SLQ Explorer

These are the top 15 suggestions I’ve found, in no particular order, for searching when SL search is down.

Most of the suggestions I saw in the “search is down” thread on the Second Life blog seemed to get lost in the usual chatter about how bad Linden Labs is handling the updates. I won’t comment on that, it’s been said enough. I was more interested in what suggestions people did have. And while these won’t solve the problems that are occurring I thought it would be useful to list the suggestions that were made without the angry babble around them.

I’ll throw my site in at the top. OK, it’s a blatant plug, but it is my blog!

• Browse my site, www.SLQuery.com, which has searching against products and various places throughout the grid. It’s a growing resource for both merchants and shoppers. Full text searching along with social tagging, comments, blogs, and news are available. I have an in-world utility called the infoHUD that let’s you search not only Second Life but also Amazon.com, the web, various reference resources, the Second Life Library 2.0 as well as business resources such as SL Business Magazine.
• You can click on the Friends button, select a Friend, then select “Profile”. Click the “Picks” tab, they may have landmarked some cool spots to check out. You can also use Search > People tab and look up random people or people you know, and it’ll also show profiles.
• Look at the new “Web Tab” in your friends or other’s profiles. There are a lot of interesting projects based around that and many of them have links to products, places, or other resources for information.
• If you look in your Inventory > Landmarks folder, you may find some places you want to visit, or revisit. Also, many content creators include landmarks to their stores in packages you buy, so check those too. TIP: you can right-click a landmark and select ‘Teleport To Landmark” to get there more directly.
• If you’re at a place you want to revisit, use World menu > Create Landmark Here. It’s like a web browser “Favorite” or “Bookmark”.
• Map button on the toolbar is another way to get around, if you remember the region, or just double-click any accessible part of the World Map to teleport there. For a web version of this, go to SLurl.com.
• You can also, if you are searching for a store that you’ve bought something from before, right click on the rezzed item, or right click in your inventory and select the creator’s profile. Or if you like something another person has rezzed in world, right click to get the creator from there as well, but make sure you have ’select only my objects’ disabled.
• Use eventful.com to find events: http://eventful.com/events?q=tag%3Asecondlife.
• Use the map with classifieds and event markers shown, which let’s you browse the map and view what’s available in a particular region. For sale markers often have the for sale price attached as well.
• Use SLExchange to search for products. There are often teleport links to the products you’re looking for. This goes for SLBoutique as well.
• Google it! Second Life residents often have their products listed on the internet or on other resident sites.
• Look for classifieds in the various resident site forums, there are often a lot of specials in there as well.
• Search a blog search engine like blogsearch.google.com or technorati.com for blogs and information related to Second Life residents. The interaction between the web and SL is growing and blogs are a big part of that.
• Ask your friends or send a group notice asking for information. More often than not, someone will know what you’re looking for and where to find it.
• Take a break! It doesn’t help sales and it doesn’t get you to where you need to go, but sometimes stepping away is more powerful than you think. I find if I step away from the screen and do something completely different I’ll often come up with a better idea or give my brain that much needed reboot it craves every now and then.

Additional Suggestions

These were made on the blog or via email. I’ll list them hear as addendums to the original post.

• It’s possible to use the search on http://www.SecondLife.com and search for things same as Places. Same keywords are used and all, it just doesnt have fancy pictures and viewable descriptions. As long as the place has “publish listing on web” in about land, it will be listed there. (takes a while to update if you’ve just set it).
• If you’re looking for a club, a casino or some similar public place, it’s very likely that they have a group with the same name. Group search still works, so in that case you can browse among the group members in search of a pick and subsequent teleport. Much easier than relay over chance.
• There is a new seller directory available. Still sparsely populated, but it’s something: http://slinfodex.com