Avastar cancelled due to success ?
Yesterday the Avastar, one of the leading newsmagazines for the Second Life community said Goodbye World.
VIRTUAL MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The AvaStar says goodbye
By: Regis Braathens & Leider Stepanov
Dear AvaStar Readers,
It was nearly two years ago that The AvaStar broke new ground in world media by publishing a tabloid newspaper wholly dedicated to the virtual world of Second Life.
The PDF-based newspaper was launched in December 2006 as an experiment in user-generated content and online communities, and was aimed at finding out more about virtual worlds.Virtual mission
Thousands of residents and readers made the paper their own by helping The AvaStar bring the best stories and the hottest trends to SLers. In doing so, The AvaStar gained a readership of tens of thousands of readers from around the globe, who helped to establish it as the number one tabloid newspaper in metaverse.
The AvaStar has now completed its virtual mission – and would like to thank all its readers for their contribution and support. The experience has been both fascinating and rewarding for The AvaStar and its parent company BILD.de, which will continue to track the development of Second Life and other virtual worlds. With the websites The-AvaStar.com and AvaStar.de soon to go offline, this week we will be taking a look back at some of the best stories and photos that made the pages of The AvaStar over the last 22 months.
Best regards
Regis Braathens and Leider Stepanov and the whole AvaStar team.
I don't get it. It's been a succesfull paper, written by passionate people, or was it driven by a traditional newspaper? Yes, the force behind the AvaStar has been the German Bild.de, but written by passionate people, people with love for the Metaverse and the community on Second Life. Now the parent company pulls the plug. Why? Because it wasn't making a profit?
I mean, mission succesfull. What does that mean? In these days when traditionally printed papers and magazines drop in copies day by day, having to be creative to find means to survive and break even, the AvaStar has quickly found a wide community of readers. They have done what none of the Bild titles have done in Real Life. The rewards is the plug is pulled and the ship is sunk.
How about letting it live on? Crowdsource it, let the residents continue, whatever, but I don't dig a story that says: We'll stop because we've been successful. I must admit, the AvaStar has never been of top quality in depth journalism, but on the whole it was a good read to see what was going on in the community. It has been my primary source of intel on new business builds in Second Life for more than a year.
What's your opinion of the AvaStar and it's saying goodbye?
Labels: avastar, entertainment, media
posted by VeeJay Burns at
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
5 Comments:
Do you think its got anything to do with the current economic climate? Maybe parent paper was heavily into banks in iceland etc etc
There's got to be something beyond that. Maybe their heart just isn't in it anymore? I could understand that.
I've added a new post on this. If you check the site, there has been very little new content in recent months. It looks to me that it was no longer worth the expense of running it, if no-one was contributing - either articles or even comments.
Just for those of you who can't find Al's blog blindfoldedly, here's the link to the article.
Basic conclusion:
More worryingly, aside from the article announcing their demise, there have been just 3 articles posted in October. While September was busier, with over 20 articles, this can hardly be called vibrant.
and
I don't think the move away from PDF helped, since that at least gave you the feel and 'heft' of a real newspaper - you could see the content, because it was all laid out before you. The website, by contrast, served to conceal the drop in content. I have to confess, I was approached to write for the Travel section of the website some time ago, but declined the invitation. While I obviously write this blog for free (I don't event take Google Ads), I would expect a small something for writing in a more 'professional' capacity. Perhaps others took the same view.
I would conclude, then, that at least a major contributory factor in its closure was simply "lack of content."
I think that's a pretty solid analysis. And moving away from PDF to webcontent to mask a drop in content pretty much sounds the same strategy as saying "Mission Accomplished" when actually the wells have dried up.
I adored the Avastar space. Discovered it after it became inactive - but I did not know this for quite some time. I visited a lot and wondered why I literally never saw anyone there, day or night. Read the last e-paper and thought it was smart, fun & edgy. Love the advice column! It was hilarious - though some of the postings were sad... Eventually I Googled it and found the Bild.de notice of closure - no date, no details. Learned more about it from this blog I'm posting on right now. Wish they had allowed a way for someone or a group to keep it running. Luckily I'd already begun the habit of photographing my favorite Inworld locations. So I have several Avastar Headquarters images saved for nostalgia's sake. Maybe someday, in real life, I'll get around to building that geodesic dome home I've always wanted. The design their domes featured, especially the interior, were great for so many ideas. Thank you Buckmaster Fuller! (o:
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