Failure to Ping

There's something fishy going on. I changed my blog layout last week and suddenly it didn't update my technorati ratings anymore. After tweaking a bit with the metadata I did get an update.... but it was a one time only. Now three days have past and no update.

The funny thing is, it does show the blogs that link to the recent articles, but still it doesn't pick up the latests posts. Yet my feedreader picks up new posts without any problem.

Well, it's back to the drawing table. For now, I'll put back the old design.

The Grand Ducale and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

The Grand Ducale

Sticking in the same region as my former blogpost on the Belgian recruitment sim of Vacature Reference there's another one from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , not surprisingly called "Grand Ducale" which is surrounded by sims called Luxemburg Careers and Luxemburg Business. Unlike the "Grand" part of the official name, Luxemburg itself is a pretty small country, I have no doubt there are ranches in the US and Australia which have larger backyards. A little history:

"The recorded history of Luxembourg begins with the acquisition of Lucilinburhuc (today Luxembourg Castle) by Siegfried, Count of Ardennes in 963. Around this fort, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a small state of great strategic value. In 1437, the House of Luxembourg suffered a succession crisis, precipitated by the lack of a male heir to assume the throne, that led to the territory being sold to Philip the Good of Burgundy. In the following centuries, Luxembourg's fortress was steadily enlarged and strengthened by its successive occupants, the Bourbons, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns, and the French, among others. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Luxembourg was disputed between Prussia and the Netherlands. The Congress of Vienna formed Luxembourg as a Grand Duchy in personal union with the Netherlands. Luxembourg also became a member of the German Confederation, with a Confederate fortress manned by Prussian troops." (Wikipedia)

The triple sim setup is not about promoting Luxembourg by displaying it's landmarks, but is a rather cartoonish carnival of recruitment stands. It's lively colored and an original design. I like the small details like the sculpted trees and the overall quality of the build.

To get down to business, most of the time sites like these are rather empty, but it seems they are preparing themselves for large recruitment event, not only aimed at Luxembourg, but

The 3 sims, taken together, provide a large recruitment facility. The first event was actually held at the end of November, 2007, to recruit staff for GAX Technologies. I think this may have been something of a proof of concept, since GAX are (I think) the builders of the site. According to the Working Worlds website, the next fair is on the 28th March, 2008 - though the information on the island itself points towards a fair on 29th May. (Aleister Kronos)

Some familiar names appear (again), like recruitment companies Randstad and Manpower, both active in Second Life as well and a number of dedicated spaces for clients like Dexia (finance)

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grand%20Ducale/128/128/0

The Grand Duchy

There's also a sim out there called "Grand Duchy" which seems to be the national immersion zone for Luxembourg, but aside from a few shops it's still rather empty and under construction.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grand%20Duchy/128/128/0

PS: I'm having a Technorati-frustration at the moment. It hasn't updated my blogposts for a while now. Either I screwed my rpc-ping settings when I changed the template, or Technorati is screwed for the weekend.

MindBlizzard statistics update

I've talked with a number of people on how hard it is to keep blogging. Since December 07 I've had a hard time keeping up with blogging at the pace I did before, and it showed in my technorati ratings. The positive thing is that the number of unique visitors is steadily going up again. Thanks folks for reading my thoughts.

Blog4Life

My professional network is growing with people who are 'professional' bloggers. In the Netherlands we don't see many full-time bloggers. We just don't see how it would work out. Sponsored blogging... that would jeopardise objective reporting. Doesn't it?

Just taking a look at 3pointD, sponsored by the Electric Sheep Company and SecondLife.nl sponsored by DNB Media are just two examples. Is it enough to go blogging full time? Are these blog subjective or objective when it comes to their sponsors presence?

Everyone needs some recognition. I must admit I'm pretty keen on keeping track of my Technorati ratings and blogs that link to this blog. I'm quite satisfied at the result I've made sofar: A Second Life blog, loosely focussing on the business side of life getting into the Technorati top 100K blogs within 4 months.

But what's it worth? I've put time into it. An awfull lot. Near 100 hours a month. So what's it worth? Now there's a tool by Technorati that values the MindBlizzard blog at 37K in USD.

My blog is worth $37,259.64.
How much is your blog worth?

But how valuable is this? It's said to be based upon proper research:

"Data from Technorati and inspired by research from Tristan Louis. "

But how valuable is this? Is it like American mortgage loans getting wrapped and traded by hedgefunds? What would you pay for a blog like this? Here's a contra-expertise:

I ran the test once more on a fresly set up blog with just one post:

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

Then what's Scobleizer worth, or 3 Point D? Robert Scoble is valued at $1,860,723.84 and Mark Wallace at $426,792.24.

The question remains. This is what research says. But how much would you like to pay? Are you offering me 37K US Dollars? I don't think so. Value of blogs is based on content and its value changes for every reader. Maybe this post has value for you, or maybe only my last post on Rezzable, or my series of posts on Banking in Second Life... Or maybe this blog means **** to you because you're only looking for sex in SL.

What's art? That's a similar question. The answer lies in the eye of the beholder. And still: Is a sponsored blog able to give unbiased reviews?

I can has cameras and stuff

I believe I can fly - or I can has camera's?

Yesterday was a quiet day at the office and we had some nice talks on Second Life. There was quite a fun discussion going on about building our Sogeti presence in Second Life.

At some point in the discussion we were al making fun of staircases and escalators in Second Life. "Who needs escalators... you can fly man." One of my colleagues thought himself to be a great, well-metaversed, explorer and never walks in Second Life, only flies. However, our good friend Damanios Thetan once said: "you fly? I never fly. I move my camera..."

Just a small example of how we all have to adjust to the metaverse.

I can has good ranking

Earlier today I took a peek at Technorati to see if their were any new links to the Mindblizzard blog. Bummer. No new fans. Looking at the rating I'd say there must be something strange going on...

Mindblizzard blog rank 1? That's an error. Or do I misinterpret? World no 1. blog surely is I CAN HAS CHEESEBURGER.

Teva Shoes logo

Last week we bought new shoes for my daughter (nearly 3 years old). They were sandals of the Teva brand. Nothing special, nothing fancy, but just good quality of a fairly well known brand. It wasn't until yesterday I noticed their logo... Looks familiar, dunnit?

Mindblizzard now top 100K

Thanks to all readers and commenters the MindBlizzard blog now entered the Technorati top 100.000. Quite a good job I think, considering I started out barely 3 months ago.

Next objective is 50K :)

Lights out San Fran

The grid is borked, Technorati down. What is going on?

Here's the report on Mashable:

Major San Francisco Power Outage Takes Down Web 2.0 Sites

July 24, 2007 — 03:11 PM PDT — by Pete Cashmore

A major glitch for websites and web companies based in the SOMA district of San Francisco: a massive power outage cut the supply to datacenters including those of AdBrite, Craigslist, Netflix, Technorati and SixApart. Around 20,000 people are said to have been plunged into darkness, but the number of web users affected must be in the millions.

Those affected are customers of Pacific Gas and Electric.