Frenzy July: World Cup

Greetings all, this is a very full Frenzy issue. You may have noticed that the publish date has changed. Frenzy will now be published on the 1st of each month.

This issue focuses on the World Cup. What an exciting year as South Africa hosts this event. People from all over the world get dressed in their country's colors and fly their way in to see the battle of the teams! This is a truly exciting and inspirational sports event. Even though there have been games played already, there is a lot more excitement yet to be had before it's over. I hope you enjoy this very sporty edition.

~Liquidlight~

Open publication - Free publishing - More virtual world

Frenzy: Environmental Bliss

Wow! Our 7th issue already. Released yesterday is Freny: Environmental Bliss. The community magazine for Frenzoo.com. You can view it right here:



I missed out on blogging last month, my apologies. I have been a little busy and consumed with other distractions.

Unfortunately, this is my last issue as Editor-in-Chief. 7 issues in and I am having to step down due to time conflicts. Recently I have not been able to focus on the magazine as much as I would like. Not to mention, I have lost time to focus on my blogging duties, especially promoting my new, poor neglected baby, Art in 3 Dimensions.

LiquidLight, a fellow Frenzoo user and the mastermind behind the Creator's Content Team on Frenzoo, will be stepping in as Editor-in-Chief. When she applied for Editor-in-Chief, I knew she was the winner. LiquidLight has really built up a reputation on Frenzoo, even after being on the site a few months. Her work organizing the CCT shows true leadership and drive. I have a great amount of faith in her, and am certain she will do just fine as Editor-in-Chief.

I don't want to bore with a farewell speech. Actually, I am not entirely leaving the magazine team. I will continue on as copy-editor and proofreader. Every good magazine needs a proofreader, right?

Still, it wouldn't be right if I didn't acknowledge the hard work of the Frenzy Team. They took on some incredible tasks with so much enthusiasm. Without them, we wouldn't have made it to # 7.

Frenzy has really reached an great level of professionalism, and I am happy to have been apart of that. I hope that LiquidLight and the team will have many more issues to come.

Thank you everyone for the good times!

Frenzy 5: Love Me, Love Me Not

We are in our 5th issue of Frenzy! Released just yesterday, and available on Frenzoo and Issuu.com, Frenzy: The Valentine Issue celebrates the romantic tidings of this beautiful month.



A lot of work went into this issue. Like I said in my last blog, it's time to really push our publication to the next level. It was risky, but this issue is certainly an optimistic step towards the future.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Frenzy team wanted to strangle me at some points this month. I really had to take out my editor stick, and that's difficult for me to do. It really paid off, though. Everyone contributed a lot, even when there were time pressures. A special thanks to the entire Frenzy team for their hard work and patience.

Changing the look of a magazine can't be done in one month. I am aiming for a smooth and gradual transition. It will take a great deal of learning from everyone on the magazine team, and learning is certainly done slowly, and based on experience. I have also invested in a few layout design and copy-editing reference books.

You may notice that we added an actual masthead this issue. The background designed by keZ and put up as a tutorial for typography backgrounds. I thought it was so neat and beautiful. It made a beautiful masthead. There is also a news section that has been added to the magazine. We are looking to add one more exciting feature for the readers by next month.

So many people to thank, and so little space to do it (without losing the interest of the reader, that is).

First off, again, a huge thanks to the magazine team. They were really patient, supportive, and just absolutely magnificent. I say over and over again, it is just phenomenal that group of volunteers can pull together a magazine at all. We have been doing a wonderful job representing the Frenzoo community.

I also want to thank a DeviantArt member who allowed us to use a drawing in the magazine. On page 19, you may notice a beautiful, non-Frenzoo graphic. That would be the work of DodgingTires.

Another thank you to LiquidLight, who created our very first 2 page ad! It looks great and really added to the magazine. I'm looking forward to more.

I want to also thank Zuzuboogaliboo, who is always enthusiastic in contributing. Another thanks goes out to CEO and co-founder of Frenzoo, Simon Newstead, who generously gave time to give a small interview for the Multi-Avatar Chat piece. Lastly, I want to thank Pikabo ICU. I am working to implement a bit of virtual photography in the magazine, and Pikabo ICU created a collection of eyes that look in different directions. She is a busy gal, and it was gracious of her to give her time.

Well, I suppose that is all for now. Thank you for reading this far!

I will try and update the blog bi-weekly on what progress the team is making on the next issue.

Until then, have a lovely day!

Frenzy: The Retro V. Modern Issue

It’s January 20th, and that could only mean one thing—Frenzy is out for reading!



This issue, the Retro v. Modern issue, might catch a few of you off guard. It’s shorter. That’s right, our issue this month is probably ten pages shorter than last month. Why!? What travesty is this?

After a few requests, I had to make a big editor decision and pull some pages from the magazine. You may not see Ninjaboy this month. Instead, this magazine is all Frenzoo. It is more concentrated on the site community and its users. That’s what we really want from our magazine, to give Frenzoo users helpful advice, interesting stories, and a little fun.

Never fear, Frenzy fans. Just because we nipped and tucked a few pages isn’t going to take away from quality content. In fact, now there is room to add a Frenzoo News section. We may even include a 3D scenes feature section.

I want to take a moment to give a special thanks to all of our contributors. It is pretty tough to give so much on short time, but every month Frenzoo users do so happily. Thank you especially to all of the magazine team, who so bravely put up with my indecisive editorial rule. The magazine would be nothing without our great team.

Thanks to LdyDth, who is always providing us with excellent ideas and giving us an extra hand. Check out here Helpful Tips article. Frenzy also appreciates the efforts of Zuzuboogaliboo, who enthusiastically gives us ideas and donates a bit of her time to add to the magazine. This month, she wrote a tribute to Michael Jackson. Pikabo ICU, Frenzoo’s purple angel, wrote a great piece on internet safety. Thanks to all!

I’d also like to thank some great people outside of Frenzoo. Sudoku-puzzles.net is a great website that gives puzzles to schools and publications for free. If you are looking to add a publication to your site, be sure to check this site out. Another person I would like to thank is Flickr user Pareeerica. She makes wonderful textures under the Creative Commons license. Skittles (xoxskittlesxox) user her “Exquisite Pink Frame” for the Winner’s circle pages. Another Flickr user, aussiegall, deserves special mention here. One of our page designers used her “Where the Fairies Visit” piece under the Creative Commons License. We certainly want to give these artists the credit they deserve.

Thank you all!

The team is falling comfortable into our monthly magazine schedule. There was no rush just before getting the magazine up. In fact, I uploaded it early! Perhaps it was the cheerful, holiday atmosphere. Maybe it was the relief of a new year. For whatever reason, creating this issue was a fairly smooth ride (on my part).

This next issue may not be so smooth. This month I plan to push a little harder. I am taking to the world of information for some deep studying sessions. We established the magazine. Now it is time to go a little further. Obviously, I am a new editor. My degree is in Anthropology. The only journalism class I have ever taken was five years ago. I can write a mean essay, but I have a lot to learn when it comes to the magazine world. Time to hunker down and learn the ropes!

In short, we may be unveiling some more changes in Frenzy for next month. Only time will tell. Until then, the Frenzy team has work to do!

Frenzy: The December Holidays Issue

After a lot of hard work, we released our third issue of Frenzy: December Holidays yesterday.

You can also see our entire magazine on Frenzoo or on Issuu.

We had a lot of contributors this month. LdyDth assembled the Helpful Tips pages and the Newbie page and FrenzOoops for Vera, who was unfortunately absent this month. Pinknife did a beautiful job on our first central topic fashion spread ever.  We were even able to include the "under 100 coins" page suggested by lo_specchio. Brielladream created a useful creator tutorial. Ninjaboy continued to support the magazine by writing not just one, but two articles. Kudos to his Noob Day article, which highlights a holiday only a true gamer would know.

Chrissy Wai, provided the first ever celebrity fashion article. Her beautifully written piece makes me want to go Christmas shopping for myself. Zuzuboogaliboo and Sunkiss contributed a poem about fashion, while Kitten Disaster displayed some very cute images in our FrenzArt topic.

A special thanks to Sudoku-puzzles.net, a site that offers free sudoku puzzles for magazines, newspapers, educators, and more. If you are looking for a trivia puzzle, check them out.

The Frenzy magazine team donated their effort and time into their wonderful pages. We added a new official magazine member this month. Skittles (xoxskittlesxox) offered her graphic talents and wonderful ideas. Check out her new section, Fashion Culture, which features fashion from all over the world.

A job well-done everyone! A big thanks to the entire Frenzy team and contributors.

Is you are interested in contributing, please PM me on Frenzoo. You can find my profile here.

Building a community magazine is an amazing process to watch. Our first issue was small, without too much diversity in topics. Not a lot of people were interested enough to volunteer and contribute. The next issue presented more excitement. Our December Holidays issue is even better. The growth process is gradual, but each issue is an improvement. I hope we can continue to grow and include quality content in our magazine.

Our new magazine schedule is to thanks for this issue's improvements. Doing monthly, rather than bi-weekly, issues really helps. We can thoroughly brainstorm with enough time to create each page. No rush = better magazine. Especially because our contributors are full-time students or workers with families.

I am visiting my family in Las Vegas for Christmas, myself. It made the editing process a little more interesting than usual. I was creating pages in the airport and on the airplane, where the lack of leg room quickly became a nuisance for my easily bothered knee. Nonetheless, the pages were done on time.  Admittedly, I was a tad behind on releasing the magazine. I wanted to have it live by 3:00 PM HKT (Hong Kong Time). However, that seemed impossible between being with my family for Holiday rituals, learning how to use a Mac, and my overly cautious editing approach.

A few spelling errors plagues the last two issues like horrendous cankers. Thankfully, the wonderful found of Frenzoo, Simon, pointed out these discrepancies. I can always count on him for constructive criticism and support. I implemented new methods to avoid more spelling and grammatical mistakes. First, I promoted Silentbutterflies to official proofreader. At only 15, she is a wonderful writer and editor. Not to mention, it always helps to have an extra pair of eyes. Secondly, I amended my own editing method. Instead of reading the word, I go through every letter and read passages out loud in search of every awkward phrase or grammatical error.

The end result? Just look at my chat log with Simon:

Miidasu: So did you see any errors in the mag?

simon_is_yeti: I didn't

simon_is_yeti: :)

My heart was happy.

There are probably still grammatical errors lurking amongst the letters of the magazine. Still, the lack spelling errors is a satisfying step.

Now that the December Holidays issue is finished, it is time to work on the January 20^th issue. The Frenzy team is already throwing excellent theme ideas around.

And the cycle continues…

Mission: January 20^th Magazine Team

If you want to give any feedback on this issue, click here. If you have any suggestions for the next issue, then post them in our Suggestions topic.

Introduction

Hello World!

This is the first blog I've ever really done. I don't really know how blogging works, but I'm sure I'll catch on eventually.

This is entirely dedicated to the efforts of the Frenzy Magazine Team. Frenzy is a community made magazine for Frenzoo, a virtual, 3D community.

How did I get involved with Frenzy magazine? Here is my verbose explanation:

I’m a newb when it comes to the metaverse. I am one of those stubborn people who have been avoiding immersion into virtual reality. Myspace? Facebook? Twitter? No way. Second Life? IMVU? You mean I have to figure out all of that cyber technology stuff?

I did play WoW for a few days. I actually liked it, but it was frightening to see my brother completely enamored with it. He came home from work and played WoW until 4 in the morning. He woke up at 6:00 AM to get ready for work. He came home...You can see where this is going. It was obviously addicting. Because I have an addictive personality, I decided it would be best to stay away from WoW, for the sake of my college GPA.

Now I’m not in college anymore! Yay!

I have my Bachelor’s in Anthropology. In this economy - you can bet I don’t have a job. I can’t even rely on my clerical skills to get a position. So, while job searching, I have been sitting on my ass enjoying virtual worlds. Now, I'm addicted to the Sims 3 and Sims Societies, and giving Second Life and IMVU a try.

I’m more of a Real Time Strategy game player myself. Being a History Buff, I enjoy games like Age of Empires and Sid Meir’s Civilization. I always though that games like the Sims would rot my brain. Then I tried it.

I was right, it has rotted my brain. But at least it’s fun! Not to mention, the distraction from daily life is worthwhile.

There is one world I decided to join a while ago. As expected, I became incredibly addicted. Frenzoo is an up and coming 3D chat and 3D avatar world that has some promising features. My favorite, the reason I joined actually, is the create tool. It basically let's you make your own clothing. No need for photoshop experience, or paying for VIP status (although you can for the option of having a shop and more advanced create options). I can make my own clothes, for free, all bundled in a simple creating tool.

For the past few years, I have been watching America’s Next Top Model.

I know! How could I?!

I’m not interested in modeling, or even fashion. I am interested in photography, though, and I love watching the photo shoots. As I watched it more, I became more and more interested in fashion. And this is how I became so addicted to Frenzoo’s create tool! I had come up with all these designs in my head. Surprisingly, I'm pretty good at the designing part. Now if I could only sew....

With Frenzoo, I can finally bring out my designing ideas.

My Virtual Self

I have been a member for almost a year now. One fateful night, someone asked me if I would be interested in running the community magazine. This was about four months after I graduated. By that time, unemployment depression was hitting me hard. I was feeling useless not doing anything AND mooching off of my poor, saint of a boyfriend. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity.

Editing a magazine? Not sitting on my ass all day wafting in self-pity? Of course!

So this is how I became an editor for Frenzy Magazine. I coordinate the efforts of a very talented, international group of contributors. It’s completely community made, and it is all volunteer work. No one is getting paid for their efforts. So it’s pretty astounding that we are able to do this project. Especially since most everyone who is involved has full-time jobs, are in school, and have families. Except me…I’m still mooching off my boyfriend.

If you want to see our magazine, check us out at Issuu.