So looking ahead... what's the roadmap for the Marketplace?

[Rival Destiny]

All of these issues, plus the others that the grid suffers, either take far too long to be fixed or are & have been, sitting unresolved for years now.

IMO this is telling - either LL doesn't have the talent to fix or they don't have the time.

LL has always been reactive & not proactive & I honestly believe that things will only get worse not better.

I've never seen such a thing as rolling out software/systems that have not been fully tested (tested appropriately) and 100% ready to release. 

Especially to customers that rely on their sl income in rl. 

Perhaps I'm being too harsh here - I love sl, but their snafu's are often very damaging to a portion of their customer base.  And to me, that's just unacceptable.

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Rival Destiny wrote:

All of these issues, plus the others that the grid suffers, either take far too long to be fixed or are & have been, sitting unresolved for years now.

IMO this is telling - either LL doesn't have the talent to fix or they don't have the time.

LL has always been reactive & not proactive & I honestly believe that things will only get worse not better.

I've never seen such a thing as rolling out software/systems that have not been fully tested (tested appropriately) and 100% ready to release. 

Especially to customers that rely on their sl income in rl. 

Perhaps I'm being too harsh here - I love sl, but their snafu's are often very damaging to a portion of their customer base.  And to me, that's just unacceptable.

---

You are not being too harsh.  Your observations reflesh the constant stream evidence and facts that LL presents to the community. 

The other areas of LL frequently demonstrate how out-of-touch they are in their business & product planning, product/service development, testing, deployment, SL policies, marketing/advertising, customer service & support, etc.  The list of decisions & actions (or inactions) executed by LL management that have damaged/reduced as opposed to improved/progressed SL's popularity to even maintain the current SL customerbase (much less attract new customers) is long and goes far back. I am sure many of you can quickly come up with a list of 5 of their major missteps without even thinking hard.

But for some reason the frequency and/or magnitude of all these poor decision, actions, inactions seem to consistently be far greater from the LL Commerce Team's area of responsibility.  This current commerce team management and all development related to their responsibilities appears to be one of the most immature and inexperienced of all the generations of LL Commerce Team management, but, past generations of LL Commerce management had their own stories of poor decision making that frequently impacted their respective LL Customer base's experience and livelihood (i.e. the creators/merchants of SL as well as all shoppers in SL).

Maybe this is the case because unlike many of the other areas of LL, the SL Merchant community and the SL ecommerce (selling & buying of content) is the most complicated, ties into far more unique and critical systems of LL, and most heavily operationally active compared to any other LL areas.  i.e. when LL Commerce makes a bad decision or makes a system change, they potentially impact several areas of Merchant operations - even beyond what the LL team realized.

Maybe its because the Merchant community is made up of some of LL's most knowledgeable, skilled, LL-aware customers/residents in SL.  They must be creators, merchants, marketers, customer service aware, financial management aware, etc.  As such, this community is more in tune with everything going on with LL and dont sit back and quietly tolerate poor actions and decisions that come from the Commerce Team.

Maybe its because, as critical as SL's ecommerce is to SL's longevity and ability to attract and maintain LL's customers to SL, the LL Sr. Management team has no awareness of this critical function.  Proof of this has been clear when over the past few months with the Valentine Day massacre and the countless serious problems with the DD deployment, the escalated level of communications and support for Rodvik or any Sr. LL Management was pretty much next to ZERO. 

We were all blessed when Rodvik made one mention - ON TWITTER - of all his Commerce Team's MP operations impacting mistakes and how he plans to address the situation.  Rodvik didnt even have the wherewithal to think that maybe a formal message from him in LL's approved SL Forum/Blog platform would be a better approach to show his shared concerns of how DD has messed up MP.  He couldnt even be bothered to spend more time on the serious issues created by his team then to spend 20 seconds to create a TWITTER message on the topic (which most merchants would not have seen anyway).

I believe its a mix of all the factors mentioned above, but what it says is that LL does not see SL's MP and ecommerce as being an important aspect of SL's overall go-forward strategy.  As such, LL does not hire the best to lead and operate this areas of SL.  They also dont provide the respective level of resourcing to make sure SL's ecommerce operates properly and grows.  To LL, MP and ecommerce of SL is just a "keep the lights on" strategy.

Why do I say all this?

Because as we all know (even Sassy).... we can wait here eating popcorn in hopes Brooke or her manager or rodvik will post in this thread with a LL roadmap of where ecommerce will go next....  but we better have a huge vat of popcorn because we will not see any posting from anyone at LL on a roadman.  Why?  They dont have a roadman.  They are reactive and they only go forward with what ever cool / neat new idea of theirs sticks in their head.

 

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Marcus Hancroft wrote:

---

Kampu Oyen wrote:

>DD does nothing with your inventory or your account.

On this thread, anyway, who even said that it did?

That was not the point being made.

The point being:

DD and boxes are each subject to different types of borking.

Boxes are affected by borked regions and DD is affected by borked account and/or borked inventory.

Where

the bork originates or

why

is a totally separate matter, and whether DD borks anything at all shouldn't even matter in terms of understanding why the different types of susceptibility to borking might be important to the question of comparative utility between the 2 systems.

BTW: I would better like it if you should call me "Kampu", or "Ralph" or "Brooke". Thanks.

 

---

Miss Sassy is right, Josh, this thread is about the roadmap for the Marketplace.  Where it's going, how it's going to get there, etc.  We all know you think the magic boxes are perfect.

Also...for the love of god let's STOP using the word "bork," OK?  You used it 7 times in the above post!  It's not even a REAL word!  I don't know who started using that word to define the broken state of the marketplace, but it needs to be stopped.  We have cross linked listings.  NOT borked listings.  We have scrambled listings.  NOT borked listings. 

This word is driving me crazy!  Let's use a REAL word now, okay people?

<the above is for everybody...not just Josh/Kampu>

---

I just realized something - the first time I ever heard the word "borked" was in the title to this thread:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/ATTENTION-Listings-on-the-Marketplace-are-borked-Everyone-check/td-p/1457545

So if you're going to yell at anyone, (not that I think you should - just pointing out where I first saw the word) how about "Miss Pearl" who I gather is a friend of yours.

[Kampu Oyen]

>Maybe this is the case because unlike many of the other areas of LL, the SL Merchant community and the SL ecommerce (selling & buying of content) is the most complicated, ties into far more unique and critical systems of LL, and most heavily operationally active compared to any other LL areas.  i.e. when LL Commerce makes a bad decision or makes a system change, they potentially impact several areas of Merchant operations - even beyond what the LL team realized.

That would explain the apparent clumsiness.

It would not explain why every step in the process has been consistent with what would be calculated to produce a steady, incremental push on merchants to focus more and more on in-world commerce.

> As such, this community is more in tune with everything going on with LL and dont sit back and quietly tolerate poor actions and decisions that come from the Commerce Team.

But, really, they mostly do just put up with it. As of 1 June, a whole class of merchants is going to have to go in-world in order to continue doing business (bet on it). And where is the outrage? Most of them have not even posted a complaint about it, anywhere. Maybe, in a way, they deserve what's coming. But that doesn't mean it's a fair thing to do to everyone else, too. 

>  but we better have a huge vat of popcorn

Why do I think that's the perfect metaphor?

Pick a link...

http://www.google.com.co/search?rlz=1C1SNNT_enCO408CO408&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=stale+popcorn+study

[Zanara Zenovka]

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

---

Rival Destiny wrote:

All of these issues, plus the others that the grid suffers, either take far too long to be fixed or are & have been, sitting unresolved for years now.

IMO this is telling - either LL doesn't have the talent to fix or they don't have the time.

LL has always been reactive & not proactive & I honestly believe that things will only get worse not better.

I've never seen such a thing as rolling out software/systems that have not been fully tested (tested appropriately) and 100% ready to release. 

Especially to customers that rely on their sl income in rl. 

Perhaps I'm being too harsh here - I love sl, but their snafu's are often very damaging to a portion of their customer base.  And to me, that's just unacceptable.

---

You are not being too harsh.  Your observations reflesh the constant stream evidence and facts that LL presents to the community. 

The other areas of LL frequently demonstrate how out-of-touch they are in their business & product planning, product/service development, testing, deployment, SL policies, marketing/advertising, customer service & support, etc.  The list of decisions & actions (or inactions) executed by LL management that have damaged/reduced as opposed to improved/progressed SL's popularity to even maintain the current SL customerbase (much less attract new customers) is long and goes far back. I am sure many of you can quickly come up with a list of 5 of their major missteps without even thinking hard.

But for some reason the frequency and/or magnitude of all these poor decision, actions, inactions seem to consistently be far greater from the LL Commerce Team's area of responsibility.  This current commerce team management and all development related to their responsibilities appears to be one of the most immature and inexperienced of all the generations of LL Commerce Team management, but, past generations of LL Commerce management had their own stories of poor decision making that frequently impacted their respective LL Customer base's experience and livelihood (i.e. the creators/merchants of SL as well as all shoppers in SL).

Maybe this is the case because unlike many of the other areas of LL, the SL Merchant community and the SL ecommerce (selling & buying of content) is the most complicated, ties into far more unique and critical systems of LL, and most heavily operationally active compared to any other LL areas.  i.e. when LL Commerce makes a bad decision or makes a system change, they potentially impact several areas of Merchant operations - even beyond what the LL team realized.

Maybe its because the Merchant community is made up of some of LL's most knowledgeable, skilled, LL-aware customers/residents in SL.  They must be creators, merchants, marketers, customer service aware, financial management aware, etc.  As such, this community is more in tune with everything going on with LL and dont sit back and quietly tolerate poor actions and decisions that come from the Commerce Team.

Maybe its because, as critical as SL's ecommerce is to SL's longevity and ability to attract and maintain LL's customers to SL, the LL Sr. Management team has no awareness of this critical function.  Proof of this has been clear when over the past few months with the Valentine Day massacre and the countless serious problems with the DD deployment, the escalated level of communications and support for Rodvik or any Sr. LL Management was pretty much next to ZERO. 

We were all blessed when Rodvik made one mention - ON TWITTER - of all his Commerce Team's MP operations impacting mistakes and how he plans to address the situation.  Rodvik didnt even have the wherewithal to think that maybe a formal message from him in LL's approved SL Forum/Blog platform would be a better approach to show his shared concerns of how DD has messed up MP.  He couldnt even be bothered to spend more time on the serious issues created by his team then to spend 20 seconds to create a TWITTER message on the topic (which most merchants would not have seen anyway).

I believe its a mix of all the factors mentioned above, but what it says is that LL does not see SL's MP and ecommerce as being an important aspect of SL's overall go-forward strategy.  As such, LL does not hire the best to lead and operate this areas of SL.  They also dont provide the respective level of resourcing to make sure SL's ecommerce operates properly and grows.  To LL, MP and ecommerce of SL is just a "keep the lights on" strategy.

Why do I say all this?

Because as we all know (even Sassy).... we can wait here eating popcorn in hopes Brooke or her manager or rodvik will post in this thread with a LL roadmap of where ecommerce will go next....  but we better have a huge vat of popcorn because we will not see any posting from anyone at LL on a roadman.  Why?  They dont have a roadman.  They are reactive and they only go forward with what ever cool / neat new idea of theirs sticks in their head.

 

---

This ^

Unfortunately I don't like popcorn enough to make the effort.

When Toy and I agree, you know it's pretty much game over.

 

[Pamela Galli]

Oh it was already game over when Darrius and Dartagan hugged.

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Oh it was already game over when Darrius and Dartagan hugged.

---

Its amazing how adversaries fall on the same side when what was always a common enemy shows its true colors for all to see.  Some of us saw LL for what they really were much earlier than others

 

PS.... Regarding my last post... Although one of my true weaknesses is spelling and grammar (as you can all agree with) - I do know how to spell ROADMAP.   Sadly the SL Forums Dictionary doesn't and I clicked through its advise too quickly.  Its recommendation for the incorrectly spelled roadmap is roadman.

[Marcus Hancroft]

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Oh it was already game over when Darrius and Dartagan hugged.

---

Its amazing how adversaries fall on the same side when what was always a common enemy shows its true colors for all to see.  Some of us saw LL for what they really were much earlier than others

 

PS.... Regarding my last post... Although one of my true weaknesses is spelling and grammar (as you can all agree with) - I do know how to spell ROADMAP.   Sadly the SL Forums Dictionary doesn't and I clicked through its advise too quickly. 

Its recommendation for the incorrectly spelled roadmap is roadman.

---

/me busts out laughing

Howdy, Toy Dude!

Good to see you round about!  With all that's goin on in the marketplace with cross-linked listings and etcetra, it doesn't surprise me that the spell checker here in the forums can't spell.  Makes me wonder what's gonna happen next?

LOL!

/me smiles and tips his hat Toy's way

[Zanara Zenovka]

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

---

---

Its amazing how adversaries fall on the same side when what was always a common enemy shows its true colors for all to see.  Some of us saw LL for what they really were much earlier than others

 

---

 

Don't get cocky.

I was one of the people fighting hard to kick some sense into the inital marketplace migration years ago, back when you were busy trawling Google images for "artworks" ;p

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Zanara Zenovka wrote:

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

---

---

Its amazing how adversaries fall on the same side when what was always a common enemy shows its true colors for all to see.  Some of us saw LL for what they really were much earlier than others

 

---

 

Don't get cocky.

I was one of the people fighting hard to kick some sense into the inital marketplace migration years ago, back when you were busy trawling Google images for "artworks" ;p

---

I know that LL Moderators will likely not do anything to deal with your unprovoked attacks at my art and my credability on the SL Forums like they never did last time.... but you are a pretty sad person to attack my artwork that I spend countless hours creating for each one of them.

Since LL Moderators dont seem to enforce these false / unproven accusations on the forums, I guess it is up to me to defend myself.

For any of you that might take a second and believe this poster's accusations....  take a look at one of my art sites of MY art that I created and that I sell at my gallery inworld and now in RL.

I will let the rest of you decide and judge on her pettiness.  You can all try to find the "google images" that I supposedly had stolen as this poster has accused my work to be....

Toys Art at Deviant Art .com

(what is real sad is that LL allows these false / unproven accusations by some forum members and allows them to violate forum TOS - but this is the world we live in within SL)

[Marcus Hancroft]

I went to your deviantart site, Toy and I gotta say...AMAZING!  I love ALL of them!  I wish I were so good at photography as to be able to take such fantastic photos.  Mine tend to have my finger in them, a camera strap ghost, or are so blurry one can't tell what it started life AS.  LOL!

@Zanara;

It is mean spirited, hateful and downright wrong of you to accuse Toy of "googling" all his works with absolutely NO shred of evidence to back up the accusation.  I strongly suggest you delete that post or edit out that comment unless you can present us with irrefutable proof that Toy's work is the result of "googling" the images and not his own artistic ability. 

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Oh it was already game over when Darrius and Dartagan hugged.

---

Got pointed to this. If I could stifle a chuckle, even though it is a serious issue.

Game over in the sense that the social engineering, head games and over-hyped product are over. LL has to stand on whether its product and practices are worth the money, time and effort that they expect from people or it isn't.

Game not over in the sense that user generated content and the ability to sell that content is only just beginning. Every year it gets easier and we get closer to truely empowering individual content creators and creating success stories.

The real value of SL to me has always been that it's a step in the evolutionary chain of gaming and virtual worlds to empower people to create content an run their own businesses from that content. The value has always been with the content, not the company.

LL has always been about their own monetization over a generic framework to allow that to happen for others. Greed has always been the major downfall.

Won't get into the details here, done giving LL ideas unless they re-org the company at the board level, which to me is where the real problem has always been.

As far as content creators and merchants though, we're only at level 1 in the scheme of things. This is about people, not the companies that butcher opportunity.

Never again though, will I advocate for a company that doesn't put their customers needs before their own profit, or socially engineers them in any way.

Some of you have seen things long before I was able to get it through my thick skull.

I should apologize to Toy too, for dropping the F bomb on him a ways back. Not sure if I'd want to meet Darrius or Toy or a few others in a dark alley!

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Oh it was already game over when Darrius and Dartagan hugged.

---

.....

I should apologize to Toy too, for dropping the F bomb on him a ways back. Not sure if I'd want to meet Darrius or Toy or a few others in a dark alley!

---

Not a problem.  Its ancient history (in SL Dog years).  It was just good to see a Dart shift more to the center - which brought me more to the center.

HECK!!  Now adays its not even fun anymore to be SL Commerce Forum Group's "LL Contrarian" - to many of you all agree with me now.  Maybe I should become the Commerce Group's newest cheerleader as they have very few left to defend them.

With all the fiasco of the DD failings - the old Toy would have been the #1 poster to say "I told you so" and "this is rediculous".... but as you have seen... I have just sat back for the most part and let those most affected to the ranting and venting of anger against LL.

*** sigh ***

[Kampu Oyen]

Yep.

Game over and the rest of you yiffers still won't let me in the scritch.

Win some and lose some, I guess, eh.

[Couldbe Yue]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Never again though, will I advocate for a company that doesn't put their customers needs before their own profit, or socially engineers them in any way.

---

I think it's worse than that.  I think they see us as a resource to be exploited (free labour) when they need it and for the rest of the time they studiously ignore us, except to blame us when things go wrong (although recently they seem to have stopped that so I suppose we should be grateful).

There's an intellectual disconnect between understanding that their customers generate their paypackets that has always eluded me.  Even the most rapacious of companies will occasionally throw their customers a bone to stop them whining (except for microsoft, whose business practices LL has tried to emulate down the years). They still don't appear to have any business people working for them and until they do (and introduce proper project management), things aren't going to change, they'll keep putting in sub standard features and ignore us until we give up complaining about them.

hey ho.

 

 

[WADE1 Jya]

^^ this

agree with you 100%, Couldbe

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Couldbe Yue wrote:

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Never again though, will I advocate for a company that doesn't put their customers needs before their own profit, or socially engineers them in any way.

---

I think it's worse than that.  I think they see us as a resource to be exploited (free labour) when they need it and for the rest of the time they studiously ignore us, except to blame us when things go wrong (although recently they seem to have stopped that so I suppose we should be grateful).

There's an intellectual disconnect between understanding that their customers generate their paypackets that has always eluded me.  Even the most rapacious of companies will occasionally throw their customers a bone to stop them whining (except for microsoft, whose business practices LL has tried to emulate down the years). They still don't appear to have any business people working for them and until they do (and introduce proper project management), things aren't going to change, they'll keep putting in sub standard features and ignore us until we give up complaining about them.

hey ho.

 

---

 

Just so. They went out of their way to make users feel vested, take every available resource from time to money to content and give little in return. As business partners they make great gerbils. When they've got an actual product they don't need to be omnivores.

Because I'm finding it fitting to quote Mad Men, I'm sharing what I imagine to be Phil Lindens favorite quote:

"What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons." -- Mad Men

Because throwing customers and employees to the wolves when you don't have a clue and calling it a love machine is fashionable in a retro 60's television show kind of way.

[Flea Yatsenko]

I agree as well. I've floated by for a while but I've gotten really serious this last 7 months. I never realized how awful being a merchant is when you actually care about building and consistent sales. If it's just some thing on the side and you look at your account (that you never log into except to talk to customers) and gives you money.

Taking this place seriously is nearly impossible. Given the way that hard working, serious content creators are treated by LL, I'm amazed we haven't seen some sort of content creators union.

[WADE1 Jya]

Funny enough I have had a sort of working avatar's union come to mind several times over the last couple years. Some sort of agency to stop avatar exploitation & build worker's rights in SL. I mulled it over a few times over the years (even considered dedicating some of my unused land to it) but didn't know how to actuate it effectively (so it wasn't just a joke) & i also wondered if Lindens would ban me for it (seems like its quite a 180 turn against their current directives), but I'd love to kick something like that off!

Products could even be stamped "Union Made" and customers could buy confidently knowing they are supporting fair trade practices & not enabling exploitation.

Question is could it actually be done? I suppose for starters we'd need a legal representative... & I imagine some tech-loving lawyer somewhere would even help pro-bono just because such a thing would be pretty innovative and cool.

Somehow I get the impression a content creator's union is the last thing on earth Linden Lab management would want us talking about LOL

I imagine one of them reading this convo and going :matte-motes-shocked: NOOOOOOO!

EDIT: Here's some info I am just reading about it: How to Start a Union

 

[Sassy Romano]

This is not a "world" where that would work. We are merely end users of a product as far as LL is concerned.

 

If you don't like the terms, don't use the product.

 

If LL wishes to tread whatever path it feels serves them best, that is their choice, as it is the choice of the consumer of that service to cease the use of that service and any payments due. Simple equation really.

[WADE1 Jya]

Identify Your Rights

• 1   Know that federal and state laws both protect your right to form a union.
• 2   Contact a union organizer to help guide you when planning your union.

 

......I don't live in USA so I might be stuck at step 2.

Probably have to be in the same jurisdiction. Someone living in California would be preferable.

@Sassy: this may all happen 'inside' Linden Lab's product. It would be comparable with workers communicating through teleconferencing or Skype, it in no way invalidates rights.

Wherever there is labor (including online workers), real life laws apply.

I do like the terms (this stuff is far above & beyond ToS) & I will use the product :catvery-happy:

If anybody wants to go about trying to do this, I do have available land to use for such a thing, to meet up & use for meetings, organization planning, etc.

[Sassy Romano]

I suspect that since none of us are labour in the normal sense that it would fall flat quite quickly.

 

There are no terms of employment or any other contractual engagements beyond LL offering a service. We don't actually work in SL do we? Just s workers using Skype could form a union, their action against Skype itself would be zero other than to stop using it, unless they were employees of Skype itself.

 

Just my thoughts, its academic until tested.

[WADE1 Jya]

Heh yeah its hard to twist the head around exactly how it could function but there is all kinds of interesting & strange hybrid agencies forming in all fields these days.

It may be impossible & silly.... but you might be surprised what is possible.

BTW I have no wish to start any action against Linden Lab, but I am very interested in stopping online worker exploitation everywhere. Linden Lab may or may not have any say in how exactly it would fall into place once the process began.

They may, as network operator, have certain obligations... or not. Likely they'd be just as excited as us to see any sort of transformative process unfold & proud of their world suddenly harmonizing into a higher order of complexity. If it developed into anything newsworthy, I am sure they would love it just for the free publicity.

Jurisdiction may be irrelevent. I'm going to contact a Canadian union organizer to get more information just to satisfy my own curiosity :catembarrassed:

[Czari Zenovka]

I can understand where you're coming from, Wade and, trust me, my frustration with this MP issue is about at max level, but as far as unions are concerned Sassy's comment pretty much sums it up:

I suspect that since none of us are labour in the normal sense that it would fall flat quite quickly.

Unions were initially begun to be a voice and representation for workers (employees) to the owners of factories, etc. and now, in today's corporate climate, to management.  Thus a union in this sense would not work in SL because we, as owners of our businesses, stores, etc. *are* management.  The ones to whom a union would actually apply would be our "employees" (if we have any).

As was posted above we are customers of LL, the end users of a virtual world called SL in which we can be or do most anything we can imagine, including starting and running a business.  I have enjoyed SL for the last 5 years (rezday was May 1) and continue to do so in many aspects, not just in having an inworld shop.  Unfortunately LL has a long history of not listening to their customers, or seeming to listen then doing the opposite of what was requested by their customers, etc.  Since there is no such thing as a "customer union," as was also mentioned our only recourse as customers who also happen to have an inworld business is to close our businesses if we find the situation intolerable or leave.  Many have done this; however thus far there are new people who arrive, many of whom start businesses. 

Reading your ideas did give me a momentary flash of Sally Field jumping onto a factory machine and holding up a handwritten sign that said UNION.  (From the movie, "Norma Rae" - based on a true story - I recommend it as both a good movie and interesting retrospective of union organization in the US South in the 1970's.

I came across this site that is an interesting read on the genesis of unions if you're interested:

http://mises.org/daily/3553

[Rival Destiny]

This is all well and good but honestly, is something that IMO just wouldn't work.  SL is far too diversified and many many other reasons come to mind.