The BILD's AvaStar: Game Over

Reliable ally of Linden Lab stops publication

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

The BILD's bold adventure in virtual world journalism ended two weeks ago when The AvaStar met the same fate as that of Reuters Second Life, and stopped publication. The AvaTard also announced it expects to take down the The-AvaStar.com and AvaStar.de web site soon. Observers speculate that removing the web site is unlikely to be due to web hosting costs, given the number of readers. Instead, this is most likely either a public service to the Internet at large, or an instinct similar what makes cats scratch and cover their work in the litterbox.

The AvaTard has been a reliable cheerleader for Linden Lab, and it is unfortunate that they will be unable to help sooth residents upset by the Lab’s recent OpenSpace sim price gouging.

Long time Herald readers will recall that AvaTard unique approach to content theft and critics

It remains unclear if the Avastar will also attempt to sell their in-world land holdings or simply walk away from the tier payments - but given the current state of the virtual land market it is unlikely that BILD will recoup much of it's investment.

Avastar island - traffic: 71

Comments

[LOL]

The Following a a video I found while looking for Second Life Video Turorials. The Following clip was made during a Linden Lab office meeting.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-Gy9hQDT6fhI/hitler_explains_second_life/

[Tenshi Vielle]

About fucking time.

[CC]

I read it till they changed their format from .pdf to a web page. Never went back...

[hmmm]

Interesting both Reuters SL and Avastar. I take it that there are a few who just refuse to report on all the negative vibes flowing around SL. Cannot say I blame them. Wasn't much of an Avastar reader, but I really did like the Reuters SL site and wondered why it hadn't been updated in a while.

[Alyx Stoklitsky]

And so the frenzy is officially over: Media interest in SL is at an all time low.

[urizenus]

RIP

[Sigmund Leominster]

There is a legitimate question to ask here: Is there really anything approaching a "Second Life(TM) Press?" Many of the SL outlets are nothing more than pages of ads for SL products with some text thrown in to make it look like a magazine. When the magazine has an interview with its own Editor and staff, you have to wonder.

There is also the problem that Second Life news is, quite frankly, not always there! Or interesting! When Butterfly Pixiedust creates her new particle-spouting flower basket for sale in her "Fairies 'R' Us" store, is that really news? And even if it is, how many SL folks do we think will read about it?

News - and I use the word loosely - needs to appeal to a wider group than just SL citizens. If 10% of the folks who log on at any one time were to be interested in what the SL Press has to offer, there would be about 6,000 readers. So, the market for SL news is tiny. Minute.

Which leads us to ask why the Herald has just seen its fifth birthday and continues while others fold (pun intended). Folks come here often to rip on the Herald and flame everyone and everything, crying Cassandra-like about its imminent demise. But we're still standing.

The AvaStar is gone. Who's next? Anyone care to run a "dead pool?"

[Jumpman Lane]

i was an AVID avastar reader. my 07 friday ritual was to attend chadrick linden's office hours and read the lastest ish of the avastar. their use of pdf was seminal in our choice to switch to it. when the turdbuckets switched to a website approach (in emulation of the herald i pressumed) the avastar truly began to suck because you really couldnt navigate it to READ its crap. to produce a weekly with their former prduction qualities is taxing (and expensive due to the hiriing and paying of actual writers) so i kinda understtod their swithc furthur. just when i'd cozied up to the avastar turds and was assured of COVERAGE in their rag commiserate with my standing the turds shut down. well screw em. they were a pack of tards i suppose. what i lament is thier switch from pdf. they died for me then.

[Frederic Prevost]

/me laughs the last.

With Tenshi, I was one of the legitimate critic of Avastar approach from the start.(See link on Critic above) 2 months or 2 years, it doesn't matter. I said it will not last nor be able to provide any viable content, and look at them now.
I wonder how much money was spent, in that way, we can figure the scale of their failure. (and envy how BILD can waste money on such monkey business for two years... >.> lol)

As for me, being a individual niche creator(I started about the same time Avastar was launched), grew as viable designer of hats and accessories, had just acquired my own full sim for 350$ about the time this article was published. I feel the deep connection with them. (Hey, I would gladly buy their sim for 100$ just for the sake of this story.)

My name will be on top of the search result, if you are looking for *goth cowboy hat* or *cowboy hat*, :)

This is how you build your business, and persevere, survive, and most of all, provide contents for the pixel public and contribute.

The thing is(was my point) that, we, individual creators all got it, meanwhile those corporate providers never did.

I remember they tried to convince me by telling me only 5 days before the launch, that they are going to sell their weekly paper for 300L... Had they ever reach that goal?

By the way, my hats are about 300L... lol
I will gladly provide discount for those Avastar executives who banned me at one time from their island, for being legitimately provide criticism. And no my hats are not DUNCE hats. They look fabulous even on them.

[Jumpman Lane]

@Freddy pro! The avastar made a good product when it was a pdf! But their model had problems. One they were a weekly made too much of a demand on the time of their sl staff for what they paid them due to that fact. Their outlays in rl salaries made w/e they earned in sl ad monies a wash. (one of their former reporters Veronica2vixen is meh pal and an employee of mine and kept me in the know about goings on over there. I WAS SERIOUS ABOUT GETTING COVERAGE IN THAT RAG MY WAY!) RL businesses have diff goals than sl one. The Avastar was a bit of trimable fat in these times of economic lean