Gawker: valleywag, data junkie

Second Life continues to suck ... the media's attention

Mary Jane Irwin — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:27:16 EDT

Second Life's charm offensive is reaching epic proportions. Back in January, Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton noticed a rather disturbing trend: mounting Second Life hype. For three years after the virtual world's launch in June 2003, it remained, thankfully, widely ignored. But a BusinessWeek cover story on the first virtual millionaire, with the help of a workhorse PR agency, spurred a record 700 mentions, including press releases, as tracked in the Lexis-Nexis news database. Coverage has failed to abate, despite highly questionable user numbers and failed marketing campaigns. Why?

Mentions climbed steadily from December 2006 through March 2007, fueled by tales of avatar sex. The climax in May and June was due to the hubbub about businesses entering Second Life. At this point, Second Life mentions seem set to snowball. Whether or not Second Life maker Linden Lab ends up being a business success, it's managed to make its creation a shorthand for virtual-world hype.

AOL's history of layoffs

Owen Thomas — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:29:57 EDT

Is any company as prone to fits of overenthusiastic hiring and then desperate firing as AOL? Even in the go-go '90s, America Online binged and purged on employees. A veteran employee who claims to have survived 35 — 35! — rounds of layoffs throughout the years put together a partial listing of some of the bigger cuts. But from everything we hear, next week's bloodletting will be, as they say, off the chart. The list, after the jump.

November 1996: 300 (AOLwatch)
March 1999: 850 (Mozillazine)
January 2001: 750 (ZDNet UK)
August 2001: 1200 (ZDNet UK)
July 2003: 50 (ZDNet UK)
December 2003: 450
December 2004: 950 (Slashdot.org)
October 2006: 700 (Maya Reynolds)
December 2006: 500 (CRN)
December 2006: 450 (Washington Post)
February 2007: 600 (Washington Post)

Know of more? Leave a comment.

Facebook revealed as Canadian social network

Owen Thomas — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:59:41 EDT

For all the buzz Facebook enjoys in its hometown, the social network, oddly enough, is more popular up north, travel website Gridskipper reveals in a new map. Forget the stereotype of Facebook as being for college kids. Really, it's for Canadians. Toronto is the #1 local network by number of Facebook members; Vancouver, #3. Calgary, Montreal, Edmonton, and Halifax round out the top 20. Another fact that leaps off the map: Facebook's near-nonexistence outside the English-speaking world, which you can also see in this earlier Valleywag map. That explains its hiring plans for international business-development types. First, Canada; next, the world.