Ravenelle has a new blog!

Appropriately, Ravenelle.net! She labored on it for a stretch of several days and I was there to help as-needed. All those SEO & social media promo studies I've been doing for my own pursuits sure came in handy. Fresh, in addition to her announcement, she's got a post on why she hates the default plumeria in Second Life. I encourage her to be bold about her opinions!

Photo by Ravenelle

Earlier, I suggested Ravie should be more avatar-centric: she now has 4 of her characters decorating her masthead banner, and I think that's great. They're named (from L-R) Femsecta (the insectoid alien), Ducky (elegant swan mask), Ravicat (big red bow on kitten head), and Blossom (floral puker). Since I'm so enthralled with myths modern and ancient, I hope she'll share more about her characters soon.

I'm especially thrilled that Ravie discovered this blog theme on her own: around the time I was upgrading my blog theme (it's only been a week), we trawled through many WordPress Premium Themes. I'll make a point that you're not just paying for the product, you're paying for the service — so look for a thriving user community and a responsive theme author. Otherwise, you're stuck in the mud, as I learned before when I used the free Tiga theme. It was pretty good, but the creator kind of abandoned it and went quiet. Anyway, Brian Gardner's Revolution theme has support in spades, and there's even a Showcase for modded versions. I hope Jason Schuller of On Demand fame (my theme) does this too, because he has a lot to be proud of.

Another observation: I haven't seen enough Second Life blogs with un-blog themes, meaning, CMS designs more suited for a news/magazine layout or videos (as I'm doing). If you have suggestions, hit me up, because there's still an oddly wide gap between social media stylings elsewhere and SL. And no shortage of creativity to be plundered. To be specific: look at John Chow's blog and wonder why a "make money in SL" blog with that finesse hasn't been done yet? It's an awfully big hole to fill. (I'd be tempted to start one up if it weren't such a conflict of interest with my employment @ LL!)

Towards those ends, I've got high praise for Joan Kremer's blog, WRITERS IN THE (virtual) SKY. Like my wife's choice, it's an inspiring example many SL bloggers could and should learn from. Joan aka Alas Zerbino's blog design wraps around her content well, and her posts are effectively founded on trusty blogging tropes (e.g., lists and how-tos). For SL blogs, that's RARE! She's even got a Lijit Search going on — and if you're in the know, then you know that's a premier way of analyzing your search stats. (I've rec'ed Lijit to Ravie, and will try reinstalling it on Torley Lives after the nice Lijit folks — thx Daniel Weiss — send me an updated plugin that should fix a bug I was having.)

Live, ongoing examples are powerful: have a look at Ravenelle's Featured Content block towards the upper left and how that auto-updates. It's not eye-boggling animation, but at the same time, the automatic motion draws me in. I'm not a fan of purposeless glossy effects, but when used to enhance the "smoothness" of an immersive experience, I give the +1. Also, for the time being, Ravie's sidebar ad-block features Blossom, which I think is a fun touch. I have this compulsion for fake ads, and Blossom should puke more…

One of the most wonderful things about my relationship with Ravie is how we exchange ideas throughout the day and do great things with them. It keeps going, and continues from one day to the next. It's like sparks and creativity of varying magnitudes are continually shooting off, and our discussions have informed + entertained the next steps we make. She's incredibly supportive and nurturing, and I dearly look forward to seeing her keep busy with blogging.

Go check out ravenelle.net and let her know what you think — congrats, honey! I'm proud of you. <3

Tagged as: General