‘Hi, I’m Howie Lamilton, CEO of the Second Life New Media Publishing Group. That all sounds very fancy, but in reality it means I started a group, a couple of blogs, and had a ‘vision’ for the promotion of various endeavours within Second Life.

‘One, the first one, was an inworld blog/magazine dedicated to naturism, a popular lifestyle within the realms of Second Life. And it occurred to me first because I’m a SL, and a RL, naturist.

‘I decided to start up the magazine maybe two years ago, but these things take time, and what they require most of all is a dedicated team. I ‘headhunted’ Ella for the editor’s role, and I think you’ll all agree she has made a terrific job out of it and I can’t express enough my delight at her hard work, fabulous writing and assembling of a great team around her. It’s all her doing. I don’t take credit at all, other than the fact that ‘headhunting’ her proved to be a smart move.

‘I became aware of Ella through her writing on a blog run by an avi called Emmanuelle Warden, which focussed on the more erotic end of Second Life. While not overly preoccupied with the erotic, I was drawn to it purely because ‘sex’, in all its various colours and flavours, is -it cannot be denied- a major source of many avatars’ Second Lives. And also because I knew Ella from away back, when we were both members of ‘Manatee Naturists’, a much loved and sadly defunct naturist venue. To be honest, I didn’t even remember her, or remember speaking to her, until she reminded me of the fact. A quick check of the chatlogs revealed her to be correct!

‘One of my regrets is that Emmanuelle’s team at her 2EX blog seemed to fall apart about the time I decided to get SL Naturist up and running, and her blog seemed to fall into dis-use. A shame, because I really liked what she was doing and tackling a topic many others seemed afraid to mention. Even now, bloggers resort to nipple pasties and censored boxes when reviewing skins! While they might be aiming for a ‘family’ type readership, I’m of the opinion that nudity isn’t remotely offensive. What I find offensive is the television news offering a form of pornography, graphic violence, into our homes each night without we, as parents, often doing much to stop it, and desensitising our children to it. What I find offensive is the extent of guns in SL, as though we don’t get enough of it on the news and need to run around ‘killing’ other avatars in shoot-em-up sims.

‘I’ve been in long, hard discussions, since Christmas, with Jayne, 2EX’s new owner, and Emmanuelle, its original owner, about reviving it. I’m glad to say that I’ve been able to ‘acquire’ 2EX to add to the Second Life New Media Publishing Group’s (SLNMPG) portfolio (again, that all sounds too grand for it) and we’ll be rejigging that and giving it a fresh lick of paint. It’s a blogger site, and I favour WordPress, so I’m going to see about importing it all to a new WordPress site, redesigning it, and getting that going again. Jayne will remain as a writer, Emmanuelle is going to return in some form, and a fair extent of the blog’s inactivity since Christmas can be put down to me as we attempted to come to some common vision for its future. A statement on the blog’s future will appear on the blog in the next day or two.

‘I’ve also begun the process of making the next SLNMPG project ‘live’. A year ago I formulated SLAP (Second Life Arts Production), which is largely self-explanatory. If someone was producing photography, importing original art, performing original music or whatever in Second Life, I aimed to promote it. The ‘vision’ statement, dated March 2011, is available via the Blogroll link on the right hand side of this page. A link is also available to the 2EX current site.

‘Also in the pipeline is our very own naturist village sim, complete with some (free or inexpensive) housing. I’ve wanted to do this since I got involved in Second Life, and the plan is to have a small sim, or to rent somewhere -an island perhaps- within an established Second Life naturist sim and  site an inworld SL Naturist office there. Somewhere a growing band of readers can meet up with those who bring you the blog each week.’

‘These projects are time consuming, so it’s best that the workload is shared around. To that end, I’m hoping to appoint an editor to SLAP imminently and hope I can make the same inspired choice as I did with Ella. I hope I, and the people we assemble, can do the projects justice. I’m a few years off retirement just yet, so Second Life fits into ‘free time’. I hope I’m not spreading myself too thinly. Time will tell. In the meantime, if you’d like to get involved with wither 2EX or SLAP, drop me an IM’.

‘Thanks for your patience in reading this’

Howie Lamilton.