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Sl is dieing; SL cannot seem to have more than 70k concurrent on at one time. SL is now a dinosaur, with the Open Sim platforms making leaps and bounds. Being their revenue base is slipping (who wants to pay fricken 300 for a sim, when they can pay 50???), banner ads are the ONLY way to keep SL alive now. Just wait, my guess is we will start seeing RL advertisements/billboards on Linden Lands soon.

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Tommy Parrott wrote:

Sl is dieing; SL cannot seem to have more than 70k concurrent on at one time. SL is now a dinosaur, with the Open Sim platforms making leaps and bounds. Being their revenue base is slipping (who wants to pay fricken 300 for a sim, when they can pay 50???), banner ads are the ONLY way to keep SL alive now. Just wait, my guess is we will start seeing RL advertisements/billboards on Linden Lands soon.

Chances are not very unreal that SL may close down after LindenLabs their new game comes out.

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Well I don't think OpenSim is exactly the answer lol ... that's like what SL *was* back when it started basically ... why would you want to go back to something like that.  And it's chaotic there, not worth my time personally. 

However, I think the ads aren't a good sign at all. I really think it's all about marketing and if SL could just revitilize their PR and marketing techniques and make it "cooler" things would be running smoothly. 

Overall, I like SL a lot, I'd hate to see it go. 

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We've seen LL step up their game with advertising in recent months, both in placing their own advertising and hosting others advertising. I think what has happened is that we finally have a marketing exec who knows about marketing,...as apposed to Kim Salzer who didn't know **bleep**.

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I've heard SL is dieing since I've been in SL, which has been over six years now.  If SL were going to be shut down why would they be introducing new stuff such as Mesh, Materials, Server Side Baking etc?  They wouldn't be wasting money on new features.  It is also no surprise that there has been a loss of sims considering the RL economy and so many out of work or underemployed.

There is no open sim that can touch SL.  I've been to most of them. I keep hearing that people are going en masse to it.  But even the most popular ones only have a few hundred logged in at any one time.  I've had friends leave SL for Open Sim.  Every one of them has come back to SL. 

So my question to you is why are you still here?

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oh, but don't you know? Companies making their products better is the best sign you can have that they're desperate to keep customers but know it doesn't matter anyway and will shut down any day now...

Why else has LL been doing it for the last decade, Blizzard ditto, Microsoft for 30 years, IBM for a century. They're all just investing for the heck of it when really they're dead.

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Yes I noticed and I hate it but do understand the reasoning behind them.  However, I think Stormm's idea is a good one, premium members shouldn't have to see annoying ads. perhaps LL should think on that one a bit more.

As for the land issue, there are so many other virtual worlds out there that have no set up fee, more prims allotted (one world has 45,000 prims) and monthly costs of 75 USD or less for people to own their own full sim that we all know it is possible LL could do the same..but, personally I don't eve see that happening.

So SL is honestly not going to go anywhere other than in the direction it's been going...being turned into a video game for kids.  So buck up people, if we stay we are only helping it move in that direction and that is no ones choice or fault but our own.

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I also saw this when logged in there was a banner from The Sims (in Dutch) above my "welcome Hellespont Hoorenbeek" area, What i did is made a ticket and did livechat but as always Linden lab keeps you waiting and livechat isnt helping a bit to get a desent awnser. Im in shock that Linden Lab is doing things like this theire focus sould be on Second Life and keep that running in a good way. Things like this is just rubish and dont make any since at all. But what els is new i geus they will never learn.

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I'm a premium and conciege member.  I pay a couple thousand USD to LL a month.  What other services do you pay for that insert more ads into the service?  I dare you to think of a few.

 

  • As it is, it looks unprofessional and out of place.
  • Paying users should not be subject to these ads.
  • Is LL really that hard up for cash?  I have a solution.
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This is a general reply, and not specifically to you, Hellespont.

When I first read about the ads, I couldn't get them and I thought that they may be geo-targetted. But today I got them.

The screenshots i saw of them showed that they were so badly placed that people wondered if some hacking was going on. I suggested that it was LL trying to find the right spot in the HTML to place the ad code. I think my suggestion was right, because both top and side ads are now positioned very well.

They are affiliate ads, and LL gets money for either every time one is clicked on or every time a sale results from a click on one. It's an extremely standard way of earning money on the web and nobody can find genuine fault with LL seeking to earn a little extra money. The ads are not intrusive (they don't get in the way of anything) and they don't look ugly. There is nothing wrong with them.

And now some imagination: Suppose LL decided to plug SL on websites all over the world. And suppose LL decided that some of the cost of it could be recouped by plugging other websites on their own. And suppose LL had decided to ask the users if they wanted them to advertise LL all over the web and recover some of the cost through affiliate ads on the SL site. What would the users have answered? I am sure the general answer would have been, "Go ahead - and do it quickly".

Back to non-imagination: I see nothing wrojg with the ads. Does anyone actually find fault with them? If so, why? (Note: don't answer that question if you are person who doesn't want to be advertised to on principle. I have no time for that kind of self-centred attitude.)

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NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

I'm a premium and conciege member.  I pay a couple thousand USD to LL a month.  What other services do you pay for that insert more ads into the service?  I dare you to think of a few.

 
  • As it is, it looks unprofessional and out of place.
  • Paying users should not be subject to these ads.
  • Is LL really that hard up for cash?  
    .

Are you including your signature in the part about paying users not being subject to these ads :matte-motes-wink:

I'm assuming here that the beef here is the type of advertising and how it works, rather than avertising itself, because many of us engage in advertising in these forums, me included.

I think it may be more useful if people came up with constuctive criticism, paid members being exempt has merit, I've seen that on other services.

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We should all help LL get the most out of these ads by clicking them every time we come to the website. You don't have to read the ad or be influenced to buy the product. Just a click and ignore will do. It all goes towards supporting the world we love (and a bunch of other crappy products).

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Ciaran Laval wrote:


NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

I'm a premium and conciege member.  I pay a couple thousand USD to LL a month.  What other services do you pay for that insert more ads into the service?  I dare you to think of a few.

 
  • As it is, it looks unprofessional and out of place.
  • Paying users should not be subject to these ads.
  • Is LL really that hard up for cash?  
    .

Are you including your signature in the part about paying users not being subject to these ads :matte-motes-wink:

 

Lets not confuse things.  I'm not the service provider here.  It's the service provider who is showing already paying users ads.  LL has every right to deny forum users signature banners.  

My banner is to let people know my place exists.  Visiting my estate is free, playing the games I've developed there is free, and I don't shove land down peoples throats when they visit or play the games.  And yes I'm aware that "awareness" is also an ad; but I don't offer to buy your gold, or help you lose 35lbs fast.

Normally, I wouldn't mind the ads all that much, but as a paying customer I don't want them.  They also look like they were just crammed up there without any forthought, by a 12 year old. </br><insert adcode.js></br> Why are there no ads on the marketplace, or these very forums?  Surely they get way more traffic.

I'm more worried if LL is really desperate for money. They've put plenty of work in reducing their bandwidth cost over the past couple of years, and reducing CPU usage as well with region idling.  Is that not enough to cut costs?

As a 7+ year user of the service, this does nothing to make me confident in an already questionable LL.

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NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

Normally, I wouldn't mind the ads all that much, but as a paying customer I don't want them.  They also look like they were just crammed up there without any forthought, by a 12 year old. </br><insert adcode.js></br> 
Why are there no ads on the marketplace, or these very forums?  Surely they get way more traffic.

I'm more worried if LL is really desperate for money. They've put plenty of work in reducing their bandwidth cost over the past couple of years, and reducing CPU usage as well with region idling.  Is that not enough to cut costs?

As a 7+ year user of the service, this does nothing to make me confident in an already questionable LL.

 

You're right that the Marketplace gets a lot of traffic (although I have to think putting banner ads there would really be a bad idea: were I a merchant I'd fight that tooth and nail) but the Forums? Not even a blip on the radar. We're a sliver of a shaving of a chip. We are a miniscule audience compared to the full population of Second Life.

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NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

My banner is to let people know my place exists.  Visiting my estate is free, playing the games I've developed there is free, and I don't shove land down peoples throats when they visit or play the games.  And yes I'm aware that "awareness" is also an ad; but I don't offer to buy your gold, or help you lose 35lbs fast.

Normally, I wouldn't mind the ads all that much, but as a paying customer I don't want them.  They also look like they were just crammed up there without any forthought, by a 12 year old. </br><insert adcode.js></br> 
Why are there no ads on the marketplace, or these very forums?  Surely they get way more traffic.

Well this is more along the lines of what I'm trying to get at, it's not advertising that's the complaint here it's presentation and content of said adverts, would you have the same objections if Second Life residents could place banner adverts here as they can on third party forums?


NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

I'm more worried if LL is really desperate for money. They've put plenty of work in reducing their bandwidth cost over the past couple of years, and reducing CPU usage as well with region idling.  Is that not enough to cut costs?

As a 7+ year user of the service, this does nothing to make me confident in an already questionable LL.

Someone on a blog post suggested these sort of adverts could generate around USD$1m a year for Linden Lab, not to be sniffed at but on the other hand nowhere near enough for them to cut tier, but if these cost savings all add up and do result in a tier cut, surely we'd all be happy? Well most of us I'd imagine, I'm sure there would be some complaints.

 

 

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I would still have the same objections because I pay more than a couple thousand USD to LL per month. If my business isn't enough, then they need to do things that attract and retain people, rather than push them away. In my own opinion, the ads do more harm than good. You don't see WoW, IMVU, or even any other 3rd party grid with ads on their home page. It makes you look amateur. (fixed spelling)

Security: Let's say there's some malicious code there and someone hypothetically gets your account info and gets you banned. Sucks to be the user; doubly so trying to get back into your banned account through LLs current support ticket system. Why would you come back to SL after going through that gauntlet?

Privacy: What if a user is solely using SL to get help and support by belonging to support groups for private or embarrassing matters? Do you think logging in and having a targeted banner ad based on the names of the groups that you belong to is going to do more damage than good if a friend or family member sees said targeted ad at the top of the SL website because they use SL too? The same can be said for the events.

$1M a year? According to Tyche Shepherds grid survey report of Feb 3rd, LL generates at least $4.1M a month in tier alone. And while $1M more annually is nothing to sneeze at, it's a drop of piss in an ocean of dollars. Or 1/53 of their annual income, and way less if you account for their fees, membership dues, and marketplace sinks.

It's been said a million times, but LL should make mainland tier rates more granular, make premium membership more appealing, and everyones favorite -- reduce tier. Again on Gridsurvey, do you see the insane wall of growth come to a complete halt, and then nose-dive? That's when homesteads went up in price. Surely with hardware upgrades, region idling, and the interest list LL has made them way more affordable to operate. Why not bring those prices back?

I would have a lot less issue if the ads were specifically for Second Life related things, and if the website was built to have them in specific places -- not google adsense just slapped at the top and side of sensitive account information pages or the main page. That way it's more about the community.

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NeoBokrug Elytis wrote:

I would still have the same objections because I pay more than a couple thousand USD to LL per month. If my business isn't enough, then they need to do things that attract and retain people, rather than push them away. In my own opinion, the ads do more harm than good. You don't see WoW, IMVU, or even any other 3rd party grid with ads on their home page. It makes you look amature.


Amateur. It makes you look amateur.

 

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Why don't you stop whining about something that doesn't affect you and is no concern of yours?

If you imagine that affiliate ads might be a security risk to you, stop using the web. Affiliate ads are on almost every website and have been for many years, and, believe it or not, they haven't managed to get a reputation as a security threat.

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