Rumors have been flying for weeks, but only three days ago was the presence of a teen-owned Island confirmed, when it suddenly appeared on the map, divided up into rentable parcels, with a few prebuilt shops and a mall already in place.

The island, located just South-West of Earnhardt, is named Mecca, and it certainly seems to be true- all of the ‘Popular Places’ spots for the past two days were claimed by parcels on the island. The island is completely flat, with roads and paths dividing the large (4096+) rent-a-parcels. Only about half of them are developed now, but more are being bought and development is continuing as time goes on.

We had a chat with Mecca owner, Tin Bling:

The Second Age: Good morning, Mr Bling;

Tin Bling: Good morning.

TSA: So, what made you decide to purchase the Teen Grid’s first Island? It’s quite an invenstment, isn’t it?

TB: I guess I have been thinking about one for some time. Just recently I have made enough via the TG to pay for such an item. And, I really wanted a ‘get-away’ you can say.

TSA: Mm-hmm. You mean through the Cascade Mall, correct?

TB: Yes

TSA: Who did you hand ownership of the mall off to? Or did it just die?

TB: Well, I didn’t really want to see it up for sale the next day. So I did some researching and found an interested buyer, Alex Harbinger, Owner of Mega-Mall. He was looking to expand, and was interested in my old land on Cascade.

TSA: Back to your island. It’s the first ever on the grid, although others (Brooke Barmy and Malarthi Behemoth, to name two) have considered buying one. What sort of impact do you think this will have on the grid?

TB: I am always interested in seeing what other teen residents would do with their island. I wanted a more professional environment, but yet space for teens to do what they wanted with it.

TSA: And what are you planning to do with Mecca? Right now, it’s sort of half renting, a quarter mall and a quarter just development. Any plans for further expansion or moving it into a theme? You said that you’re looking for a ‘professional’ environment, can you explain that a bit more?

TB: I do plan to change some of the themes every so offer, to keep it active. New ideas and expansion ideas are always being tossed around. By professional, I wanted a resident own[ed] place that multiple people build and showed the TG population what is possible in SecondLife.

TSA: Do you think that any other teen Islands are coming up? Or do you think that the $1250 USD + $200/month will scare most potential buyers away for now?

TB: I do know of one for sure. And a few friends of mine are interested in buying one also. Hopefully Mecca will be the center of a new large island of the TG world.

TSA: A larger island? So this other island may be attached to Mecca?

TB: That is the plan.

TSA: Hmm, interesting. How do you plan to make Mecca sustainable? Pulling in $200/month from Second Life, even through land rentals, is quite a feet.

TB: After some hard thinking and all goes well, the simple land maintenance fees should be easy. Everything was well planned out in advanced.

TSA: Aesop Thatch nods…. “Ok then, any other thoughts that you’d like to get out to the community, Mr Bling?”

TB: Start small, you aren’t successful over night. Always have a positive attitude, and be a entrepreneur.

TSA: No problem Aesop, and thank you

This is likely just the beginning of a new era of TSL builds and expansion. Several new Linden-held simss have recently been built, and more are on the way. At least two other resident-owned Islands are confirmed, and there may be more than that. For a long time, Resident Islands were not even available on the Teen Grid, but starting in November they became available for purchase. These islands are likely to become the focal point of Teen Grid commerce and innovation, thanks to the hard efforts and work of valued TG residents such as Tin Bling.