation if ever the logs were reviewed. It is a difficult situation for me. In THE A LIST! we have asked our contributors to disclose gifts, and we have a disclaimer on those blogs. Because both of us are on American soil with FTC -Federal Trade Commission blogging laws over our heads, we want to try our best to adhere to US laws.



We know how ridiculous laws can be, but this one tries to protect the consumer. I think we know gifts are given to bloggers from Consumer Report. It is obvious that the product manufacturer gave the blogger the product for review. The reason we believe Consumer Reports reviews is that the evaluations can be harsh... very harsh. So, we believe that the products are honestly evaluated and CR has a disclaimer.

I am the blogger on THE A LIST! and I want to make sure that people know that I do not accept gifts from any of the group members unless they have shared that gift with the entire group. So, my blogs do not have a disclaimer. Some of the contributors have a disclaimer on their post because it is a product review and the item was given by the creator.

How the FTC reviews the millions of blogs in the real world or virtual world is interesting in itself. And, the law will fine the blogger and the product creator, too. Ouch! Double slam. So, we try to protect both interests. No gifts period is a good policy. It's best that we stay as squeaky clean as possible. As far as some industries, it's practically a given that those gifts to the avis are for reviews. But, now we disclose that in those specific posts and let you decide.

Blogs and Blogging

Let's face it. Writer's are a particular breed of people. And bloggers are even stranger. We write about the minutea. We write with passion. We think what we have to say might be important or relevant to someone in the universe or we just need to get those words down in black and white.

I read a few blogs religiously. Others are tossed to the wayside... been there, done that. My own blogs are written with a business slant, promoting and networking other blogs and businesses. Two that I read are for my work. They are written by two gurus, and their words are important to me. I read them and their words are etched into my mind.

Matt Cutts and Guy Kawasaki. Two leaders. Two, who have a vision and insight rare to most. They are my gods. But, I also read fluff. Those silly bloggers who just keep me in stitches...



I met Marcophoto Upshaw a long time ago at Dance Island. He used to hang out there, flirting with the ladies. His outrageous flirting and commentary used to keep the entire dance floor laughing. His personality just seemed to overshadow the others in the room. Then, he became security for DI.

His attitude about security was one that made me feel safe dancing at this very large club. If a male avatar was bothering me (you know what I mean, girls... the guy that slides up from no where and grinds on your avatar with no regard to manners), Marco would slide up and get in between and then ask in public chat, "Rafee, are you ok?"

Marco was wonderful that way. All the girls loved him because he truly respected us. And he made sure the guys on the dance floor respected us, too. Yes, he was an outrageous flirt with a mouth full of double entrendres, but he never was disrespectful to anyone.



One night, he and I were talking, and he said that I had inspired him. I had written some blogs about Dance Island... there was always something funny happening there. He said he was going to write a few stories of his own experiences at DI and the SL grid. He was going to give the notecard to all his friends.

When I got that first notecard, I must have laughed until the tears rolled. It was really funny. I told him that he had an awesome idea, and he should consider doing a real blog with Blogger. At the time, he thought it was easier to just send the notecards... well, we all waited for those little notecards everyday... waiting for the stories, the funny anectdotes.

Marco joined The A List! group recently. He is a full-fledged blogger now. That little notecard? Well, it morphed into 16,000 subscribed readers. Giggles. I guess a lot of us like reading his missives. His story about his family dog getting skunked or the recent post about the hug hud... roflmao.

I don't follow many blogs. Most, I usually just bookmark. Marco's is one that I follow, and I subscribe. It is hilarious and makes the virtual world of Second Life seem so precious... funny little moments that only we, avatars can appreciate.