I had a nice interview recently with a freelance writer interested in search and Second Life. The article was published in a well known online marketing periodical at www.marketingprofs.com. The first half is a brief overview of search engine history, but the second half is a complete interview with me. Kind of fun to see my alter ego in print like that. 
Archive for the 'SLQuery.com' Category
SLQuery: The Next ‘Google’ of Second Life?
Published March 1, 2007 SLQuery.com , Tretiak Media , second life search 0 CommentsEntrepreneur adds CafePress inventory to SL search engine
Published March 1, 2007 SLQuery.com , Tretiak Media 0 CommentsSLQuery.com and Tretiak Media are starting to get a lot of exposure these days. Here is the first of many articles to come over the next month or so.
Over the weekend I updated the slquery.com site with some fantastic new graphics that Dalian Hansen put together for me. We tweaked the site to better express the services that we’re providing as well as give it a stronger, more professional look.
I believe we’ve succeeded! I’m quite pleased with the the way it turned out. The organization of available products and services is more easily defined and the new graphics give the site a fresh look. More updates are coming…
Also note that I’ve changed the blog address to blog.slquery.com as it has the advantage of being better associated with the site itself. Most of what I’ll write about concerns this site and what we’re doing to further information gathering and retrieval within SL, so it made more sense to use this address. The previous address will still be available for archival purposes though.
I’m very proud to announce the latest round of updates to the slquery.com product line. This is a big update and comes with some exciting new features on our previous products, plus the introduction of a new search billboard called the SLQ infoStation.
SLQuery.com is continuing to expand and gain more exposure, so expect more enhancements and performance improvements in the coming months. You may also notice the new kiosks and posters that are being placed throughout the grid. This a new campaign we’re unveiling to gain even more interest in SLQ products and services.
Introducing the SLQ infoStation
New to this release is the SLQ infoStation, a free public kiosk for Second Life that links to a web-based instant message system. Jump into chat or invite your friends from either RL or SL.
Plus, it includes all the power of the SLQ infoHUD unplugged. You can walk right up to an infoStation and search for items, news, blog entries, the web, amazon.com and more! View images for items submitted to the site or see what the latest SL news is directly from slquery.com.
This version also comes with a direct link to search the Second Life Library 2.0 via a focused search against all the Info Island projects.
SLQ infoBox v2.4 Release Notes
The infoBox (previously infoKit) has been updated with some significant performance improvments. A new buffer system has been developed to manage memory issues and speed up transfers to the site.
This release also introduces the new notecard module, which let’s you add entries to the site by simply filling out a notecard. You can now include descriptions, tags, and image keys when uploading to the site.
A new cloaking feature has been added to the infoBox, which let’s you make the box completely invisible. In addition, the box prims are changed to a phantom state so that you can walk through the box without worrying about tripping over invisible prims.
Finally, a new progress bar has been added, which shows you how far along in the process the box is during uploads to the site.
Unfortunately, there is no upgrade path to the v2.4 series. Future updates will include the option to use an upgrade disc. But due to some of the changes in this release you will need to transfer your items to the new boxes manually.
SLQ infoHUD v2.4 Release Notes
The infoHUD has had quite a few performance improvements added to it along with some bug fixes.
- Removed the word “teleport” from item results
- When opening a teleport map, the HUD will now move out of the way automatically
- Fixed flight script not setting correctly on rez
- Image now closes when main HUD window closes
- Image now clears and closes when clicking on a new item
- When an in-world texture image is available, the “more…” button now shows an image icon
- Changed the teleport icon to a lightning bolt, which better describes it’s purpose
- Adjusted the positioning of instructional text
- Other minor bug fixes and texture adjustments
Please note that our in-world update server recently crashed and so you will not be able to automatically update the infoHUD from previous versions.
This is a great release and is starting to show the power of the SLQ engine, so I’m excited to see how far it will go.
A few days ago, Dalian Hansen introduced our very own bear named QQ. In the same tradition as the various collectible Linden Bears, QQ is free to share and trade.
And QQ has become quite popular! Within a few days of his release, QQ has been downloaded over 30 times. Not bad for a little bear that hasn’t had any PR. I didn’t realize there were that many collectors out there, but I’m glad they like him.
You can get QQ at SL Exchange, SLBoutique, or at my new Headquarters in Second Life. The HQ is still under development, but I expect to make a formal announcement of it soon.
So thanks, QQ, for spreading the word about SLQuery.com.
I’m proud to announce that the slquery.com site has just reached past the 500 registered member mark. Many of these are from the apez.biz site run by Cenji Neutra. He has graciously provided a steady stream of new members and products from his site to both help the SLQ system get up and running as well as provide him with additional search features for his own clients.
The site seems to be growing at a rate of about 6 new members a day right now. Not necessarily turbo speed, but it’s still growth. I’ll be interested to see how well it does in the coming months as I roll out the new infoStations and updates to the infoHUD and infoKits.
A few other statistics you may be interested in:
- Kits Distributed: 1,268
- Active Items: 8,054
- Active boxes: 71
- Active news entries: 142
- ACtive blog entries: 39
So, it’s slow growth, but we’re growing nonetheless. I think the site needs some more aggressive PR and an active advertisting campaign to really see the growth I’m looking for. Up till now, though, I’ve been concentrating on building out the site and seeing what kind of interest there was in it.
An interesting and important trend of great interest to me though, is that the site is becoming more than just a search engine. It’s transforming into an information platform for other in-world projects. An external database for SL.
For instance, Abbey Zenith of the Second Life Library 2.0 and Info Island has entered over 480 items into the database through the new notecard enabled infoKits. These items are part of the larger library search system we’re putting together so that anyone in SL can search the various info islands to find out where that information is located.
Another example concerns my partnership with SL Business Magazine. I’ve included the ability to retrieve their latest issues and free gifts directly from the infoHUDs and the upcoming infoStations. Together, we’re building out a networked set of kiosks, HUDs, and information stations that will enable anyone within SL to gather relevant business data and news from anywhere within the grid.
I’m seeing the SLQ system evolving more and more into this platform for distributed information. Search will always be a part of the site, but I think some of the more interesting projects will be related to the distribution networks that get built as a result of the research and development put into the slquery.com site to begin with.
Stay tuned, I’m sure this is just the beginning for SLQ.
Update to SLQ Web Tab Profiles
Published December 11, 2006 General , SLQuery.com , Second Life 0 CommentsI’ve updated the web tab profiles available through slquery.com so that they now include navigational buttons such as back, forward, home, and refresh.
In addition, clicking on images for items now shows correctly sized within the web tab browser.
And finally, clicking on an item’s more information link also shows correctly sized within the web tab browser.
I’m confident these changes will make using the SLQ profiles much nicer in the long run.
Enjoy!
Damek
The SLQuery.com site continues to improve! Last week I released version 2.3 of the infoHUD with some great new features including a dedicated library button, a new SL Business button, enhanced reference searches, and the new SLQ Flight assistance utility.
Today, I released the mini profiles available to be used in the Web Tab profile of the Second Life client.
To show your profile, simply set your mini profile URL to **http://www.slquery.com/<yourname>/profile.**
Make sure that you replace **<yourname>** with your Second Life name minus any spaces. For example, my profile can be found at http://www.slquery.com/damektretiak/profile.
This will show you the most recent items, news, and blog entries you have made to the site.
Please note, that you must be a member of the SLQuery.com site to use this feature. Joining is easy though, just find a kiosk location on our registration page and teleport to it.
I have released the latest version of the Info HUDs to coincide with the release of some very exciting changes to the site.
You’ll notice that the name has been changed to Info HUD (previously known as Search HUDs). This is due to the growing number of functions available on the HUD. I felt the Info HUD described the use and features a little better, since it’s not just related to searching anymore.
Major highlights for the new HUDs include:
- New Search Types: SLQ Items, SLQ News, SLQ Blogs
- New Blogging Feature - blog or bookmark wherever you are in Second Life
- New In-World images available - Adding an in-world UUID to the site form provides a view of this texture on the hud when user’s request additional information via the Info button.
- New External Links available - Adding an external URL provides the ability to click to that web location from in-world
- Lots of important bug fixes
- New Options button which also allows you to register and/or change your password right from your HUD
Major highlights for the website:
- News Section added, which is a growing collection of on-going news stories about Second Life from around the web
- Blogs Section added, which catalogues blogs made from users in-world
- Comments can be made on all items, news, and blog articles.
- You can now post up to 3 images per item entry or blog entry
- RSS Subscription Feeds have been added for all sections of the site, including by author, which means you can subscribe to a specific author’s items, news, or blogs using your favorite RSS reader.
- Tags! All items, news, and blogs can now be tagged as well. Which means you can use the normal search features or browse via a tag-based url to get to items you’re looking for. A tag cloud is available for each main area of the items, news, and blog sections.
- Author profiles available. If you’ve chosen to add a picture, url, and/or description of your profile, it can now be viewed whenever someone clicks on your username.
- New image viewer. I’ve added Lightbox functionality when viewing images, to make it a little nicer interface.
Major Highlights for the new Item Kits:
- Completely rewritten boxes have been bug-tested and proven to be effective for hundreds of items at a time
- There are now 2 versions of the box: 1) a basic model which lets you update items on the site, and 2) an SLExchange.com integrated box which lets you add your items to both SLExchange.com and SLQuery.com at the same time.
- New interface improvements to let you know what’s going on when a box is working
- Updated tracking features that no longer require keeping the old UUID of the box somewhere in the description areas.
- Use as many boxes as you need and make as many copies as you need.
I’ll be explaining each of these in more detail over the coming days.
For now, enjoy!
~ Damek
SLQuery.com now has an in-world Member Kit that provides you with a way to add multiple items to the site directly from within Second Life.
The SLQuery.com Member Kit let’s you add as many items as you’d like to the website from within Second Life. All you need to do is rez a new Member Kit in-world. Drop your items into the box. Then click the “Send Items” button. And your items will be shown and searchable on the website right away!
