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Join the Second Life Advertising Beta!


Nelson Linden

17,945 views

As  part of our continued efforts to provide Residents with new ways to  promote and discover products, services, and inworld businesses, we have  recently launched the SL Advertising Beta at advertise.secondlife.com and we invite you to join the program.

Second  Life Advertising is a self-service advertising system allowing advertisers to purchase targeted display ads on multiple Linden Lab web  properties such as the SL Marketplace and SL Land Auction sites. If this test is successful, then we hope to extend advertising  offerings to additional Second Life web properties. To learn more, check  out Torley’s video tutorial on the wiki, where there’s also more information about the program.

Among other things, SL Advertising features include the following:

  • Display banner ads evenly over the time period you select
  • Target ads to specific SL Marketplace product categories

To join the program, just go to the SL Advertising Beta site and click on the “Get Started Now” button. Please send us all of your feedback, requests, or suggestions to sladsbeta@lindenlab.com. And if you're on Twitter, please use the #slmarketplace hashtag.

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Fix Search first, Thanks.

 

Regarding this, i guess that the fact you cant use Inworld Currency, and the need to give RL-Info to a 3rd Party wil make this the Viewer 2 of advertising in SL.

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After 6 MONTHS OF NOT BEING LISTED in SEARCH on keyword, after many tickets, unsatisfying live chats and unmotivated suddenly closed cases, i am not very impressed with this development, as you probably cannot imagine, otherwise you would have taken action a long time ago. Please fix the SEARCH first, before you build a new way on the ruines of it, to "promote and discover products".

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I just paid for some advertising 3 days ago on this beta ad portal of second life, this is my experience.

Bad , bad ,bad

- the interface is bad and broken. Its not even acceptable for what you call beta. Lot of glitches. I am technically savvy by the way. I think most people on SL are.

- Ads were denied without good reason. Still waiting for reply, the ads are supposed to start on 4th but its been two days and no response.

 

to my horror I also discivered this in their buyer agreement

 

"We have the sole right, but not necessarily the obligation, to delete at any time any of Your Advertisements that violate (or that we in good faith believe violate) these rules or that we believe to be inappropriate for any reason.  You are not entitled to any refund, credit, or payment if we delete any of Your Advertisements which we believe violate this Agreement or the Terms of Service."

 

Which basically means they can keep the money and not give you anything. I am still waiting for a response from these poeple before I scream wolf and call the lawyer/credit card companies.

 

They only replied once saying my ads violate agreement which it does not. They also wanted to know my entire business model, but did not say how I am going to send it to them when they do not reply to emails. Also they did not mention which part of the buyer agreement i violate. Good thing it was just a 10$ try. hope others can avoid.

 

Yeah go ahead delete my post, I have proof. Will be posting on my site too. Great job.

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Summer, I think you are hitting some interesting points but are off the mark due to a lack of information. Let me add this tidbit I learned about 6 months ago and then let you run with how it affects your theory.

The major companies you mentioned all left at a very particular time because of a change Linden Lab made to the content policy. When SL first started, the TOS policy stated that all content creators retained exclusive rights to their property, content, and loaded material. In 2007, however, Linden Lab changed that policy to basically state anything loaded or created in SL was owned by Linden Lab with copyrights and other content protections granted out as a second party contract of sorts. This caused most RL companies to withdraw from Linden Lab and Second Life for legal reasons with no intent on returning (and they stated this very openly in most cases).  This fact has come up again during conversations between the companies and non-profits / educators. The latter are consulting the former pending their withdrawal from Second Life at the end of the month before their land and tier rates double The big companies being consulted have run on OpenSim and other platforms for three years and have so far been very eager to help the outgoing non-profits / educators much to everyone's relief.

One other thought is that we all need to acknowledge that Linden Lab is a for-profit, bottom line company now. Their investors are demanding either returns on their investment and/or preparing the company to sell at a price where they can get some or all of their investment back (it is anyone's guess right now which it is). Some clear examples of this are the emergence of a web-based Linden Lab controlled marketplace that does not promote in-world stores or sales; home and land sale programs designed to undermine in-world renters and realtors; TOS changes claiming ownership of all content; the elimination of reasonable rates for non-profits / educators who are not allowed to have revenue-creating resources; etc. etc. Linden Lab is nothing more than any other game-based company running an entertainment grid platform for their profit. Once we accept the way Linden Lab views themselves today the faster we can get past being 'surprised' and upset by announcements such as the one above.

With that said Summer, I look forward to seeing how you revise your theory! Peace and love everyone!

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Vangel, this brings up a good point. Linden Lab can definately pull anything they want, it is their service after all. BUT... and this is a big one... because they are only accepting Real Life currency they are obligated to either provide the service or give you a refund NO MATTER WHAT THEIR POLICY STATES! This is simple fraud law 101. Instead of getting into any lawsuits, however, simply use a credit card issued by a company that has a lost/damaged/fraud protection plan. If your ad is pulled, simply fill out a loss report with your credit card company and their service department will represent your claim against Linden Lab free of charge.  With Linden Lab currently so understaffed that they are automatically dumping a percentage of their service requests, they most likely will not fight any claims made on your behalf by the major credit card companies. If they are foolish enough to fight a claim they have no legal option except to provide the service or give a refund.  Granted this does not prevent Linden Lab from arbitrarily pulling ads but it does guarentee they cannot do it without refunding your payment. I hope that helps!

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Thank you for your reply Nuhai Ling.

damn LL should be paying you for such helpful response ^^

I already tried calling the advertiser hotline, which was a number very difficult to find. Its an automated leave a voice message thing. no one picks up. Seems like LL have partnered with this unheard of glam adapt advertising agency. They also do not provide a support number.

 

I am calling my cc back now. lets see

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ok done. Plus card replacement ordered. Hopefully that settles it.

Thanks Nuhai

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How about you guys just fix search so it's fair for everyone, instead of finding another new way to ask us for more money?

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Given the issues with the marketplace and the search features both in world and the marketplace, I want to say, I will not be participating in this "feature," nor will I allow the ads to show on my browser.

Of course, I'm just a small time business, not LL's main target so *shrug* they won't notice my lack of participation.

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Hi Summer:

I do believe you gave a very good analysis, and I am very impressed with your intelligence. However, given my observations as to how Linden Lab operates, I do believe what you have really given is a detailed and excellent description of a dragon found in a cloud formation.

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I dont know if this thing is good or not. It's early and i don't have energy to care yet. But i have to wonder how many of the complainers, with not much more to say than how bad LL sucks, went and logged into Agni (That's SL for those who don't know about grids) right after posting here. If LL is so bad, there is a simple solution for you, don't use their srvice. Even if you don't spend a single shiny $L, you still help them out just logging in.

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I'll test this when it accepts L$ or at least PayPal. I don't like to use CC's online except when absolutely necessary.

 

PS: It would also be nice if we didn't have to register for the Advertising service and we could just login using our existing SL accounts.

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When Search is repaired, then I will pay attention to the advertisers on your websites.  But until Search is fixed and stable again, I won't so much as glance at the ads.  You've taken a function that was free and available to everyone and replaced it with one that costs US money (cannot pay for it with L$) and is only available for those people who are already successful enough to be able to afford it.  Destroying Search and adding this creates an upper and lower class of builder and stacks the deck so much against newcomers that they won't even bother trying to form businesses.  This is hardly an approach for getting more people into SL and invested here.

I will use Search (borked as it is) and the Marketplace.  When you have repaired Search, then I will click on the ads on the webpages.  Not until then.

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People who have invested lots of money in SL when LL was still telling the lie that we owned our virtual property, still want to take care of their investments.  And communities that formed around these properties are not yet all dead.  We remain because of the money we've sunk in and the friendships we have in SL.  We aren't deadset on hating LL -- I for one used to be one of their greatest cheerleaders and invited RL folks often to join me inworld.  But that was before I realized the problems with SL are not technical in nature, but the results of incompetent management and lack of direction.

We want SL to succeed.  But it cannot succeed if it keeps shooting itself in the chest the way LL is doing.  We are here because of our friends and money spent (hard to call it Invested anymore.)  We are here in spite of LL, not because of them.  Nor are we here for their benefit -- a lesson they will never learn.  We are here for our own reasons.  And if LL can make a buck off of that, that's fine with me.  But the more reasons they give us not to be here, the fewer bucks they get.  And that more than anything is at the heart of LL's problems today.

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Again, this week, Linden took my payment for my Classifieds and issues still remain unassigned and not fixed.

If you are an SL Vendor or Service Provider and you pay for "Paid Classifieds" and you use Adult Key Words – then you are getting ripped off when anyone views them in 1.x Code based viewers, which includes SL 1.x, Phoenix, Snowglobe, Imprudence and others.

It is easy to be fooled...in it's place, you will see the Top 20 Paid Classiifeds (PG).

          • This means...about 50% (aprox how many people use the 1.x viewer as opposed to 2.x) of your Adult Paid Classifed Advertising IS NOT BEEING SEEN (and others - who have unrelated keywords are in your slot!.*****

Some have said...this is a new Linden Policy, but it can't be. If it was Policy, then 2.x viewer users would see the same thing too - but they don't - they see it correctly.

>> With Organic search, it is more or less FREE (pay 30L a week to list the plot)
>> With the Buttons issue, that is just a pain in the butt
>> BUT...with Paid Classified, this is REAL MONEY - PRE-PAID going down the toilet, and in some cases BIG MONEY. If this was happening at a RL Newspaper, Radio Station, or TV Station there would be compensation.

If you are an SL Vendor or Service Provider and you pay for "Paid Classifieds" and you use Adult Key Words – then VOTE ON THIS ISSUE AND MAKE A COMMENT.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-3246

Thanks - Aprille Shepherd

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Hey, not to look at things always negative, but I would have to question the effectiveness of any advertising company that chooses to call their product "inventory" and their options "flight plan".

Seriously guys... isn't there anyone at Linden Lab assigned to keep the blue-sky market mentalities in check?

Considering how LL manages everything else... and how your focus is always on YOU rather than your customers, this strikes me as a very good way to hand over yet more money to Linden Lab and get zero return on investment.

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Shockwave: "People who have invested lots of money in SL when LL was still telling the lie that we owned our virtual property..."

 

Know what amazes me more than just about anything Shockwave?

Consider:  some 20 million people have used Second Life.  Some 750,000 (supposedly) are current "residents".

Now, Linden Lab pulled an (alleged) blatant bait-and-switch operation with OpenSpace sims.

They are currently imposing on our legal copyrights, property and assets, as you point out above.

They opened up LindeX and put GOM out of business and purchased Xstreet, putting everyone else out of business (both of which were blatant infringements on anti-monopoly laws... Linden Lab using internal functions unavailable to competition in order to seize the market).

They have been directly responsible for regular and significant breaches  of business ethics-- breaches which would land any other company in  court on a regular basis.

So what I don't understand... that someone with the knowledge, funds, and gnards hasn't initiated several major class-action Federal lawsuits and nailed this company to the floor.

It amazes me that out of all the users of SL... no one has taken the obvious steps needed to define the limits of this company and their responsibility to their customers... or simply to win back customer rights that are already established by law.

This is just an observation.  LL has got to be the luckiest company I have ever seen, because if it was any other company, they would be sued to the gills on a regular basis.  But somehow, LL keeps avoiding that process.  Then the lawsuits we do see filed somehow disappear from public view and we never hear about them again.  In fact, in the history of SL I have personally only heard of one successful lawsuit.   The others just seem to... vanish.

LOL, that's a hoot, eh?

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I normally don't post to forums (only done it once in the past), but I wanted to clarify something Nuhai said.  From my understanding of US law,she is right about her advise.  However, I know for a fact (as it happened to a close friend) that when you dispute ANY charges with SL (and I think its especially when you do with paypal or credit card company) the first thing LL does, is freeze you avatar.  Yes, that is right.  You will NOT get back into SL until the matter is "settled".  In my friends case, he got his refund, but he had to state to them that they were not in the "wrong" to get it "settled" and get his avatar back.

I just want people to understand this, as for someone with an active business that could be disastrous.

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Vangel: "...to my horror I also discivered this in their buyer agreement

"We  have the sole right, but not necessarily the obligation, to delete at  any time any of Your Advertisements that violate (or that we in good  faith believe violate) these rules or that we believe to be  inappropriate for any reason.  You are not entitled to any refund,  credit, or payment if we delete any of Your Advertisements which we  believe violate this Agreement or the Terms of Service."

 

LOL see this is what I'm talking about... typical Linden Lab blue-sky "We are GOD and can do anything we want" mentality.  LOL.  This is just hilarious.  They can cancel your service and KEEP YOUR MONEY???  Yeah, right.

 

@Nuhai:

While you are correct that customers do have a way to get their money back by "force" so to speak... typical Linden Lab response is to cancel their account.  "You don't pay us, we will wipe your avatar and assets off the grid."   That is how they operate.

Let me give an example:

A friend of mine had a real life job with an unexpected schedule.  One day he was called out on an emergency, and the end of the month rolled around and he couldn't pay for his land or get to an Internet connection.   So of course he lost his land.  (as expected). But the assets on that land weren't returned to him; they were wiped.  So his huge, costly home and furniture were gone.

BUT TO MAKE THINGS WORSE... that job put him in a position in which for months he was pretty much out of touch with everyone and everything.  So he winds up owing Linden Lab $20.  So what do they do... put his avatar on hold until he pays?  No, they destroy his avatar and all his inventory ... wiping them from the database.   So when he returns, all of his stuff is GONE.

How much stuff?  This particular guy was, up to that time, an ideal SL customer.  He bought everything.  To his estimation he had $$$several thousand dollars of purchased inventory.  They destroyed thousands of dollars worth of investment... over a lousy $20 past due.  They didn't hybernate his av... they flippin destroyed it.

Is he alone in this?  No.  When the OpenSpace sim fiasco occurred, those who shut down their sims... over 5,000 properties... later discovered that rather than archiving those properties (which would have been very simple and sensible)... Linden Lab totally destroyed them, wiping them completely from the SL database.  They didn't even keep archival records.  So months later, when Linden Lab said, "oops, we've decided to grandfather those sims at $95"... the owners couldn't even get those original properties back.  They would have had to rebuild from scratch.

Naturally the general response was to tell LL where they could shove their no-archival $95 "deal".

So no, Linden Lab has no qualms at all about destroying you and your property on a whim.  Force a chargeback because they rip you off... and you can pretty much count on it.  Which is why that as a concept won't work; Linden Lab knows most people won't risk losing their av and properties over a financial dispute.

 

NO PAYPAL???  In this marketing situation, it strikes me as odd that Linden Lab reportedly won't let people pay via PayPal... that they have to pay by what, credit card?   That very much makes me wonder what this company is up to.

I do know this:  I simply don't trust them at all to keep their end of the bargain.  Why?  Because I don't think they have the basic skillz. 

Considering how everything else on SL "works"... how would we know they actually deliver the number of impressions they promise?  There is so much else on Second Life and their Marketplace that goes wrong all the time.  I mean seriously, when a company can't get chat right, their demographics are non-existant, and search doesn't function... are we really to expect them to accurately and professionally track ad impressions?

LOL.  I don't think so, Tim.  Honestly, I'm not trying to be overly negative... but this company has a reputation for totally borking stuff.  And if they do... they don't owe your money back? HAR!

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There will be enough mugs throwing money at this...purely out of frustration or even desperation of not being visible using LL's other marketing tools like All Search, Classified adverts or Marketplace searches.

I won't be participating for 3 reasons

- Providing RL details to a 3rd party Advertising site

- Does not accept Lindens nor the USD SL balance...nor Paypal

- Waiting for LL to show some goodwill by starting to fix All Search, Classifieds and Marketplace searches.

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I think search should be fixed before they start bringing in new ways to get money from us.

Also, I thought they would be working on new marketplace to iron out some of the annoyances plus adding new merchant features. It seems I thought wrong.

So LL are introducing yet another half baked scheme before they fix any of the outstanding problems. I certainly won't be using it to advertise or to find products. I refuse to use viewer 2, so does that mean I can't use it any way? I am so sick of all the changes, I can't be bothered anyway.

LL have tried so many *new* ways to make money and expand their business, and they all seemed to have failed. I would have thought they should return to what they are good at, and that is providing a first rate virtual world and should be promoting small and medium sized businesses, nurturing happy users, fixing problems which in turn would generate a healthy ecomomy.

If this is not a viable business model, then they should just close it down, because I am pretty sure all the wacky expansion schemes they keep trying are NOT going to work.

I have been an avid SL user for 3 and a half years, but I do have to  say that the constant *We are exited to announce yet another hair  brained scheme* is making me lose all enthusiasm. Something I thought I  would never say.

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Thanks Shockwave.  LOL months have gone by and... "Motion to dismiss". Typical legal song and dance.

I was frankly amazed LL didn't get sued to the gills over the OpenSpace sim fiasco.  That had some major repercussions on areas of both bait and switch and destruction of assets.  Not to mention monopoly activity with both LindeX and Xstreet.   Allegedly.  ; )

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