Attention LL marketing - IMVU is after you

[Vivienne Schell]

34 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Not a thing. I tried it long ago myself. It wasn't an open world or even a sandbox. When I found out Anshe had her fingers in that pie, too, I left and never went back. 

What´s wrong with Anshe? Like her or not, the hundreds of sims she runs contribute a LOT to LL income, which is needed for maintaining our desire to play with our Barbies and whatsoever.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

20 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

So far the match is 25:3. IMVU is the clear winner. Also, IMVU apparently makes more money by promoting and distributing such crap on their platform than Linden Lab, judged by the prices for these...cough..."products".

Well, if companies like Linden Lab and IMVU - or whatever social media platforms there are  - refuse to get their act together sufficiently and continue with tolerating of, promoting of, and benefitting financially by potential terrorist threats (FBI) the inavoidably upcoming (much broader) legislative regulations will not only finish these companies, but also everyone who uses their platforms.

The catalog is the only place to get things in IMVU, while products in SL are uploaded outside of the Marketplace, and often shared outside of it too. You can't say SL has "just 3," and it isn't. Search for WWG1WGA and you get 10 more results.

Almost half of those 25 products on IMVU are also not related to Q Anon, they're just posters of someone with the same name and were added in 2011 judging by the reviews.

The ratio has quickly climbed to 13:16, not including things we literally can't search for in SL.

How much worse does it need to get before you're going to disavow Second Life as "not an option for you?" Where's your line?

Edited January 28, 2021 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Vivienne Schell]

1 minute ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The catalog is the only place to get things in IMVU, while products in SL are uploaded outside of the Marketplace, and often shared outside of it too. You can't say SL has "just 3," and it isn't. Search for WWG1WGA and you get 10 more results.

Almost half of those 25 products on IMVU are also not related to Q Anon, they're just posters of someone with the same name and were added in 2011 judging by the reviews.

The ratio has quickly climbed to 13:16, not counting for things we literally can't search for in SL.

How much worse does it need to get before you're going to disavow Second Life? Where's your line?

My line is zero tolerance. But apparently that´s neither LL nor IMVU line, nor the line of al social media companies in general. I am not really fond of debating that in this thread nor here on this forum. I only can express my heartily disagreement with such wishiwashi policies. European legislators have already reacted by regulations (caused by such policies), and i do not doubt that the US will follow. And that won´t end in a triumph for liberty on the internet, overall.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

My line is zero tolerance. But apparently that´s neither LL nor IMVU line, nor the line of al social media companies in general. I am not really fond of debating that in this thread nor here on this forum. I only can express my heartily disagreement with such wishiwashi policies. European legislators have already reacted by regulations (caused by such policies), and i do not doubt that the US will follow. And that won´t end in a triumph for liberty on the internet, overall.

So these platforms are an option after all? 🤔

[Vivienne Schell]

Just now, Wulfie Reanimator said:

So these platforms are an option after all? 🤔

Is the earth flat? 😋

[Drayke Newall]

9 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Is there even a new folks island any more? Is it back? Yes, there were some things to buy long long ago but those disappeared for other inboarding measures. Can someone verify there are things to buy when new these days or even an newbie area experience?  That is not the  idea that I get from comments made by new folks.  

I have no idea, as I mentioned was a while ago since I was there though would be surprised if they have removed noob island. If they have then there is obviously a huge flaw in LL marketing as whilst noob island wasn't the greatest there was the ability to make it not only engaging however also make it a way to retain new users.

If noob island is still there and the token currency was removed then, well... no words.

Plenty of ideas in these forums telling LL how to do that but like usual they don't take any notice.

9 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

AND.  I am not sure that many people have actually read aniimats OP comment.   He never said anything about anyone here going over to IMVU. 

The POINT as "I" take it anyway is that LL has been loosing market share in that age group.  We know that new sign ups are way down and this could certainly be part of the problem.   

They have been loosing that market share for a while. I think the issue is that LL just don't know how to respond to marketing. The website design is terrible and layout from around 2010, they don't do very good adverts across a broad range of demographics and make terrible decisions that affect retention.

Whilst some say they don't want that demographic, the issue is that SL needs new people from those demographics as they are the ones that are going to keep the money coming in.

9 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

And yes, it  seems obvious (beyond my circle of creator friends) that most creator's are hurting. SL has more sales and sales venues than we have ever had before. Good if you are a shopper but it also gets folks into that "if it isn't on sale I won't buy it" frame of mind.  Honestly, I am trying HARD to spend the lindens I make and still that theme is beginning to percolate in my brain also.   That is not good for the long run -- for anyone. 

According to LL everything is fine and this shows the disconnect between LL and their world.

[Vivienne Schell]

6 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

According to LL everything is fine and this shows the disconnect between LL and their world.

Depends on what Linden Lab defines being "Linden Lab World". Our defiition of "world" does not matter at all and never really did, i think. OK, maybe "profits" isn´t foreign language to them. Tho, thinking of Sansar....

Hum, maybe the basic conception of Second Life is a little bit "out of this world"? I think we should not expect Linden Lab to be less "out of this world", in terms of philosophy.

😁

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

SL allows far more customization in how your avatar is set up than IMVU. So much so that any simple one size fits all wouldn't actually work for us.

I may be wrong but I don't think that is what @Arielle Popstar was talking about. Look at the UI of IMVU in that picture.

SL is so stuck in the past that we still have text based inventory where to find a hairstyle you have to go through and try every hairstyle in your inventory if you cant remember the name. You cant even change the icons of inventory items to something meaningful, its still a box icon. I have requested in the past the feature to be able to even just change the icon in the inventory and the response was a firm no.

Compare that to a system where the creator takes a picture of the hairstyle and when that gets uploaded to your inventory on purchase that image of the hairstyle shows in a tiled click and wear avatar outfit section under hairstyles category. Same with clothes, jewellery everything. All of it could be made in the viewer to show what you are adding on. No right click wear or add item. Just a picture of that item and you click it and it just adds it and the result is seen on the avatar preview section.

13 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Depends on what Linden Lab defines being "Linden Lab World". Our defiition of "world" does not matter at all and never really did, i think. OK, maybe "profits" isn´t foreign language to them. Tho, thinking of Sansar....

Your world, your imagination. That is their slogan. LL definition of their world is just that. It is their users that are their world.

To put it more simply, the disconnect I was talking about between LL and their users (there world) and what goes on in SL. They believe that everything is fine with the viewer, all their features, LSL etc when it is in fact not.

The sky isn't falling and all that but there certainly is this perception that LL knows what is best when evidence of the past says an entirely different story.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Drayke Newall
Edited to add a reply

[Vivienne Schell]

5 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

To put it more simply, the disconnect I was talking about between LL and their users (there world) and what goes on in SL. They believe that everything is fine with the viewer, all their features, LSL etc when it is in fact not.

That won´t change as long as Ebbe finds his chair in a Linden in-world meeting, i fear.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

9 hours ago, Cinos Field said:

No such thing as an unspoofable ID. *Especially* not with an open source client.

Not talking anything to do wiht the client side,  certain pieces of hardware can not be spoofed,  it's why certain people always get caught by certain 3 letter people,   you can spoof all you want, but that bread crumb, the little piece that's never thought about or realized, that's hard embedded in silicon and can never be wrote too,  that's where it lies.

[Drayke Newall]

1 minute ago, Vivienne Schell said:

That won´t change as long as Ebbe finds his chair in a Linden in-world meeting, i fear.

No I think it is more of it wont change as long as LL continue to listen to a select few people at those meetings. Also LL just need some visionaries in their staff, there may be some but I haven't seen any such people.

[Vivienne Schell]

1 minute ago, Drayke Newall said:

No I think it is more of it wont change as long as LL continue to listen to a select few people at those meetings. Also LL just need some visionaries in their staff, there may be some but I haven't seen any such people.

Phil Rosedale, a.k.a. Phil Linden. The "vision" left along with him.

[Drayke Newall]

11 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Phil Rosedale, a.k.a. Phil Linden. The "vision" left along with him.

Perhaps, though I have a feeling he would have held SL back the same way all the others have. The last visionary LL had was not liked at all by staff or the users.

SL needs new people that can inject new ideas into an old platform that the current staff just are not willing to do. LL staff are literally fearful of creating a new viewer as the last one wasn't liked (for good reason, it wasn't designed with friendliness in mind). Until they update the viewer and features to a modern user friendly standard they will continue to not be able to obtain the demographics needed to inject life and money into SL. (keep in mind i am not talking about kid demographics here I am talking about genX demographics and beyond)

They simply don't have the ability to market SL the way other companies like IMVU do due to this. For example, IMVU can market a quick video showing how easy it is to change hairstyles, clothes, jewellery etc. Click a pic and its on. SL it would be open inventory find your hairstyle in a text based 30,000+ list of items, right click, wear. Oops not the one I wanted rinse and repeat.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Vivienne Schell]

2 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Perhaps, though I have a feeling he would have held SL back the same way all the others have. The last visionary LL had was not liked at all by staff or the users.

SL needs new people that can inject new ideas into an old platform that the current staff just are not willing to do. LL staff are literally fearful of creating a new viewer as the last one wasn't liked (for good reason, it wasn't designed with friendliness in mind). Until they update the viewer and features to a modern user friendly standard they will continue to not be able to obtain the demographics needed to inject life and money into SL.

They simply don't have the ability to market SL the way other companies like IMVU do due to this. For example, IMVU can market a quick video showing how easy it is to change hairstyles, clothes, jewellery etc. Click a pic and its on. SL it would be open inventory find your hairstyle in a text based 30,000+ list of items, right click, wear. Oops not the one I wanted rinse and repeat.

What you refer to (the IMVU example) isn´t really "visionary", that´s a matter of "usability" for a specified task. Which is a matter of software design, more or less. The SL software always had the disadvantage to serve many different user interests somehow, while not serving one specific user interest in full scale. It could, theoretically, but then it might become even more bloated and a lot more buggy and resource hungry as it already is.

Second Life still is a universal sandbox model by nature (and design), and not something like IMVU, which is nothing but an advanced  IRC chat room including some fancy pixel dolls.

[ChinRey]

14 hours ago, Maryanne Solo said:

IMVU rocks whenever The Sims is rocking.
It's the same market isn't it?

Not really. IMVU is basically a good old fashioned chat room with some cool graphics added.

[LittleMe Jewell]

11 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Is there even a new folks island any more? Is it back? Yes, there were some things to buy long long ago but those disappeared for other inboarding measures. Can someone verify there are things to buy when new these days or even an newbie area experience?  That is not the  idea that I get from comments made by new folks.  

There is such a place.  When you log in a new account, you start at Learning Island -- where you learn the basic movement and camming controls. 

Then you go to Social Island.  There, if you explore the place, you can earn L$.  I **think** I did all the things -- L$50 each -- and ended up with L$250, which is only good on Social Island.   All items that can be bought are L$50 each, so unless you can earn more than I did, you have to decide what you want.  There are 4 hairs, 2 shape/skin/brow/eye packages, 2 outfits, one pair of shoes.  There are different choices for men & women, but the number and type of packages are the same (i.e. 4 hairs each gender to choose from, etc..)  The female hairs are all the same except in 4 different colors - men also have a single hair style in 4 colors (different style than the women though).  

Here is my initial purchase - Skin/shape, hair, outfit, shoes -- however the shape is too large for the top, as the body breaks through in a few areas not covered by the alpha:

 

The second outfit is a tank & skirt set - comes with 2 tanks, this camo one and a blue one that says Precious on it:

 

That was the extent of my L$250.  Even if I had not spent it all, it is simply a Tutorial L$ Balance and does not carry through when you exit Social Island.

 

There are definitely bugs in the process.  When I left Social Island, one of the HUDs detached, but the other 2 did not - although 'worn' does not show them.  Also, when I left Social Island -- and whenever I teleported anywhere - the hair appeared to have detached, even though 'worn' still showed it.  I don't have those issues with my regular avatar, so not sure it the detach problem is specific to these items.  A relog fixed both problems, the learning HUDs disappeared and the hair showed again -- and even stayed showing through multiple teleports (edited - the hair randomly showed and disappeared across teleports, though it always showed in inventory as attached).

 

ETA:  One other oddity.  I sort of remember waaaaaaaay back, that before I actually set a home location as a newbie, any attempt to log in to Home or even to "go to Home" would send me to an InfoHub.  Maybe I'm just remembering wrong.  Log in to Home did drop me in an InfoHub, but any attempt to actually teleport to Home would give me a message box saying that I did not have access to that location --- which I assume was either Learning Island or Social Island, both of which you are not allowed to go back to.

 

Edited January 29, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Vivienne Schell said:

What´s wrong with Anshe? Like her or not, the hundreds of sims she runs contribute a LOT to LL income, which is needed for maintaining our desire to play with our Barbies and whatsoever.

It would be easier to answer what isn't wrong with Anshe. She doesn't contribute to LL nearly as much as people want to believe. LL doesn't need Anshe. Never did. I never played Barbie. Never will.

I noticed you are evading my question.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Silent Mistwalker

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Vivienne Schell said:

What you refer to (the IMVU example) isn´t really "visionary", that´s a matter of "usability" for a specified task. Which is a matter of software design, more or less. The SL software always had the disadvantage to serve many different user interests somehow, while not serving one specific user interest in full scale. It could, theoretically, but then it might become even more bloated and a lot more buggy and resource hungry as it already is.

I wasn't specifically referring to the ui as being visionary, however it would depend on when they did it and what it included. For example, I would call Nirans Black Dragon Viewer more visionary than any of the viewers combined. It has features in it that should have been implemented into the default viewer years ago, such as the animation editor or even simple things like the ability to favourite friends to show up on the favourite menu for quick im and teleport function. Other viewers might also be visionary in their features.

LL default viewer could have been visionary if they had implemented such inventory features before other companies did. They had the opportunity to do as such as it was a requested feature many times over 10 years ago, but they never listened and so another company did the visionary thing and produced it before them. That has been the case for many aspects of SL. The best LL could come up with was a clunky avatar outfit save system that hardly anyone uses and costs money to actually use to its full extent.

As for the viewer becoming buggy or resource hungry, that is rubbish. If it is designed well it can achieve all they want and make it suitable for any user interest. For example, they could simply have 4 icons up the top of the viewer which change the viewer ui to meet the users needs at the time. Exploration, RP, Shopping/barbie editing, creation, etc. Many modern ui's accommodate such practices such as Affinity Photo etc.

As for visionary things, well I and others have mentioned many such things that LL could have and should have done to be ahead of the curve but they just don't so why bother repeating.

Quote

Second Life still is a universal sandbox model by nature (and design), and not something like IMVU, which is nothing but an advanced  IRC chat room including some fancy pixel dolls.

Yet some would also call SL a glorified chat and barbie dress up program. Depends on perspective. I fully agree that SL is more than IMVU and that isn't my argument. The problem comes in, per the OP, that IMVU is comparing itself with SL in marketing and clearly winning as SL is loosing on many aspects and ironically one of those is SL's marketing.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Chic Aeon]

3 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

There is such a place.  When you log in a new account, you start at Learning Island -- where you learn the basic movement and camming controls. 

Good to know thanks. That is much like it was long, long ago accept they DID give your 250 real linden dollars that you could use out in the world and the items to buy there were free -- but I think they disappeared when you left. It was more about practicing the buying thing (way before vendors were around). In the interim there have been different methods. For awhile they just dumped folks at different sims where you "might" run into someone to help. That was very bad.   

 

Just scrolled up to look to see if I was on the right thread. There is a nw one it seems about IMVU versus SL and had 78 posts when I saw it earlier. 

 

I have something I wanted to add  to this thread. Something I learned today. I spent the whole day (like six hours) on a blog post about making a completely free avatar. Now my original intention was to have the avatar free also as that used to be an option, but no longer.  So after figuring THAT out I changed the post somewhat and just made it on how to deck out your BOM avatar for free on the Marketplace -- the idea being EASY and not having to go around places and join groups and get stuff etc etc. 

 

What I discovered both on the Marketplace and inworld is a LOT of places that you to have free items have taken them down or made them pay group only.   Now I don't blame those creators, but I thought it was pretty interesting. It was MUCH harder to do this exercise than other times in the past. So that says something about how things are changing in retail. I did find a few new stellar things, but it was REALLY a lot of work.  

 

 

[holoscience]

I used IMVU for 2 years before coming to second life, and its more dollhouse than anything you click to position you can dance and chat but people are very clique focused. No one will talk to you unless you are a certain way at least it was like that for me. Compared to second life it is very limited, I have spent money in both and I do enjoy both but I would never go back as there is literally nothing to do but talk and no one will talk. Before both I used stardoll when i was young same premise in paperdoll format, but nothing compares to secondlife, there is no story no mission just a sandbox with millions of other people it feels like a real world.In other programs like stardoll and IMVU you feel directed to do things and very limited. but they are there own thing and are fun, they just wont make sl go bankrupt.

my old imvu character

[Arielle Popstar]

On 1/28/2021 at 4:37 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

SL allows far more customization in how your avatar is set up than IMVU. So much so that any simple one size fits all wouldn't actually work for us.

 

I can understand it would be more challenging but there are several features in IMVU which could be easily accomplished here that would help immensely. For starters the UNDO and REDO functions to step backwards and forwards for avatar dressup are great features that save piles of time and frustration. The ability to use a more graphical interface for inventory should also be doable even if it contains a drop down menu for selecting additional parts in a folder. 

Another feature of IMVU that would make shopping, demoing and ultimately buying new products much more efficient would be their "Shop Mode" where items in their marketplace have a TRY IT button that allows one to directly wear the item within the viewer without having the demo going to one's inventory first. Trying out and then buying a product there only requires 2 clicks rather than the 15 or so clicks needed to buy, unpack, try out, trash and ultimately purchase an item from the Marketplace here. The 15 or so clicks required here is such a pain that I won't bother trying out a product if the picture of it doesn't grab me right off whereas because it is so easy to try out products there, I will take a couple seconds to check something out even if the pic doesn't look so good. I would think @Chic Aeon and other creators would really benefit from the impulse buying such a setup allows for.

[Solar Legion]

Want a more graphical interface for your (existing) clothing inventory? There's a Wardrobe on the MP that does that. Use it.

IMVU can do the things it does inventory and clothing wise because it is a simpler set up than Second Life - all of the "avatars" there are prebuilt "models".

Is it theoretically possible to do? Sure. It'll require the Viewer do the render work for each preview and add more network traffic between the servers and end user to facilitate downloading of the object data that will be needed for such a system.

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I can understand it would be more challenging but there are several features in IMVU which could be easily accomplished here that would help immensely. For starters the UNDO and REDO functions to step backwards and forwards for avatar dressup are great features that save piles of time and frustration. The ability to use a more graphical interface for inventory should also be doable even if it contains a drop down menu for selecting additional parts in a folder. 

Agree.

Quote

Another feature of IMVU that would make shopping, demoing and ultimately buying new products much more efficient would be their "Shop Mode" where items in their marketplace have a TRY IT button that allows one to directly wear the item within the viewer without having the demo going to one's inventory first. Trying out and then buying a product there only requires 2 clicks rather than the 15 or so clicks needed to buy, unpack, try out, trash and ultimately purchase an item from the Marketplace here. The 15 or so clicks required here is such a pain that I won't bother trying out a product if the picture of it doesn't grab me right off whereas because it is so easy to try out products there, I will take a couple seconds to check something out even if the pic doesn't look so good.

This is already possible in Second Life with the use of experience tools (temporary attachments) which allows the creator to set up a demo that you can click and it auto attaches it to your body and then detaches when you leave or after a certain time or when you click another button, though only at their store. It is up to the creators and store owners to set it up though and most just don't either cause it is to much hassle or they don't know the feature exists.

The other issue with it is that it can be buggy and doesn't remember what you previously wore if I recall correctly to reattach the items after the demo and sometimes still requires you to detach what it is replacing to demo.

No idea how it would be possible to achieve on demos bought on MP though.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Mollymews]

On 1/29/2021 at 1:50 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

ETA:  One other oddity.  I sort of remember waaaaaaaay back, that before I actually set a home location as a newbie, any attempt to log in to Home or even to "go to Home" would send me to an InfoHub.  Maybe I'm just remembering wrong.  Log in to Home did drop me in an InfoHub, but any attempt to actually teleport to Home would give me a message box saying that I did not have access to that location --- which I assume was either Learning Island or Social Island, both of which you are not allowed to go back to.

a little bit on this

as I remember,  since the Social Islands came when new person goes to Social Island from the Learning Island the very first time, then the Social Island is automatically set as their Home. When they press Home button then go to the Social Island, until such time as they set themselves to a new Home

is a good thing for new people this, as when out exploring and they do get sent Home, is to a place they recognise

i haven't tried it but am pretty sure we can't set the Social Island as Home ourselves. Is a system thing only for new accounts

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I can understand it would be more challenging but there are several features in IMVU which could be easily accomplished ...............

You're missing a fundamental point about how all this works.

IMVU presents a simple organized system with rules for how avatars and clothing works, following these rules is mandatory.

SL has no rules at all, anyone can make up anything they like, make it work in anyway they like. None of this was planned. The entire fashion industry as it stands is based on the rampant misuse / abuse of features that were never intended to be used they way we're using them. Things are so bad that what we consider normal dress up is actually responsible horrendous platform crippling performance problems affecting avatars (and it's not because bad creators make bad stuff, if only it was that simple).