Looking through my SL photography folders, I was surprised to find one for Sea Salts, the home of Nalena Fairey’s Zigana store, which contained a number of images of the region I’d taken in late 2012. Surprised, because while there can be anything up to a couple of weeks between my taking snaps and then blogging about a destination, it’s rare that I allow months to pass.
As it had been a while since my last visit, I decided to jump over and take another look. I’m glad I did, as Nalena is re-working the region, and the new layout is already pretty stunning, her store sitting in a beautiful wilderness which is already a photographer’s delight. However, it’s not the region I want to discuss per se; I’ll save that until Sea Salts is nearer to completion. In the meantime, I’m going to go off at a tangent, so please bear with me.
I generally prefer to explore Second Life on my own, particularly when it involves a place I might blog about. It’s not that I’m anti-social – I’ll happily shared a visit to somewhere I’ve found with a friend or three; rather it’s because when I go somewhere with a view to blogging about it, I prefer the peace and quiet necessary to capture snaps and to be able to wander for as long as I like, my attention on the world around me.
There are unintended side-effects of exploring this way, however. In my case, it means my mind is sometimes prone to wander, which is not always wise, as I’m not sure it should really be allowed to go anywhere on its own without adult supervision. Which brings me to the point of this missive.
In wandering through Sea Salts, I found myself thinking about my “destination” reviews, and wondering about how well they are received. I could potentially run a poll in order to find out, but polls can be terribly artificial, and I’m really not one for them (only ever had the one to date). So, I’m going to take a chance and just throw the question out there: do you enjoy the “destination” reviews I provide and / or would you like to see a wider variety / different approach?
I ask, because the feedback on my profile feed whenever I post about places I visit, the feedback seems to be as consistent as when I post to my feed on other matters I blog about. However, the feedback on the blog articles themselves is somewhat more sporadic.
Compared to items on SL news and / or viewer reviews, the overall level of feedback for destination reviews is a lot lower. Granted, news is bound to generate more commentary, etc., and reviews of things like the viewer tend feedback from people as to their own experiences. But that said, and while I am definitely not using this post to try to garner more page “Likes” appearing on my destination reviews or anything remotely akin to that, it does leave me curious as to whether people enjoy reading my “destination” items, or whether perhaps they come across as the “same ol’, same ol'”?
Another reason for asking is that one of my aims in writing about places is that I hope to encourage people to go visit the places I blog about. While I certainly don’t expect people all to go running off and visit places based solely on the words which appear in these pages, it would also be nice to think that one or two at least read these entries and opt to hop over and take a look for themselves…
This doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to stop writing about the places I discover in Second Life which appeal to me. I like sticking my nose into the Destination Guide and seeing what I find, and I still have a list of “recommendations / requests” to work through. But I’m curious as to what people think.
Related Links
- Sea Salts SLurl (Rated: Moderate)
- SL Destinations in this blog
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 