Trin & Voo Discuss The End
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Voodoo Buwan: All good things, as they say, must come to an end. And, it is with sorry hearts that, for many and varied reasons, this idiom is proving true for Rez Magazine. So, to mark the end of our particular journey covering the best and sometimes not so best that the world of Second Life has to offer, Trin and myself have decided that what better way to finish than by discussing what we have learned, and how we feel that our own little story has panned out.
Trinity Dechou: As many of our longer readers will know, we started Rez in October 2007 with a desire to report from our world of Second Life with some of the best, and occasionally worst things that Second Life has to offer. Our self funded, independent magazine has of course gone from strength to strength and I believe it's fair to say we've loved every minute of it. It is with this sense and as Voodoo says for many reasons that we end on our literary high.
Voodoo Buwan: So, we started out, as you said, to be independent and not-for-profit, and in this I think we definitely succeeded. We called people out when we felt that they might not be carrying out the best laid plans, and we definitely qualified as not-for-profit, for although we carried some adverts in the books, the money from this just about managed to keep us in uploaded images and thinc books, with a little money left over to try to spread the word about what we were doing. The offices and our personal bank balances never saw any kind of monetary influx.
Trinity Dechou: Never swayed by the advertising linden, which never did fill our pockets, we enjoyed spending our hard earned cash on this project of ours, why, simply because we loved it. We both agreed at the start that we wanted to write what we wanted, when we wanted and how we wanted and did not for any second want to be swayed by an advertisers desire. Of course we must thank those of you who did have the occasional advert in our magazines as Voodoo says for helping us to spread the word of Rez to the wider audience it has today.
Voodoo Buwan: Yes, and of course a massive shout out to those who have stuck by us over the years, whether by keeping in check with us and reading the hopefully enjoyable pieces that we put together, putting vendors out to help others discover the joy of Rez, or people like Hamlet Au of New World Notes, who highlighted on his own very popular site, that we were doing stuff worth looking at, and sent more than a few new readers our way.
Trinity Dechou: Of course, without our trusted and growing readership we simply wouldn't be here. We started this project over 2 years ago with a small collective of 50 or so friends which has grown through word of mouth and some wonderful coverage over the past 2 years. We are, and will always be, extremely grateful to each and everyone of you for this support.
Voodoo Buwan: Right, Trinstar, we've done the (frankly well earned) weren't we clever for doing this in the first place, and our gushing Oscar acceptance speech. Never let it be said that we go easy on anyone, even ourselves.... Is there anything you regret about your Rez experience?
Trinity Dechou: I think my main regret/ frustration has been the ability to find, and keep hold of additional writers. When we've created a site which has good feedback, good comments and a growing collective, seeing writers come and go has been a little frustrating. Of course we must thank those who have written for us and have done us proud; Peter Stindberg, Neuron Bandit, Rich Lyle, Efemera Bisiani and lastly, but not least Allanah Tomsen.
Voodoo Buwan: Yes, and a big apology to Allanah who was half way through writing her second article when we came to the decision to call it a day. It's been hard not being able to build up a strong writing team for the Mag, when we have been eager to help those who would want to be part of the collective, and offer a place to unleash your writing talents unto the virtual world. We put posters up at every office and event we could, calling for new writers, but I can't help but feel that the biggest stumbling block, and the reason why so many people contacted us to write, only to never be heard from again, was that, even though we didn't make any money ourselves from the site, that we didn't offer any kind of pay to our writers.
Trinity Dechou: I must say however, even though this lesson has been learned that I don't regret not offering some form of payment incentive. Rez was born from a desire to write, not a desire to make money, hence our negative bank balances!
Voodoo Buwan: The funny thing of course, is having written for a writing business in SL, and knowing the kind of meagre scraps that the owners allow to fall from their plentiful tables, that we could have easily offered the odd few hundred Linden at random, from my own pocket, and still have been paying above the kind of rates that other sites pay. I guess it's all about image. We chose not to bullshit anyone into thinking they were going to make vast amounts of money working for us, so maybe they went off to people who might.
Trinity Dechou: Well Voo with that said, and our regrets covered, what do you feel you've learned from Rez Magazine?
Voodoo Buwan: Well, the one thing is that the success of an online site such as ours doesn't always necessarily have anything to do with good writing. We absolutely made our job more difficult by not offering advertising space on the site, since sites that do sell themselves to any business with a banner or picture ad also get something more precious than the Lindens that they are handed. They also get big headed business owners showing off to all their friends and loyal customers that they sponsor a page on this site or that mag, or have an advertiorial saying how great they are. And while all this is only so much ego-stroking, it has the effect of getting the name of the site out there.
Trinity Dechou: Yes, I think we quickly learned that in order to get our name out there and raise awareness of what we were doing we'd have to take a different approach. Of course as has been said, linkage from sites such as New World Notes and the ex SLNN helped us immensely to raise awareness. As did the integration of vendors with the magazine and links from other online sites. Of course this was done the old fashioned way with hard work and lots of IMs/ emails rather than having the ability to offer some form of advert in return. We knew that when people linked to articles of ours they did it because they felt the article deemed mention rather than some backhanded compliment because we'd offered a monetary incentive.
Voodoo Buwan: As I've said to you before, it would be so easy to just take the money of advertisers left and right, publish the tonnes of press releases we are sent every day (and can the Princess of Yaximixche please take this as notice that I do not, and have never wanted, to be on her mailing list). Then all we would need to do is sit back and watch the money roll in. If only I didn't have morals and some form of need for actual creative expression. Oh, and pride in my work....
Trinity Dechou: Please Princess please note, I don't want to be on your mailing list either, and each and every time I email you to say this, you seem to ignore my requests..... Aaaaaanyway I'd have to say another thing I've learned from Rez is that really, honesty is the best policy. Covering places/ events and people in my honest opinion has gained our articles respect, as I mentioned before people linked to articles which they liked, they were perhaps not always in the best light of events but they were done honestly, and not for the sake of drama whoring which has stood us in good stead.
Voodoo Buwan: So, my dear (and for the final time people, we are NOT a couple).... what would you say were your highlights of your time at Rez?
Trinity Dechou: Yes dear...... I must say I have many although I think my main highlight would be the realisation that we, the residents of Second Life, do indeed have the ability to help shape, and occasionally change opinions. I do not have a massive enough ego to say that we do this single handedly at Rez but then I think back to articles such as Dazzle, and Linden Lab's bloody single mindedness to force something onto us which will adversely affect many many residents, our collective joining together and forming informed, intelligent arguments against such changes which have in turn changed the Labs course. Dazzle was altered and an alternative was found, The Void Sim/ Homestead disaster was cushioned to help residents. We do have that ability to make them listen, collectively.
Voodoo Buwan: One of my main highlights of course revolves around what I think I am probably best known for: my interviews. The fact that having a site like Rez behind me allowed me to go up to almost any resident who is doing something interesting in-world, ask if I can have a chat with them about it, and not only be able to use that to shine a spotlight on noteworthy achievements, but also to learn for myself the stories behind some of the biggest successes and innovations going on in the digital frontier-land. Oh and thank you Integral Danton for being the exception to the rule, but your response of "No, that doesn't sound like something I would do" will always make me smile.
Trinity Dechou: I must say that is of course another highlight of my Rez experience. I've met some truly wonderful, and gifted individuals through interviews and general chats about the reporting of SL events. Attendance at the Second Life birthday celebrations has always been a highlight for me, because it was a time to meet similarly minded people and find out about their organisations.
Voodoo Buwan: I guess my other highlight can also be summed up as a tip to other writers: Never EVER listen when you are told that you can't do something. I've had some hair brained "It would be nice if only by some miracle it came together" ideas (for example the advent calendar that required me to find one person called partridge, two people called dove, three called hen, etc; and take pictures of them) and many of them never came together. However, when I did my name survey, and started dishing out questionnaires to all and sundry, I had people going "It'll never work" and "SL residents don't do that kinda thing" and when the responses came flooding back in, I've never been more proud, and it made one of our best articles.
Trinity Dechou: So, as the end draws ever closer it's fair to say we have loved every minute, we've been eternally grateful to everyone's support. It is fair to say this isn't the last you will hear from Trin and Voo, we will certainly not be leaving Second Life, and if anyone has any suggestions on what you think we should do next please feel free to leave a comment or let us know in-world.
Voodoo Buwan: So, I guess all that is left to say is... Say Goodnight Trin
Trinity Dechou: Goodnight Trin ;-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
