Free Advertising in Profiles

[Porky Gorky]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

 

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Maybe we could turn this into a new sport called "Where is Caitlin peeing today?". She could leave clues on the pee-feed and then we could try tracking her down and see who can capture the best shot of her in a dropped trou situation. 

[mtwtfss71]

When I try to read my profile it is in Japanese. I'm sure there is a way to switch it bac to English but I can't read the buttons. LOL!

I used to use mine for promotion. It worked about as well as any one of the groups I belong to to be honest.

[Perrie Juran]

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George Orellana wrote:

Which privacy concern do you feel has not been addressed? As of now, you can control who sees your profile, who can and cannot post on your feed, and you can remove people from following you.

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I DO NOT WANT MY PROFILE VIEWABLE ON THE WEB.

Here's two incidents.  There have been other things but I don't  have them all book marked.

First off, LL screw ups:

"During a migration some users Profile settings were reset."

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Web-profile-privacy-and-notifications-screwed-up/td-p/1239195

 

Secondly, this little "work around."  See Qwalyphi's post:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Preventing-Second-Life-Profile-Showing-on-the-Internet/td-p/1708373

 

The system is anything but secure.

 

ETA:

The number of residents who still don't understand how the Web Profiles work is almost appalling.  They really don't know what information they may or may not be putting out on the Web.  It is partly their fault for not 'researching it.'  But when considered in light of SL's learning curve, it is also somewhat understandable. 

If I wasn't a Forum Reader, I wouldn't have known that a Linden Lab screw up exposed my profile.  Did you know that it had happened before I posted the link above?

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Not ment as a reply to Perrie. Sorry:matte-motes-tongue:

Wow! Well, change definitely riles some feathers. Yeah, you always hear that no1 likes change. Me, I love beneficial change. I look for it every day. Some1 is always doing something better, and new doors open. If this program can do it faster and easier, I'll use it, and the other programs too, if those work better for something else. The Profiles, and how the information is spread, is a perfect model for marketing. Yes, the current users are doing less marketing and more socializing. This doesn't have to be in conflict with each other. I have friends in SL that are merchants, and I want to see when they release a new product, whether I buy it or not, or even if I have no interest in their products. It is what they do in SL, just like socializing and taking pics is for the current users of the profile feeds. We aren't huge corporations making you watch our commercial before you can see the products. You just scroll by it.

I think the same way on facebook. I run a business and make animations. That's what I do. It's not just my crappy job that I goto and hate. It's my life and I post that on my FB. No1 unfriends me. Yes, my FB page looks like a big advertisement for ME, but that is ME. It's ok if others post silly pics of their dog, or cat or their kids play. I post stuff about my son. It's my page. I love to see when friends take a big risk and start their own business. I want to see their marketing, and hear about their business issues. I cheer for them all, and help pass on the marketing when I can. No, I don't want to see a GM car commercial every second of every day, but that is some fictitious entity that I have no attachment to. There is a big difference.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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George Orellana wrote:

Which privacy concern do you feel has not been addressed? As of now, you can control who sees your profile, who can and cannot post on your feed, and you can remove people from following you.

---

I DO NOT WANT MY PROFILE VIEWABLE ON THE WEB.

Here's two incidents.  There have been other things but I don't  have them all book marked.

First off, LL screw ups:

"During a migration some users Profile settings were reset."

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Web-profile-privacy-and-notifications-screwed-up/td-p/1239195

 

Secondly, this little "work around."  See Qwalyphi's post:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Preventing-Second-Life-Profile-Showing-on-the-Internet/td-p/1708373

 

The system is anything but secure.

 

ETA:

The number of residents who still don't understand how the Web Profiles work is almost appalling.  They really don't know what information they may or may not be putting out on the Web.  It is partly their fault for not 'researching it.'  But when considered in light of SL's learning curve, it is also somewhat understandable. 

If I wasn't a Forum Reader, I wouldn't have known that a Linden Lab screw up exposed my profile.  Did you know that it had happened before I posted the link above?

 

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I have been an active SL "forumite" since I began SL in 2007, which takes me back through several forum versions.  I consider myself fairly well informed due to reading the forums.  However, I had no idea the SL profiles existed until I received an email saying some unknown person was "following me."  HUH????   I promptly posted about this on the forums and that was how I was "introduced" to them.  I headed over to the profiles after being clued in and changed the settings.

I did not know about the above two incidences.  I think I'm going to lock down my profile even more now.  Thanks for the heads up, Perrie.

ETA: I just had another look at my SL profile and noticed that on the People tab it shows me "Following" everyone on my in world friends list.  If I change them all to "Not Following" will it unfriend them in world?  (Going in world later to test, but in the meantime decided to post here as well.)

 

 

[Czari Zenovka]

Ok, I just read the forum thread that was the first one Perrie linked to.  Looks like a number of long-time SL residents/regular forumites, some of whom are very successful business people in SL, do not like this whole FB clone in SL.  It's not just "people who are adverse to change."

To my question in my previous post about unfollowing friends on the SL profiles - that will not unfriend them in world.  This "feature" was set to default to automatically follow everyone on one's friend list per Rhett Linden's comments within that thread.  There is no way to "mass unfollow" everyone and some people have large friends lists.  After many requests within that thread asking for the default to be changed to not following anyone, allowing us to CHOOSE who to "follow," if anyone, that was supposedly done.  I realize that was in 2011 so LL could have changed their minds back and forth a few times, but if it is still the default, then it isn't working on my profile as all my friends were being followed without me checking that option.

I pretty much echo Lasher Oh's comments in that thread.

[Perrie Juran]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

 

Wow! Well, change definitely riles some feathers. Yeah, you always hear that no1 likes change. Me, I love beneficial change.

---

Exactly.  Show me the benefits.  I am not averse to change, 

If something makes my life faster, quicker, easier, more fun, etc, I'm gonna grab it.

There may be people who for their own good reasons like having their profiles exposed for the world to see.  I have no argument with them or their decision to do so.

But I want the ability to securely lock my profile down to SL only.  Despite claims to the contrary, from the links I posted above, LL has not fulfilled that claim.

My decision at the moment is to live with what the Lab has done.  But again, with things like this, sometimes it seems like the Lab is their own worst enemy.

If you feel like going blind, this report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is quite a read:    Second Life: Privacy in Virtual Worlds (pops)

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I am not opposed to change and adapt to it very well, I just don't care for social networking such as the SL feeds.  I value my privacy and have no desire to publish the minutia of my life or view others. Most of the stuff I see on trending when I do look is a waste of my time.

Things posted on social networking sites are on the web forever, even if you delete them, and more than one person has had stuff they posted in all innocence turn around and bite them.  They are denied jobs, loans, housing, insurance etc. as more and more businesses check you out on social networking sites before wanting to do any business with you.

SL web profiles and feeds are in no way secure.  I find myself having to look at mine periodically and reset the permissions that I prefer as they mysteriously 'change' to allow my information to be viewed by anyone with an internet connection.

Most of my friends feel the same way about the feeds and web profiles.  Yes, most of us have been in SL a long time and most of use a TPV based on V3.  So no, it isn't about not liking change in general as they readily adapt to new and useful things that are introduced. In fact if you have been in SL as long as some of them have you can certainly adapt to change.  Those that can't don't stick around..  So, just because you don't like one new feature and therefore don't use it,  doesn't imply that you are a Luddite and it is unfair to paint people with that brush.

Most people know about the feeds now, I rarely run into someone that doesn't. In my opinion, they are not used by people because they don't know about them, but because they don't want to use them. They don't do social networking at all or they go to places like Facebook for it and come to SL for other reasons. I know that is probably difficult to understand for those of you that use them , but there it is.

 

 

 

 

[Medhue Simoni]

I was not talking about any1 here not being open to change. I was talking about some of the current profile feed users that are against merchants advertising there.

As far as security, I have no argument and any1 can do as they please. For those that don't care as much about security can choose to jump right in. I, personally, don't have any issues with the security, but it is good for others to know some of those detailed, so that they can make the correct decision for themselves.

[Perrie Juran]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

I was not talking about any1 here not being open to change. I was talking about some of the current profile feed users that are against merchants advertising there.

 

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It would need to be opt in.  That's the difficulty I see.

I am dealing with more In World Spam this year (objects & notecards) from unknown Merchants this Holiday Season than I can remember the past five years combined.

That's the problem as I see it with the feeds.  How do you make it Spam Free?

[Toysoldier Thor]

I know this thread is talking about the possible value of advertising in SL Profiles, but I still would like to see LL create a new sub-forum under the COMMERCE Main forum called:

"NEW MARKETPLACE LISTINGS"

Any Merchant of MP that creates a new listing on MP has the option of creating a respective new thread posting announcement of his/her new MP listing (i.e. with a link to the MP listing).

The only restriction is that the new listing announcement must be made with 24 hours of the listing being created.  It could not be used to annouce existing listings.  Any violation of this rule for this sub-forum would ban the merchant from posting new threads in this sub-forum for 30 days.

 

I am sure that even though it costs ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for LL to simply create this new sub-forum and provide a huge benefit for its merchants to promote MP products and increase sales that would also benefit MP in increased commision sinks..... We all know that LL will not help the Merchants by giving us this feature which they have already provided to all their land barons and land owners.

[Medhue Simoni]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

I was not talking about any1 here not being open to change. I was talking about some of the current profile feed users that are against merchants advertising there.

 

---

It would need to be opt in.  That's the difficulty I see.

I am dealing with more In World Spam this year (objects & notecards) from unknown Merchants this Holiday Season than I can remember the past five years combined.

That's the problem as I see it with the feeds.  How do you make it Spam Free?

---

Well, you are friends with each person. Being that they are your friends, their posts would not really be spam. You could decide to not be friends with them. For all those merchants that you actually want to see their post, you would follow them, or friend them.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Just out of curiosity, how would you stop the trending to become more advertising than anything?  I can see where a merchant might post an ad in their feed and game the system by getting a lot of people to like it to get it to trend.  If trending turns into nothing more than a giant billboard full of ads, most people are not going to like it and stop watching it.  That would defeat the purpose of the advertising as well as trending and LL may very well disallow advertising.if they got a lot of complaints about it.

[Perrie Juran]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

I was not talking about any1 here not being open to change. I was talking about some of the current profile feed users that are against merchants advertising there.

 

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It would need to be opt in.  That's the difficulty I see.

I am dealing with more In World Spam this year (objects & notecards) from unknown Merchants this Holiday Season than I can remember the past five years combined.

That's the problem as I see it with the feeds.  How do you make it Spam Free?

---

Well, you are friends with each person. Being that they are your friends, their posts would not really be spam. You could decide to not be friends with them. For all those merchants that you actually want to see their post, you would follow them, or friend them.

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I am friends with them not because of a merchant/customer relationship but because we are friends.  And while I have an interest in what they are doing because they are friends, if they started sending me unwanted or unsolicited advertisements, that would be Spam.

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, right now, the trending setting is very low. You only need 2 loves to get a post into trending. It is likely that if the trending hurdle was higher, say 8, then it all would be less of a problem. It is also likely, with that simple adjustment, that the trending posts would reflect what the whole of SL deems the proper amount of Advertising vs Social Pics. Who can really guess what the mix will be. If we take a look, a really good pic can easily get 15 LOVES. I don't think many advertisements can get that kind of reaction, right now. What you would likely see happen, is ads might start looking like normal pics with the products in the picture, so they will be indistinguishable from a Social pic.

Plus, of course, the network could use more work in areas. LL can't know how to change things if the whole of SL is not using the system to it's fullest extent. Once major issues arise, we'll have more people to bring LL's attention to the issue. A really good solution would be to have 2 trending fields. There could be 1 field for post marked as Social, and another trending field for those posts marked as commercial. You could extend this even more and have us add tags to each post, and LL could just display the most popular tags in a area, instead of LL creating their own categories.

It's also interesting that most people's concern is too many advertisements. FB just implemented a thing where the advertisements that your friends like shows up on your home page, amongst your friends posts, instead of just on the side. FB advertised this as much more exposure for their advertiser's dollar. Of course, LL isn't charging us, but for merchants, there is a big benefit to keeping the Social and Commercial posts in the same trending. Like I said tho, I'd post 2 types of ads. 1 ad would be the product and product details, and then I would post another more traditional, having fun, pic with my product in the scene. Whether it looks like an ad or not, it will still get the response that you want.

 

I'd think, it would also be likely that, no matter if you are purely social or do alot of shopping. Most people's home feed would be filled with a good amount of advertisements. Many may not think that they want all that advertising but they will soon find that it is easier to keep track of their favorite merchants, and it will be a more personal connection with the creator. I can see many shoppers taking full advantage of the FOLLOW feature. If the person is a big shopper, It would not be surprising if their whole home feed was only advertisements. No1 would be annoyed because they choose to follow those merchants, and if they post too much, they unfollow.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

I know this thread is talking about the possible value of advertising in SL Profiles, but I still would like to see LL create a new sub-forum under the COMMERCE Main forum called:

"NEW MARKETPLACE LISTINGS"

Any Merchant of MP that creates a new listing on MP has the option of creating a respective new thread posting announcement of his/her new MP listing (i.e. with a link to the MP listing).

The only restriction is that the new listing announcement must be made with 24 hours of the listing being created.  It could not be used to annouce existing listings.  Any violation of this rule for this sub-forum would ban the merchant from posting new threads in this sub-forum for 30 days.

 

I am sure that even though it costs ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for LL to simply create this new sub-forum and provide a huge benefit for its merchants to promote MP products and increase sales that would also benefit MP in increased commision sinks..... We all know that LL will not help the Merchants by giving us this feature which they have already provided to all their land barons and land owners.

---

I don't see why it should be restricted to Marketplace listings, inworld stores should be able to utilise such a forum too, but there should be a new products forum, it should never have been taken away in the first place.

[Medhue Simoni]

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Ciaran Laval wrote:

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

I know this thread is talking about the possible value of advertising in SL Profiles, but I still would like to see LL create a new sub-forum under the COMMERCE Main forum called:

"NEW MARKETPLACE LISTINGS"

Any Merchant of MP that creates a new listing on MP has the option of creating a respective new thread posting announcement of his/her new MP listing (i.e. with a link to the MP listing).

The only restriction is that the new listing announcement must be made with 24 hours of the listing being created.  It could not be used to annouce existing listings.  Any violation of this rule for this sub-forum would ban the merchant from posting new threads in this sub-forum for 30 days.

 

I am sure that even though it costs ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for LL to simply create this new sub-forum and provide a huge benefit for its merchants to promote MP products and increase sales that would also benefit MP in increased commision sinks..... We all know that LL will not help the Merchants by giving us this feature which they have already provided to all their land barons and land owners.

---

I don't see why it should be restricted to Marketplace listings, inworld stores should be able to utilise such a forum too, but there should be a new products forum, it should never have been taken away in the first place.

---

I just don't see the point in constantly bringing up this issue. LL, obviously, wants people to buy classifieds instead of giving us a forum spot. Every action LL has taken over the years has hurt the merchant class and cut off any and all free marketing opportunities. I doubt they will bring a merchant's marketing forum back, despite the fact that every marketplace that I know of lets their merchant post their products on their forums.

The profile works better than a forum post, the creator of a profile feed post has complete control over who can post on it and what posts show. It can reach a much broader audience. It automatically gives a link to the product. I mean really, the only negative part is the few people actually using it. I imagine the total amount is less than 5% of SL. If this increased to 25%, then that is a huge amount of people that can be reached. Plus, every1 has their own page, and runs it, or posts things as they like, but it is 1 central place where all the people of SL can have their say, and every1 else see it.

[Ciaran Laval]

The advantage of a merchant classified forum is exemplified in the Land forums, where land owners basically do have a classifieds section and in the Help Wanted forum, people browse and see the information. There's nothing wrong with using your profile as an advertising tool.

I don't really see why we should stop asking LL to do the right thing here in terms of supporting merchants. They did it for Land owners and they did it for events.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Ciaran Laval wrote:

The advantage of a merchant classified forum is exemplified in the Land forums, where land owners basically do have a classifieds section and in the Help Wanted forum, people browse and see the information. There's nothing wrong with using your profile as an advertising tool.

I don't really see why we should stop asking LL to do the right thing here in terms of supporting merchants. They did it for Land owners and they did it for events.

---

Exactly my thoughts. 

If a merchant wants to use the unpopular SL Profiles to spam his/her friends with product information, that is his or her choice.  Again, I dont think that vast majority of SL residents even know about their SL profiles or even go into them after they find out they had a profile.  So I think putting any effort into using this as a marketing tool is pretty much a waste of time.  It would be advisable that you use your time to promote your products on social media that is followed by a lot more ppl - SL populations on facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.

But, LL treating is Merchants with the same level of respect and priority that they do the LandLoads, Land Managers, etc. by allowing us to have a CALSSIFIEDS SECTION would not only be a good thing, but FAIR !

This inequity in the SL Forums between how LL treats LAND Merchants with a 1st Class level respect and CONTENT CREATOR MERCHANTS with a 2nd Class Citizen level of respect is not new but it should change.

As for Free product listing promotions taking $L from LL's paid classifieds - I do not agree with this statement. 

First of all, the paid classified are much higher profile (in theory) than a posting on an SL Fourm.  The ads are seen on the actual MP site and they exist on the site for a long period of time AND they can be renewed and repeated as long as the Merchant wishes to pay for the ad. 

Second, if a Merchant (like me) does not use the useless MP ads, having LL provide me a free place to post a new listing is not going to improve / reduce their chance of getting ad revenue from me.

Lastly, the NEW MP PRODUCT LISTING Classifieds on the SL Forums would only allow a NEW listing to be posted.  As such, as I remember in the good ol days, this forum section was so popularly used that a new posting quickly slid back into oblivion of the forum within a couple days (out of sight out of mind) - similar to a Tweet slides away.

As such, one cannot compare the two and LL should not feel that a free classified section for MP listings would be ANY threat to their revenue stream - in fact they would likely see a positive as they would be getting 5% commissions on Merchant sales that may not have happened without the free classified.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

As such, one cannot compare the two and LL should not feel that a free classified section for MP listings would be ANY threat to their revenue stream - in fact they would likely see a positive as they would be getting 5% commissions on Merchant sales that may not have happened without the free classified.

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There is no threat whatsoever to either inworld classifieds or marketplace classifieds from having a new products forum. When we did have a new products forum, people would still pay eye watering amounts to place classifieds and if a new product forum was reintroduced, merchants would still pay eye watering amounts for classifieds inworld and on the marketplace.

There is no excuse whatsoever for Linden Lab not having a new product forum, they know it, we know it and consumers know it.

[Madeliefste Oh]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

I started to use my profile to post new products away back, not long after the social network option was released.

But in march my webprofile suddenly stopped working. As a result my profile is not visible anymore for customers, friends or anyone who is interested to check me. I've send in tickets, filed a jira (

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-4537

), and learned that I'm not a only one with a broken profile. But LL doesn't seem to care at all.

 

---

I do remember you mentioning this before. I does make me sad that it seems like LL neglects everything, no matter what we do to try and help them. LL almost seems like a bunch of irratic kids that can't be bothered enough to fix anything. It's like all they want to do is work on the next new shiny thing, and don't care that their last project has major bugs. We can always hope for LL to change their reputation.

---

w00000t! I have my profile back.

There was a comment on the jira from someone who mentioned he had deleted all this pictures from his profile, to get it working again. I had no idea how I could enter my profile, since it was stuck. So I contacted the guy, he explained, and it's very easy. I just went to my.secondlife.com/madeliefste.oh/snapshots. Delete all snapshots there, and that did the thing.

 

 

I just cannot understand that LL could not give this support but a resident had to find out about it and help me to fix it.

 

[Trinity Yazimoto]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

---

Ciaran Laval wrote:

The advantage of a merchant classified forum is exemplified in the Land forums, where land owners basically do have a classifieds section and in the Help Wanted forum, people browse and see the information. There's nothing wrong with using your profile as an advertising tool.

I don't really see why we should stop asking LL to do the right thing here in terms of supporting merchants. They did it for Land owners and they did it for events.

---

 

But, LL treating is Merchants with the same level of respect and priority that they do the LandLoads, Land Managers, etc.

by allowing us to have a CALSSIFIEDS SECTION would not only be a good thing, but FAIR

!

This inequity in the SL Forums between how LL treats LAND Merchants with a 1st Class level respect and CONTENT CREATOR MERCHANTS with a 2nd Class Citizen level of respect is not new but it should change.

 

(emphasis is mine)

 

 

I agree with this totally !!! 

Why so difference in treatment between landbarons and merchants ? 

The way LL considers content creators, while without content creators they wont be any contents, is absolutely ununderstandable for me....

They allow landbarons, role plays, destinations, to make they ad in the forum, while ive been censored for a post asking for creators to join a hunt inworld. On the reason it was ad ... i never seen were it was ad in this, since it was not for selling anything but just to ask if creators would like to join the hunt building gifts for it and rezzing in their store... Nevertheless ive been politely told it was advertising and my post has been deleted...Sounds likes when its about content creators anything is tricky for LL.

And if they are scared we dont buy anymore ad in the mp, the first decision they should take to sell more mp enhancement, should be to fix these ones ! No, they cant ask us to pay for a luckpot, and on top to be billed 10 times for the same one when randomly they system turn to be crazy. I will pay for smth that look to be managed seriously. Not for something that comes crazy suddendly and bill me several times for no reasons, then ask me to wait for long weeks before they fix. and in the end, for an ad that wont be displayed in a logical way, but only depending on how much they have ads already, giving them right to even display my ad only one time while ive paid the normal price.

So if the only reason they dont give us what is fair in the forum, is bec they are afraid we wont buy ad on the mp anymore, its just doesnt make sense. With or without ad in the forum, i wont never buy anymore ad in the mp as long it will be a potluck. I dont use to give my money to things not managed with reliability ...

[Medhue Simoni]

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

I started to use my profile to post new products away back, not long after the social network option was released.

But in march my webprofile suddenly stopped working. As a result my profile is not visible anymore for customers, friends or anyone who is interested to check me. I've send in tickets, filed a jira (

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-4537

), and learned that I'm not a only one with a broken profile. But LL doesn't seem to care at all.

 

---

I do remember you mentioning this before. I does make me sad that it seems like LL neglects everything, no matter what we do to try and help them. LL almost seems like a bunch of irratic kids that can't be bothered enough to fix anything. It's like all they want to do is work on the next new shiny thing, and don't care that their last project has major bugs. We can always hope for LL to change their reputation.

---

w00000t! I have my profile back.

There was a comment on the jira from someone who mentioned he had deleted all this pictures from his profile, to get it working again. I had no idea how I could enter my profile, since it was stuck. So I contacted the guy, he explained, and it's very easy. I just went to

my.secondlife.com/madeliefste.oh/snapshots

. Delete all snapshots there, and that did the thing.

 

 

I just cannot understand that LL could not give this support but a resident had to find out about it and help me to fix it.

 

---

Awesome Madeliefste! I find it much easier to tell my customers to watch my Profile. Yeah, it is usually another resident that finds the workaround. Thank god for our fellow residents.

[Medhue Simoni]

I agree with you completely, but I just feel you are asking a brick wall to do something. Brick walls don't normally move without alot of help.

[Darrius Gothly]

There is an even easier solution Toy ... and it's 95% implemented already.

The Marketplace provides an RSS Feed of every Merchant's product listings. All you need is the Merchant's ID Number and you can build an RSS Feed to watch any Merchant desired.

For example, my store is at: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/28094

That makes my ID Number 28094. So the RSS Feed for my product listings is: 

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/feeds/search?
search%5Bsort%5D=created_at_desc&search%5Bmature%5D=1
&search%5Bstore_id%5D=28094

(ETA: I had to reformat the URL so it all shows .. sorry 'bout that)

Note that the number at the end is the Merchant ID Number .. the same one found at the end of the Store URL.

So .. all the SL Forum Managers need to do is to set up a Forum that receives all the RSS Updates for those that "Opt In". You'd just check off a box in your Merchant Profile or someplace similar, and every time you post a new product listing, it would be added to the "New Products Forum" automatically. The whole thing could probably be wired up and deployed in a day or two. 

Not only does that make the process of posting to the New Products Forum super simple, by preventing anyone from actually posting in it, you also eliminate Spam and other abuses.